Given the hoo-ha whipped up about the possibility of reintroducing white-tailed eagles back to East Anglia I was interested in seeing the lengths to which Americans go to celebrate their national bird - the bald eagle (a close relative of the white-tailed eagle).
Around this time of year there are eagle days in Iowa, Idaho, Oklahoma and Illinois. In Utah , Connecticut and Wisconsin you have to wait until February, South Dakota goes for March, Alaska opts for November and that's where I stopped looking. But the tone of all these events is highly celebratory. These local communities are chuffed to bits that they have eagles that have made such a good population recovery and you get the impression that the more bald eagles there are, the happier people are.
And these are people who are living with eagles - they might be expected to know a thing or two about them!
I've just posted some pics of these magnificent birds that I had the privilege to watch on a holiday in Canada. It certainly was a highlight of the trip. They are also well cared for and protected because of thier great value to tourism among other reasons.
Of course the British are different the Americans I would think have always had a certain number of Eagles around so used to them.Would not think many people in East Anglia have seen Sea Eagles above them.
Guess the party really begins for landowners on Mull the day the compensation cheques are taken round to them.
One question I have never solved is that it is said they have done so well and yet official figures seem to say approximately 200 Sea Eagles in Scotland which considering the numbers brought in and 25 years of breeding seems to me a very small number,perhaps someone has a answer or views on this,after all Mark in his blog says what a good recovery the Bald Eagle has made and Sea Eagles are so closely related would have expected similar results.Think the partners need to work hard with meetings for landowners in the next year and get them onside as it is essential to persuade them rather than try and beat them with big stick.
What a great idea! This year we shall certainly be celebrating our sea eagles - 10 years of the viewing hide at Loch Frisa www.rspb.org.uk/.../index.asp and 25 years since the first sea eagle chick hatched in the wild, here on Mull - added to that this year has been named the Year of Biodiversity - a lot to celebrate. On Mull, the sea eagles bring in an estimated £2m to the Island through tourism - people coming on holiday specifically to see them, from B&B's, hotels, wildlife trips and local shops and eateries etc. Also half the money raised from people visiting the hide is ploughed back into good causes on the Island - In 2009 £10,000 will be paid out to local groups such as the Brownies, local care home, schools, the Choir - a whole raft of groups that benefit from this magnificent bird. Let the party begin!
I don't think that we are any different to the USA in celebrating the birds we have. A few years ago I met Derek Moore standing on top of New Fancy View in the Forest of Dean looking for Goshawk (another bird that some would be wary of) and on that day the viewing platform was full of people seeking to turn dots in the distance into a bird of prey. I think the difference to the American people is that we have lost a lot of our wildlife and the argument is now about how we put it back. I am sure if Golden and Sea Eagles were naturally all around we would be out there watching them as we do already with Honey Buzzard at various locations and Red Kite at Gigrin.
That does remind me, Susan asked me a question on an earlier blog entry about a comment I made about artificial feeding. Sorry Susan, I have only just picked it up. One question I do have about re-introductions is knowing when the project can be deemed successful and when you should stop supplementary feeding and let them get on with it. Sometimes we do carry on feeding for our sake so we can see the birds and not necessarily for theirs. At the moment this could apply to some red kite sites but we are nowhere near that for others.
We only think of species like this as from the remote uplands because of what we've done to them and theit habitat - read Mike Shrubb's Birds, Scythes and Combines and Roger Lovegrove's Silent Fields - and Sea Eagles naturally live around coasts and in large wetlands. There's a huge opportunity in Suffolk to think more widely about the mix of intensive farmland, more extensive farmland, heath forest and wetland - not least because the biggest question has to be whether there is enough wilder land to support these birds: White Tailed Eagles have made it on their own to the superb 5,000 ha Dutch Oostvardersplassen reserve only 100 miles across the North Sea, first as wintering birds, and now breeding. But, of course, it won't pay and landowners won't like it. Neither is true - look at the Lake District Osprey's, hugely popular with local people because of the tourism cash they bring in & the positive image of the Lakes they represent; look at Norfolk, and what Titchwell does for local business. Its not an either/or - despite the propoganda, the countryside is already a mixed economy and many farmers are making money from visitors - through B&B, or directly, like the delicious Asparagus I bought at a roadside stall the last time I was in Suffolk. And, with farm economics less than brilliant, more and more farmers are interested in working with Natural England through Higher Level Stewardship.
And the horrific cost ? £600,000 is what 1,000 hectares of arable land recieves in single farm payment from Defra in just 4 years - and you'd only get 1 medium, not large, holiday house on the Suffolk coast for that.
The Eagles will be great value for money - as much for rural communities along the Suffolk coast as for conservationists - and I hope they also get us thinking more expansively about how we use land more imaginatively.