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 Mex
The chicks are collected from a large area stretching from Bergen to Alesund in central west Norway. The Norwegian Ornithological Society coordinate our collection and have to search around 200 territories each year to get our 15 chicks as we only collect from nests containing twins. There are approx 3500 prs of sea eagle in Norway, a third of the world population, so you are never far away from a sea eagle territory there! This population has recovered due to a lot of hard work by conservationists.
The final video release has unfortunately been set back to April/May due to the current financial situation. It will be published on www.greentv.com where you can currently see some other RSPB videos including an excellent film on hen harriers. There is a short video of one of last year's sea eagles on the Isle of May on YouTube, just search for sea eagle.
Thanks for your ongoing support, cheers, Claire.
Two questions, please: 1) are you allowed to give details of where on YouTube we find the video that you mentioned elsewhere? and 2) Where in Norway do the birds originate? Our daughter (English, but a student at a Scottish university) has been on exchange in Norway for some months and said she became almost blasé about seeing them in great numbers, while camping on Lofoten in November. Best wishes for 2009 to you, your project and these wonderful birds - and may all estate-owners learn respect for them!