East Scotland Sea Eagles

Claire Smith holding white-tailed eaglet
The eaglets touched down at RAF Kinloss before being taken to the secret site

In August 2008, the second batch of Norwegian white-tailed (sea) eagles were released from a secret location in Fife, as part of a five year reintroduction project for the East Coast of Scotland. Fifteen birds were brought over to Scotland on 20 June, following the release of another 15 birds in 2007, the first year of the project.

East Scotland Sea Eagles, a partnership between RSPB Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and Forestry Commission Scotland, is the third phase of a successful reintroduction programme which began on the island of Rum in 1975. The return of sea eagles to Mull, Skye and other parts of western Scotland has been one of the outstanding conservation success stories of recent times.

The last native pair bred in Skye in 1916 and the species was then extinct in the British Isles. Persecution had driven the sea eagles (also known as white-tailed eagles) away from east Scotland much earlier, and by the mid 1800s, the birds were confined to wild and remote areas on Scotland's west coast.

'If left to their own devices, the west coast populations might take decades before they begin to re-occupy their former haunts in the east'

Although people have come to associate the birds with the isolated, mountainous west coast of Scotland, away from human habitation, in the majority of their world range the birds' natural habitat is coastal areas, lowland wetlands and estuarine and riparian areas with shallow, productive waters.

This kind of habitat is widely available on Scotland’s east coast, so the new birds should fare extremely well once they become established. In the past, lowland Scots would have been far more familiar with the sea eagle than our now iconic golden eagle.

If left to their own devices, the west coast populations might take decades before they begin to re-occupy their former haunts in the eastern lowlands. For this reason, the east coast project will continue over a further four years, with up to 20 chicks a year being brought from Norway and released, so that an east coast population will become established.

As with last year's birds, each chick has been fitted with radio tags so that they can be tracked for up to five years. This allowed us to follow the birds movements last year, with one particularly adventurous chick heading up the East coast to Stonehaven, then West to Mull via Speyside over the winter, before returning home to the Perth area, near its adopted 'birthplace', for this summer.

It's hoped that the success of this exciting project will make it far more likely that people might see these stunning birds in East and Central Scotland.