East Scotland Sea Eagles

February movements

2010-03-04T08:35:00Z

In the past month, the young sea eagles seem to have finally read the project proposal documents and gravitated towards the coastal areas, estauries and lochs that we believed they would seek out.

Birds X & H continue to be seen daily at Loch Leven, roosting on the islands, where they keep themselves a safe distance from people. We have been recording their diet through observations and collecting regurgitated pellets and the birds are living up to their roles as generalist predators feeding on geese, rabbits, cormorants, ducks and a dead swan. Their laziness continues to amaze people and we watched them go into roost at 3pm one day!

A group of 2008 and 2009 birds have been roosting in Tenstmuir forest since mid February and are being seen regularly over Tentsmuir forest, on the beach, the Eden estuary and over St Andrews. On the beach they have been feeding on dead seals and attempting to catch gulls. Its well worth looking skyward if talking a walk along the beach this weekend and thanks to everyone who has emailed in sightings so far. On Monday morning, I watched a 10 month old male (tag V) get a real shock as he drifted into peregrine territory, the latter made a huge commotion and repeatedly mobbed and attempted to pull feathers from the young sea eagle's wing before he drifted back towards the coast!

Tag '0', a 2009 female who has been moving between Forfar and Coupar Angus, visitied the Montrose basin two weeks ago to the delight of many visitors. In 2008 and 2009 we have seen the young eagles shift south-west into Central Scotland in February, this hasn't happened this year and we are really starting to see the majority of birds tied to the Tay estuary and surrounding area. One of the exceptions to this is of course Ralf, who first appeared at Loch of Strathbeg a year ago. He was seen with an unmarked juvenile last week, perhaps a wandering eagle from the continent who have appeared in north-east Scotland fairly regularly in the last few years. Spring often brings some interesting movements as the types of food available change, (with migratory geese leaving and less carrion around) the problem with a re-introduction is that we release small numbers of birds each year into an area with a lot of great sites for them and they just can't be everywhere at once! But we do hope some of the birds will stay at sites where people can see them easily and enjoy the return of this fantastic bird.

I met with staff from Natural England and RSPB working on the proposed project in Suffolk last week, the habitats and wealth of food look fantastic in the proposed release areas, feelings are running high with many people concerned about the re-introduction of this large predator and we certainly had our share of opposition and wariness in Fife before the project began, but we are really pleased with how things are progressing and many of those with concerns have been pleasantly surprised at how the birds have fitted into the area and found plenty of natural food.

Although the weather has been ideal for tracking, this is also the time of year that I have to spend some time in the office applying for our annual licences to collect birds from Norway and import them and plan the logistics for the arrival of the 2010 chicks. Sea eagles in Norway continue to build up their nests, often in the snow preparing for egg laying in April.

A busy weekend for sea eagles at Vane Farm

2010-02-04T15:05:00Z

Much has been said in the press and online about the poisoned sea eagle in Angus, our birds are all radio-tracked and carefully monitored which allows us to find dead birds and determine causes of death. Carbofuran is an extremely persistent poison (one of the reasons it is banned) and so animals killed by it will test positive regardless of how long they have been lying out. I don't know why Tayside Police chose January to release a press statement on this case, but we obviously welcome any progress.

Our Bird of Prey campaign, signed by more than 200,000 people demanding an end to the killing of birds of prey, were handed to Wildlife minister Huw Iranaca Davies today and in Scotland we are handing in our petition to Parliament on the 2nd March, we hope that with the support of so many people we can continue to work with other organisations and landowners to reduce perseucton of birds of prey.

Onto more positive things.....

Its great having sea eagles on our nature reserves as not only does it mean that many more people are able to enjoy these birds but also means they are watched throughout the day providing us with many interesting observations including feeding on a fox last week and their many unsuccessful hunts, at only 10 months old they still have a lot of learning to do and many people are surprised by how lazy they are, often hanging out like bored teenagers on the ice or shore!

In the past week it has more often just been the two eagles at Vane Farm, bird Z has moved over to join other 2008 and 2009 birds on the North of the Tay estuary, only now popping into visit X and H every few days, infact on Monday bird also X flew north to join him to roost for the night, returning to Vane Farm on Tuesday morning. We went to look for pellets and signs of roosting on one area of the reserve on Tuesday and found the fresh remains of a pink-footed goose up a tree!

The eagles seem to be roosting in three places around the Loch. Wildfowlers have been concerned that the presence of the eagles will move and break-up flocks. However, SNH Site Manager Jeremy Squire observed pink-feet settling back on a roost 22 seconds after being flushed! This ties in well with what is being observed at Loch of Strathbeg where Ralf has not casued flocks to roost in different places. However, one of the Loch Leven 3 has reportedly as attempted to catch a wildfowler's decoy!

On the weekend two of the eagles were seen flying above Vane Hill with another successfully re-introduced species the red kite, not often seen at Vane Farm, but with an increasing population in Central Scotland. The fantastic photos below were taken by Graham.

Also on Saturday, 1 of the birds took an interest in model aeroplanes being flown over East Lomond Hill! You can watch the video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHHQLeq48QU

http://picasaweb.google.com/campsieflyer/ELCraigmead30thJAN2010#

Other 2009 birds are still around the Howe of Fife, with one spotted near Bridge of Orchy, probably heading West to investigate its cousins as our young birds normally discover the West coast population by February. One of our 2007 females, bird 5 is still being seen regularly at Loch Cuin on Mull and a 2007 male was around Roslyn Glen in Midlothian on the weekend.

We are starting an exciting new sea eagle education project in Perth and Kinross this year, more information will be added about this soon or do get intouch with the project at eastscotlandseaeagles@rspb.org.uk if you would like further information.

Sea eagle found poisoned by banned pesticide on estate

2010-01-21T09:52:00Z

An article about one of our 2008 males who we found poisoned in Angus in August:

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Sea-eagle-found-poisoned-.5995940.jp

Having been involved in the search I have gone through a whole host of emotions in the last few months, the fact that three white-tailed eagles (1.5% of the Scottish population) have allegedly been persecuted in one small area is sad, disappointing and ultimately criminal as well as hugely frustrating for all those working so hard to restore this native species. I just hope that an investigation brings us a step closer to reducing wildlife crime. I don't think there is much else to say.

Belated Happy New Year!

2010-01-12T07:33:00Z

A belated Happy New Year to all blog readers.

The blog has not been updated for awhile as I was off on leave during the project's 'quieter' period and returned to find the RSPB office shut due to the weather. The eagles have been busy whilst I've been away as have project volunteers Dan and Gayle Spinks, Linsey McLean and Neil Blair and RSPB staff who have been tracking the birds in some tough weather conditions.

Ralf continues to be a regular visitor to Loch of Strathbeg catching widgeon, injured geese and a whooper swan and he has now been on the reserve for over 10 months, he also recently featured on BBC's out of doors programme, which you can listen to here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pr4gf/Out_of_Doors_09_01_2010/

On the 28th December three of our 2009 birds, tags X, H and Z finally left the immediate release area and have made themselves at home on Loch Leven, regularly being seen on St Serf's island and on the frozen loch. During cold weather the sea eagles tend to do quite well, being larger birds that can travel easily to find food and benefitting from the stress that other species are under and increased die off of wildfowl and rabbits. A few days ago, one of the birds killed a buzzard, which had been standing out on the ice for over an hour, so was probably not in the best condition. The young eagles have also been involved in a fight with a fox, repeatedly swooping at it whilst it umped up from the ice at them The eagles can be seen daily from the hides and visitor centre at Vane Farm. Bird H is a particularly large female, probably weighing close to 7kg now and Z is a very small male with X being a more averaged sized male. Bird X was named Hamish by Leuchars primary school and bird Z named Norbett by Donibristle school. All three birds are now nearly 9 months old.

The winners of the Duncan of Jordanstone student exhibition were also announced, with the exhibition running through to the 16th December. Ellen Brown from Kirkcaldy won first prize her design for large copper feathers engraved with the Norwegian for sea eagle. Runner-up Maddy Norval designed a computer game featuring a sea egle navigating its environment, having to eat and avoid being killed and loose points for eating lambs! Third prize was a sculpture based on maps and the eagles' journey from Norway to Scotland by Jerry Cook. The project partners are hoping to secure funding to develop some of these designs.

As the thaw continues there will be more updates on the birds movements once project volunteers and staff are able to get out radio-tracking again.

This week I saw my first sea eagle....

2009-11-16T17:33:00Z

....from the Irish release! Following up on some sightings over the last couple of months I radio-tracked over the 'Lecht' in the Grampians on Sunday morning and as well as searching for my Scottish birds also checked for some of Allan's missing Irish birds and was really excited to pick up the beep of a 2008 male, tag 'H' it took me another 10 minutes before I spotted him soaring high above the ski centre. This bird was last identified near Braco in the summer but there had been sightings of a bird with Irish wing tags (white on the right wing and the year colour - red for 2008 - on the left) near the Lecht recently. The eagle is likely to be roosting in the lower-altitude wooded valleys, but was enjoying the thermals when I found it. Another 2008, Irish bird (tag L) is currently on Islay after spening much of the summer near Durness. You can follow the satellite-tagged Irish birds at: www.goldeneagle.ie/

Ralf is still showing well at RSPB Loch of Strathbeg and it is hard to find a birdwatcher in the Aberdeen area who hasn't been to see him now! He seems to be attempting to catch geese most days but often settles for a duck or some carrion instead. You can follow the link below to a fantastic clip of him on YouTube. Despite all of his hunting efforts he doesn't appear to have moved the locations of the goose roosts, often appearing after the geese have left their roost site for the day.

http://www.youtube.com/user/kijip#p/a/0/sS_NpmIjJUA

Of our 2009 birds, most are still mixing with 2008 birds around the Tay estuary, with one male near Killiecrankie.

I've been lucky to be involved in a couple of different events in the last couple of weeks. Firstly ,a re-introduction conference for 14-18 year olds run by Edinburgh Zoo which was well attended by schools in the area. Secondly third year illustration students from the Duncan of Jordanstone Art School in Dundee are working on interpretative designs for the project and you can see their finished works in the exhibition below:

The Perth museum 'Return of the Natives' exhibition featuring sea eagles and our project DVD finishes on the 15th December.

Ups and downs as wandering begins

2009-10-16T10:37:00Z

As the days start to get shorter its time for our released birds to start dispersing and older birds to be on the move again, taking an interesting in the building geese flocks. Well...this is the theory, 6 of our 2009 birds (3 males and 3 females) have got other ideas, still roosting and feeding in the release wood and spending lazy days flying together and showing talons, looking amused at angry kestrels buzzing them as they perch in the trees and occasionally turning round to snap at a buzzard chasing them in flight. It is a privilege to hear them calling at each other before roosting at night when putting deer on the food dump andon Tuesday I watched as a large female ‘H’ knocked a smaller male ‘Z’ off its perch on a small Scots pine branch! One of our local group's favorite spots is a large rabbit warren and I was amazed to see a fox appear from its nearby den completely unawares of the four large eagles who were very interested in its progress, once it realised it was being watched it was well out in the open and had no choice but to keep going but soon started trotting off after tag V (a male) took a couple of low swoops at it!.

Some eagles have taken an interest in the geese, tag 0 (female) has been at the Eden estuary this week and two eagles were spotted of the Isle of May at the end of September in hot pursuit of some pink-footed geese.

Our 2008 male, ‘Ralf’ has just celebrated a year in the north east of Scotland and can still be seen regularly at Loch of Strathbeg.

There are a lot of differences between individual eagles and their behavior each year and sadly this year has seen a higher number of casualties with a further 2 eagles lost, a male was the victim of a train collision near Lunan bay and a female collided with some overhead wires in Fife. Our survival rates are still in line with those of the west coast releases, but sadly this doesn’t make picking up dead birds any easier.

Another male, ‘P’ has made it up to near Killiecrankie in Perthshire whilst the remaining 2009 birds are still mixing with our 2008 birds on the north of the Tay and we received reports of a 2008 Irish released bird in Aberdeenshire in the last month. Whilst two of our 2007 males are currently in Mid-lothian.

September Update

2009-09-16T10:38:00Z

We headed over to Mull at the end of last month to check on a couple of our 2007 females that have been there, bird 5 is still on the NW of the island and bird 7 has returned from Shetland where she was seen regularly in April and May. At the time of our visit, she was coincidentally near the Craignure golf course nest, enountering this year's chicks 'Pitch' & 'Putt'.

Our 2009 birds have not wandered too far yet, we think that the heavy rain may have kept them close to the release site (this time in prevous years we had birds on the Isle of May and at Montorse basin). However, a couple have wandered north of the Tay estuary and are mixing with some of our 2008 birds. Three of our 2007 birds are currently in Mid-Lothian with a male from 2008. One male (tag 5) has ventured down to the Eden Estuary meaning that we have to keep RAF Leuchars regularly updated on his movements. We have also spent the last couple of weeks cleaning out the cages (no small task!) ready to be jetwashed for the new birds next year.

Sadly we have had 2 casualties in the last couple of weeks, a train collision and an electrocution, it is always sad to lose birds, especially as all of our 2008 birds made it to 1 year old before we had any casualties, but unfortunately it is all part and parcel of a re-introduction that we will lose some birds along the way and have to release a large number for it to be successful. Most of the 2009 birds are still using the food dump which we are stocking with deer 3 times a week and its is common to see 10 eagles still roosting in the release wood. We have really seen their flight imrpove in the last month and they are all able to soar high and flick of crows and buzzards with ease in flight. As our young birds beguin to disperse they are a more regular sight near Perth, but staff at Vane Farm are eaglerly awaiting their first visitor this year. Ralf has returned to Loch of Strathbeg recently after spending time off the reserve.

The hard slog pays off

2009-08-13T12:49:00Z

Six and a half weeks and 650kg of food later it was finally time to release the first batch of this year's sea eagles this week. As always, the stunning release photos don't tell the whole story, 7 of our birds flew strong and high, but one bird took 20 minutes to take off whilst another crash landed and ended up hanging upside down from a gorse bush, that the young eagle found to be surprisingly bendy! Project assistant Elaine Fraser and I lowered it carefully to the ground at which point it ran off too quickly for me to catch it through the bracken! Luckily it stopped before stumbly across the media photographers and took off again later that afternoon! All birds had found safe roosting spots by Wednesday evening.

The 2 biggest females (sisters collected from a nest containing triplets) weighing 6.1kg were found to be roosting together on Tuesday. As well as all the UK media attention we were joined by a Norwegian film crew this year and by Tore who came to see how the chicks (wing tags 5 & 1) that he collected near Bergen were faring and to see the landscape that they would make their home.

Prior to release 3 of the 2008 birds have flown over the release site and I hope that they will meet up with this year's birds over the coming weeks.

In the last 2 weeks we have also had a visit from a 2008 male irish bird, wing tag H who has been seen near Comrie and another 3 year old west coast bird has been in the Glen Turret area.

People living nearby the release site have been out eagle spotting the last 2 evening and are pleased to see the third batch of east scotland sea eagles take to the skies. All the birds are fitted with turqouise wing tags with white letters/numbers this year and any sightings are gratefully received at: eastscotlandseaeagles@rspb.org.uk

New arrivals

2009-07-02T14:42:00Z

The 15 new birds have been in captivity for nearly a week now, they weighed between 3 and 4.8kg on arrival and have settled down to eating fish (escapees from fish farms!) venison and will try some rabbit over the weekend. Only the 3 youngest birds (aged 6 weeks) are having their food chopped up whilst the others readily using their feet to hold onto prey and pull bits off with their beaks. The birds are all feeling the heat with the older ones standing out on the perches holding their wings out like cormorants to cool down! We are soaking all their food in plenty of water to ensure they keep hydrated and mimicking the adult's saliva when they feed chicks in the nest.

The chicks' arrival was a more low key affair this year, but they were still welcomed by Environment Minister Roseanna Cunningham at Edinburgh airport who has been extremely supportive of the project.

Collection in Norway took place over a week, two of our birds came from the Bergen area and the rest from near Alesund, it is always interesting to see the range of areas that the birds are nesting in, from dramtic crag sites on the side of fjords to more familiar landscapes in pine trees surrounded by grazing land, bogs and farmland buildings.

Collection has begun

2009-06-19T06:19:00Z

The freezer is stocked, the cages are cleaned and nests built, the CCTV is on and flight booked to bring the birds in next Friday. There has been just enough time for me to pop up to the communal roost near Perth this morning and check on the male (62) and female (93) still using the area, before I leave for Norway tomorrow to help with chick collection.

Alv Ottar Folkestad and volunteers from the Norwegian Ornithological Society have been hard at work over the last week, checking which nests have twins and are accessible to collect from. The first birds were collected on Monday and as of Friday morning we have 6 in total, 2 from the Bergen area which is having a lot better breeding season than last year and 4 from the Alesund area.

All the chicks are 5 weeks old and eating aggressively! At least 3 of the birds are female (based on the size of their tarsus, talons and bill depth) and I’m informed that 1 of the males is very grumpy and aggressive!

Project volunteers Neil, Gayle and Dan will be out radio-tracking whilst I’m away and project assistant Elaine will be trying to pin down a 2008 male (ring number 61) who has been a regular visitor to Edinburgh zoo over the past few months!

A male (tag L) from the 2008 Irish release spent a few days on Orkney this month and project manager Allan Mee will be heading out to Trondheim to collect birds for his project this weekend and we wish him luck with his collection.

Speaking to Allan last week we both agreed that although now in our third year this part of the project doesn't get any less nerve-wracking or exciting!

Ups and downs

2009-05-12T18:41:00Z

Sadly, we confirmed our first casualty of the 2008 released birds in April, a train driver called the office on the 16th April to report a dead sea eagle on the tracks near Greenloaning. The bird’s radio-transmitter had been damaged by the collision so it took a little while to find her; unfortunately, it was ring number 80, our largest female, weighing 6kg. Sea eagles are sometimes casualties of train collisions in Germany and Norway and this is also a cause of death for carrion eating red kites in Scotland. She was in great physical condition and only 2 days before had been flying over Tentsmuir over 45 miles away. The positive to take from this is that she had made it to a year old and was able to survive and forage in the environment.

On a more positive note, Scottish Power recently completed erection of six alternative perches to try to reduce the risk of electrocution around the release site. The birds are particularly vulnerable in the first few weeks when they are floppy, laborious fliers, looking for big obvious things to land on, and we lost two birds to electrocution in 2007, hopefully this work will prevent this happening near the release site.

We have had two sightings of three-year-old west coast birds on the east recently. The first was spotted and photographed at Loch Leven by Colin Fraser on the 21st April. Three weeks later a three year old male, tag ‘O’ who was fledged by Frisa and Skye on Mull in 2006 (and last spotted on Skye last Spring) was spotted at Loch Davan, near Dinnet. This is not far from where our 2008 female ‘Ardmore’ has been. We do not know if this is the same bird as at Loch Leven as it was not possible to read the tags on the first bird. Sea eagles are extremely sociable and we hope that these are the first signs of west coast birds wandering east.

Female 5 from the 2007 release is still on Mull and has been seen hanging out with a male, ‘E’ fledged from Mull in 2007. Meanwhile bird 7 shot up to North Ronaldsay and then onto Fair Isle before heading to mainland Shetland. I’m told she took less than 40 minutes to do each leg, beating the previous wandering sea eagle to make the crossings by 5 minutes! She had been on Mull since December, but had popped into the communal roost near Perth on the 29th March before heading north.

Closer to home, a male (87) and female (93) have both flown over the release site in the last couple of weeks and with other birds are still using the communal roost near Perth.

Preparations for the next batch of chicks are ongoing, we got our large kennels sent over to Norway today and I picked up our first lot of fish for the freezer, some fish farm escapee Pollack and some netted pike, the latter was a particular favourite of the birds last year!

If you haven’t already done so, please take a moment to sign the petition to stop poisoning Ireland’s eagles at:

www.goldeneagle.ie

More information on the Irish sea eagle re-introduction and the problems they are facing with persecution through poisoned meat baits can be found here.

March update

2009-04-09T16:09:00Z

At the end of March, I spent a few days on Skye helping Anna Crawford and Robin Reid who monitor the breeding sea eagles there, to locate birds that are incubating. It was good to see breeding adult birds and see what we have to look forward to in a few years time. The wild-bred adults were just as curious and tolerant of people as our youngsters with an adult circling low overhead as I watched its partner incubating and another male with pink tags (born in 2003) flying low over the village of Dunvegan. We also identified the wandering East coaster as a female, ring number 96 and tracked her flying over Loch Harport as she head to a communal roost on the 25th. She was the first bird collected in Norway in 2008 and of the other two chicks, she shared an aviary with in Fife, the male has stayed close to the Tay and the other female last located on the Solway.

Bird 7 has popped back from Mull to visit the 2007 birds at the communal roost and ‘Ardmore’ a 2008 female, named by Ardmore Highland Malt who kindly support the project has been true to her name and has been seen and radio-tracked not far from the distillery in Kennthmont, Abderdeenshire!

With the geese moving on, March has seen some of the eagles spending more time back in Fife, with ring 88 (Alan) and ring 80 travelling north-east back from Auchterader, but another two birds continuing to spend time near Carsebreck. Bird 61, a male has been seen over Edinburgh. Ralf continues to spend time on and off at Loch of Strathbeg and can be seen showing off his colour ring and juvenile plumage in this photo by Duncan Goulder, Assistant warden.

Perth museum has recently opened an exhibition on ‘return of the native’ that includes a section and exhibits on the East Scotland Sea Eagle project.

February update

2009-03-10T16:59:00Z

People often ask whether the 2007 and 2008 birds behave the same or differently and looking over our distribution database and reading the March 2008 blogs shows that, so far, yes they do!

Following the initial dispersal in the autumn, February and March seems to be a time for eagles to move south and west and for the first communal roosts away from the release site to break up (last year at Strathbraan and this year in the Carse of Gowrie.)

Four birds have now moved south-west towards Stirling, frequenting, Carsebreck, Strathearn, Argaty red kite centre allowing Lynn Bowser to take this fantastic photo. and Blair Drummond safari park.

Female 92 just kept on going, reaching the Solway and popping into England for a few hours on the 11th February causing a bit of a media stir. Since then, she has been in the Kirkcudbright area. Only two weeks before she had been roosting near Perth and this is a reminder of how vagrant young sea eagles can be. A bird from Lapland stayed in Hampshire for four months last winter.

In February 2007 female 5 and male T spent some time on the river Earn near Auchterader, this year male 88 (Alan) and female 80 are spending time in exactly the same place and you can view some great footage of them putting up a flock of pink-footed geese at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Inf0LV86gME

After spending some time down at Fettercairn, ‘Ralf’ finally made it onto RSPB Loch of Strathbeg reserve on the 6th March, much to the delight of staff and visitors. He has been moving back and forth, attempting to hunt wigeon on the reserve and finding some carrion to eat near St Fergus.

Buzzards have been suffering during the cold snap, but the sea eagles have found it to their advantage with two birds working together to repeatedly dive bomb ducks in an unfrozen corner of the loch at Blair Drummond Safari park in February.

Three birds remain at the communal roost with others in Fife, a bird is in Midlothian and we had our first west coast sighting of one of the birds released in 2008 on Skye.

Near and far

2009-02-04T14:55:00Z

The upside of the bad weather is that it gives me a chance to catch up on some data entry and update my blog.

The majority of the 2008 released birds are still roosting north of the Tay estuary and moving back and forth into Fife. Their main diet still seems to be rabbit, which they are often seen catching and which we find in pellets at their roost site.

Two birds have broken away and moved south-west, a male, ring number 88 was spotted at Carsebreck, near Blackford on the weekend, this bird has been quite sedentary, one of the last to stop roosting near the release site, so its great to see him beginning to explore. This area supports large numbers or wintering wildfowl and was visited by birds last year. A female, ring number 92, has moved further south, roosting at Flanders Moss and becoming the third East Scotland sea eagle to visit the Argaty red kite centre over the last 18 months.

Bird ‘5’ is being seen regularly on Mull at Loch Scridan and Calgary bay on the west coast of the island where bird ‘C’ another of our females has been spotted recently. Now in her second year plumage you can see her lighter feathers starting to come through, compared to the darker plumage of the younger birds.

In the last blog I mentioned that a bird had been spotted up at St Fergus just south of our Loch of Strathbeg reserve, on a wet and windy Monday I headed out with some RSPB residential volunteers and tracked the bird down sheltering from the weather in a thin strip of plantation woodland. It turned out to be ‘Ralf’ who had last been in the area in October before moving back down to Fettercairn. He has been showing well again at the cemetery, much to the annoyance of RSPB staff who would love to add sea eagle to the 2009 reserve bird list!

Our field teachers are preparing to go into some more local schools over the next two months to tell them about sea eagles. Meanwhile, in Norway, the adult birds are starting to nest build so just like Dave Sexton on Mull, Alv Ottar who coordinates our chick collection is keeping a close eye on them to see where they choose to nest and where our next lot of chicks will come from.

December movements

2009-01-07T15:33:00Z

It has been interesting to observe the dispersal of the second batch of sea eagle chicks, now aged 7-8 months. Five birds have set up a communal roost in the Carse of Gowrie, whilst another four birds continue to roost close to the release site and move throughout Fife. This is a stark contrast to last year’s birds at this time, who had all moved out of Fife, with the majority of birds in a communal roost in Strathbraan. Although birds spent sometime in the Carse, north of the Tay estuary last year, the second batch of birds have lingered here much longer. We carry out extensive screening of health and pollutants when the birds enter Scotland and it will be interesting to see how different factors affect birds survival and health as they grow and disperse or whether this is just down to differences between individuals.

The communal roost near Loch Tay appears to have broken up. Some of last year’s females have been covering a lot of ground, birds 5 and 7 were on Mull on the 17th December but bird 7 was then tracked and seen by two project volunteers near Murthly on the River Tay on the 20th December, covering over 100 miles in 3 days! Here she encountered a 2008 male (ring number 89), who has also been in the area and near Loch of the Lowes since early December.

We had our first confirmed sighting of one of last year’s birds sea fishing just north of Arbroath and have also received more sightings of sea eagles interacting with red kites around the west end of Glen almond in Perthshire.

As well as starting to apply for this year's licences and plan logistics, I am also looking forward to the release of a 20 minute film on the East Scotland project which is due out in February and continuing education and outreach in the local area with our field teachers at our Vane Farm reserve.

Many thanks to everyone who has reported sightings over the Christmas period and best wishes for the New Year.