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.
Hi Tim
All of the released birds are fitted with radio backpacks which is how we follow their movements and where all the information on their locations comes from (please see previous blog posts for info) Radio backpacks are not the same as satellite transmitters on the Mull eagles and ospreys, where locations are downloaded remotely via satellite to the web. For radio-tracking you need line of sight of the bird, but can pick them up to 45km away. We follow the birds by tracking from high points and triangulating their positions and also by doing radio-tracking flights. Whether following birds by satellite or radio, you are only really getting a snapshot of the birds' movements, e.g. where they were at 1 time each day rather than how they moved around all day. This is why sightings are also important as they fill in the gaps in our knowledge and compliment the radio-tracking data. I am heading up to St Fergus to confirm which bird is there this morning, each radio transmits on a unique frequency. The bird is in exactly the same spot as bird 'F' was in 2007 and 'Ralf' in October 2008 so its interesting to see the birds making the same choices about where the good spots are. Cheers, Claire.
Hi Mex
The Sea Eagle Project Newsletter should be out later this month. It does take awhile to get all the info together.
Cheers, Claire.
Many thanks - I found the YouTube video of you and the birds being re-introduced to eastern Scotland, too. I wonder if you could also tell me if the RSPB Scotland's Sea Eagle Project Newsletter 2008 has appeared yet? I keep wondering if there has been news of the bird/s we saw sitting preening on the same field wall at Aultbea by Loch Ewe in August 1999 and 2000? We reported it to a Colin at Inverness, and then Dave Butterfield went out and saw it (I don't know if they are still with the RSPB). They thought the bird was from Site 22. None of the family will ever forget the experience. Am in no way an animal rights activist, but learning about their re-introduction made me aware that we in the UK have a moral duty to do what little we can to prevent their persecution. Glad that Norway has given them such good protection ever since the 1960s. Every good wish to you and your birds.