October sees the start of 'talks season' as local groups start their winter programmes, so its a chance to get out and about and tell people about the project. I was also invited along to our local Tayside Wildlife explorer's group, some of the members were so good at radio-tracking that I am fearing for my job!
The next project talk is on the 17th November, Lockerbie town hall at 7:30pm with the Lockerbie Wildlife Trust.
Turquoise Z and turquoiseX have been putting in regular appearances at Vane farm with good views from the cafe and turquoiseZ has also been popping into the release wood to see some of this year's birds who are still roosting nearby. They are taking very little food from the food dump now which we are only stocking once a week and have moved onto wildfowl and rabbits, this is good news as it means our rehabiltated bird yellow3 is also catching her own food again and fending fro herself and has been spotted hunting 3km away. TurquoiseK has moved north up into Deeside near Loch Muich. Although the winter weather can make fieldwork a bit more difficult for myself and volunteers there are currently plenty of grallochs around for the eagles to scavenge and winter sees an increase in the amount of carrion about.
Dave Taylor, field teacher at Vane Farm and spotted yellowC one of our females in Glen Devon on Halloween and manged to get some great photos and yellowE has been back at Meikle Loch, and is looking quite settled in the North East where a five year old west coast bird has also recently been spotted. Of our 14 surviving 2010 birds 4 are still in Fife and yellowZ has been on the southside of the Forth.
Two of our 2009 birds are currently on Mull, turquoiseO (male) being spotted near Garmony by visitors John & Liz Barker as tehy caught the ferry and turquoise1 (female) has been spotted with a couple of west coast birds including a 2008 fledging from Argyll. Many thanks to Irene Boston for the photo and sighting and turquoise1 also made an appearance on Autumnwatch with Dave Sexton on Mull which can still be watched on the iplayer.