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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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bird movements

Ring number 94 or ‘Ralf the regal eagle’, as he’s been nicknamed by the warden, has been on the Isle of May for a month. During his time on the island he was seen pouncing on a young herring gull (no mean feat for a small male eagle!), eating other gulls and fulmars (thankfully without getting oiled) and he also made his YouTube debut, standing on a rock before taking off! And finally on Sunday (21st September 2008) he was seen heading for Crail on the mainland.

Bird 80, our largest female, has been commuting daily between the Montrose basin and release site in Fife!  She has been seen eating common gulls in Montrose during the day and then returning to the release site to roost.  Joining her at Montrose, although not doing the commute, has been another female, number 93.

It still amazes me how this year’s birds are going to almost the same places as last year’s birds did. I had a call on Friday from Euan McIlwraith,  a reporter on BBC Radio Scotland’s Out of Doors programme, who had spotted a young sea eagle at RSPB Fowlsheugh (just south of  Stonehaven) whilst walking the north sea trail.  His call was nearly to the day that a bird reached this area last year.

Bird K, a female from last year, dropped into the Argaty red kite centre, near Stirling last week. The bird soared high above the hide and was mobbed by up to 20 red kites before moving on. Last year bird T spent a week roosting at the site.

Another of last year’s females ‘C’ reminded us of how far these birds can travel. After being radio-tracked and seen flying above Lochearnhead, she then flew over 40 miles along the river Earn back to Fife, where she was then seen flying with 1 of this year’s males.

Behaviour

We are still maintaining the food dump near the release site in Fife which is currently being used by 9 birds.  We leave food out for the youngsters, to help them out while they are learning how to find their own food. This mimicks the support that the adult sea eagles would give them in the wild.

In the last 2 weeks we have seen the eagles starting to play fight and attempt to lock talons, an important social interaction for year’s to come when they start breeding. The young birds are also getting more skilled at swiftly turning 90 degrees in mid-air to give any mobbing buzzards or crows the brush off.

Elaine (project assistant) and I recently spent a day at a small area of Scots pine woodland near Loch Tay, where based on radio-tracking and sightings, we suspected last year’s birds had been roosting. We found a lot of sea eagle feathers confirming that they use this site regularly and also a few pellets and food remains.  Sea eagles are extremely sociable birds forming roosts in a similar way to red kites. This could prove a useful site to monitor their diet.…talking of which, the pink footed geese are now starting to arrive, which the eagles took a great interest in last year, so I expect we’ll see some big movements over the next month or so.

There is a lot to catch up on since I last wrote and I know that everyone is keen to know how our new arrivals and last year’s birds are getting on.

Norway
 In early June I was lucky enough to get out to Norway, to help with chick collection and experienced just how hard won our birds are. We only collect from nests containing twins, leaving a chick behind. It is not always possible to see into nests from a distance to check if there are 1 or 2 chicks so we had some very long walks in and scrambles up the side of fjords only to return empty handed!

New arrivals
On 20th June we imported 13 birds to Edinburgh Airport, where  they were met by the media and Minister for the Environment, Michael Russell. A further 2 females arrived in July, bringing our total to 15 birds for 2008, 8 males and 7 females.

The birds were released on some rare dry days between the 10th and 18th August when all aged over 3 months old. Four of our birds were real media stars, being released live on national TV on the BBC Breakfast show. One narrowly missed my head before flying off beautifully for the camera. Not all releases go like this, other birds took an hour and a half to go, a couple tried to land on some very small branches and one female jumped onto the ground before taking off again!

The last to go were our group of 3 younger birds, 2 females and a male. One of the females has been quite a character, calling non-stop throughout the captive period at anything that flew past and getting in a frenzy over food, stamping on it all when we put it through the hatch! When it came to release, both of the larger females stood on the perch blocking the hatch while the smaller male bounced around behind them, quickly moving his head from side to side and trying to get out of the gap, he eventually managed to push passed and was the first to go. We use our radio-tracking equipment to check that all our birds have had a safe landing.

Bird movements

Every time I sit down to write this the birds are moving to new locations! For the first week or so there was a lot of rain and some strong winds recently which kept the birds near the release site and using the food dump.

However, 1 male ring number 94, released on the 13th August reached the Isle of May on Saturday  (23rd August), much to the delight of the passengers of the May princess and SNH reserve warden Tabitha.  I was able to confirm which bird it was by radio-tracking from the mainland. He was still there on Tuesday, being mobbed by gulls and having eaten his first fulmar chick. Most seabirds on the Isle of May have fledged, but there are large numbers of gulls and rabbits on the island and some late fledging fulmars so he won’t be short of food. We will just have to wait and see how long this bird stays.

Some people have asked me whether the sea eagle on the Isle of May, will have an impact on the seabirds, but it must be remembered that these species evolved together and the pressures currently being felt by seabirds are due to climate change affecting their food availability. Fulmars were not on the East coast of Scotland when sea eagles were last here, but are well adapted to protecting themselves by projecting oil at predators, which include large gulls.
 
Another 1 of our males has, (ring 89) has joined up with one of last year’s females, (wing tag 7) now aged 16 months, at Loch Leven. Bird 7 has been quite a wanderer, making it over to Mull and spending time at Loch Tay. This is the first record of the two groups of birds joining up and is great news as sea eagles are very sociable birds and the younger male will definitely learn where to find the best feeding and roosting spots from the older female. Another wanderer, bird F or Fifer as he is known (despite spending very little time in Fife!) returned to near Perth on the 11th July after spending the last few months on Mull.

I’ve also had a report of a bird seen eating a common gull near Montrose Basin, we’ll confirm which one of the birds this is in the next couple of days. Sea eagles have great eyesight and learn to hunt through a mixture of determination (they’ve got all day at this age!) and trial and error, and its great to hear reports of them finding their own food so soon after release.

Its been really interesting to see this year’s birds exhibiting the same behaviours as last year’s. From their floppy winged, laborious first flights they are now beginning  to soar and interact in small groups, using many of the same fields as last year’s birds to practice their flying and even perching in the same trees and on the same rocks!

Colour rings
Due to a temporary hiccup in the licensing process, we have not been permitted to fit wing tags to any birds this year. Instead, all this years’ sea eagles are fitted with a colour ring on the left leg.  The colour combination shows that the bird was born in 2008, A9 is for Scottish birds and the 2-digit number below (e.g. 96) identifies the bird. Don’t worry if you can’t read the ring number, or even see the colour ring, they can be tricky. Although, we’ve had some good reports from digital photos.

All sightings are still extremely valuable and can be followed up with radio-tracking to identify the individual. Please also remember to still look out for last year’s birds. Eleven of last year’s birds are still alive, a survival rate of 75% and we haven’t lost any birds since November. They have completed their first wing and body moult and are now moulting their tail feathers.

Thanks to everyone who has been reporting sightings. Please continue to do so at: eastscotlandseaeagles@rspb.org.uk

It has been a year since I started working on this project and time has flown by. Our next lot of chicks are just starting to hatch in Norway, but it’ll be a few weeks yet until we discover  how many nests containing twins we have in our collection areas. This time last year there was  bad weather in Norway which led some pairs to fail, so we have our fingers crossed! I’ll be joining members of the Norwegian Ornithological Society in early June to help with chick collection.

Here in Fife we are busy with preparations for the next batch. Licences have been secured and logistics are being arranged for their transport and arrival. Cages are still being cleaned and disinfected and perches are being replaced after damage suffered last year from pairs of 4kg eaglets jumping up and down on them!

Last year’s birds are still on the move exploring new areas; birds 5, T and K moved up to Loch Tay in the last month where they are frequently being spotted by people out fishing. They’ve had at least one scrap with some juvenile golden eagles in the area and bird K has lost a tail feather. Birds also ventured into Midlothian for the first time.

Our Loch of Kinnordy reserve near Kirreimuir has had a couple of visits recently and I’ll be heading up to Beauly soon to check out some recent sightings  that have been reported from there.  And finally we still have birds in Fife and the Perthshire glens, with one being spotted flying over Errol on the weekend, a great bird for the garden list!

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Bird F, our wandering bird, has continued to clock up his air miles arriving on Mull last week!

A large male with two white talons and the first collected for the project, he has always been a wanderer, reaching Stonehaven within 3 weeks of release. Then he popped into our Loch of Strathbeg reserve before settling in St Fergus in late September where he remained for 3.5 months feasting on rabbits and geese. He suddenly moved round to Findhorn bay in January and then down to Grantown in mid February.

Until I received an excited call from Dave Sexton on Mull saying he’d just spotted a sea eagle with an aerial on its back! Dave had been watching the famous Loch Frisa pair and saw 3 youngsters including a radio-tagged bird come into roost with them! Dave called the Irish sea eagle project first to check it wasn’t one of theirs and I then headed over a few days later armed with my tracking gear. I finally identified it as bird F on Saturday 1 March, still in the Loch Frisa area and on Sunday near some greylag geese.

Dave on Mull said: 'We’d like to extend a warm ‘Mull Eagle Watch’ welcome to bird F (or ‘Fife’ as he’s already known here). It’s great that he’s so fit and strong and surviving his first winter. I’d like to say that of course I think 'west is best' but then I am biased! Who can blame him for spending a few days on this beautiful island? It bodes really well for the whole project that the populations are starting to mix like this. Fife is quite a sea eagle pioneer isn’t he?

'The Mull public viewing pair (16 year old female Frisa and 14 year old male Skye) were watching him closely as he flew in to roost quite near their new nest. There was no aggression from them at all, in fact sea eagles are incredibly sociable. They will have been the first adults that Fife will have seen since he was a chick in his nest in Norway being fed by his own parents last spring. I wonder if there was just a flicker of a memory for him?'

If you want to come to Mull to see Frisa and Skye (and maybe Fife!) this year, please call 01688 302038 to book.

Some birds will always wander outside of the release area and a bird from a previous project did return to Norway so there is nothing to worry about in terms of the east coast’s suitability for sea eagles.

Being sociable birds, the large numbers of sea eagles on Mull will have attracted him to the area. It is also worth remembering that the long-term goal of the east coast release project is to strengthen the Scottish population as a whole and inject some new genes so bird F maybe contributing to this a little earlier than expected.

In years to come when there are more birds on the East coast, this may attract wintering west coast birds to stay over here so there will certainly be mixing of both populations.

Our sociable group of birds is beginning to split up again. After being on his own for four months bird T the male who was near Braco has finally been joined by bird 5 a female. The two have been inseparable for the last 3 weeks, flying together, showing talons and calling to each other so much so that it looked like love was in the air! However, it is worth remembering that they are only 10 months old and still learning their social skills. Young sea eagles will often behave like this with several different partners until they find the right bird for them and are not usually mature enough to breed until 4 or 5 years old.

In early February bird 5 also showed a lot of interest in a captive sea eagle being flown at a Safari park and spent a few days watching from the treetops. Without adults in the area, the young birds are extremely interested in any other large birds they encounter.

We have not yet had any reports of our birds fishing, but I was lucky enough to see 5 & T whilst they watched some fishermen on the river Earn (unaware they were being watched!) so it may not take long. As opportunist predators sea eagles have a very varied diet. In their current location, where they are surrounded by ducks, geese, swans, waders and rabbits they are finding easier things to eat.
Bird K has headed to Loch Tay and other birds are in the Loch of the Lowes area, where there is a fantastic group of lochs containing lots of food. Bird C has  wandered back to Fife, we still have a bird on the Isle of May and today I located bird 7 another of our females, soaring high on the thermals above Gartmorn Dam country park, near Alloa.

February was also a busy month for our field teachers visiting 12 primary schools near the release site to tell them about sea eagles.