When Skye met Frisa – a love story

Dave Sexton, our Mull officer, brings you the tale of Skye and Frisa, a pair of sea eagles on Mull who over their 21 years together have successfully raised 22 chicks. Of course we could have just reported that a sub adult 1994 male paired with a mature 1992 female in Territory 18 and have fledged 22 chicks. But it is February, the month of love, after all…

When Skye met Frisa – a love story

Skye and Frisa by Debby Thorne 

It was the bleak mid-winter of 1997. He was the raffish young sea eagle from across the sea on the misty Isle of Skye. She was the older regal eagle from the Isle of Mull and born into sea eagle royalty. From their first encounter on a dreich, wind swept headland in January they became inseparable.

He wasn’t fully adult at just three years old, still mottled and scruffy with just a hint of the fine pale head, yellow beak and sparkling white tail to come. At five years old, she had it all and she knew it. She’d hatched into a sea eagle dynasty headed by her mother Blondie, who had raised that historic wild chick in 1985; the first to successfully fledge since the reintroduction of these birds 10 years before.

Known as Skye and Frisa they are still together today 21 years later. It must be love.

Skye and Frisa on ice by Debby Thorne

It was to be a whirlwind romance but that first spring brought them both joy and heartache. The intricate art of nest building initially defeated them. Sticks were too big or too small; they fell from the tree at the slightest hint of a breeze in the Hebrides. Frisa’s frustration was beginning to show. She knew the clock was ticking; she would soon have eggs to lay and as yet, no safe place to lay them. Finally Skye’s efforts began to bear fruit and within a few weeks, working together, they had constructed their first nest, a vast eyrie. Softly lined with white moor grass, Frisa settled down one stormy March night.

By the time the early morning sun warmed her proud head at 5am, she had laid her first ever egg. The Mull dawn chorus seemed to herald its arrival.  There would be another to follow a day or so later. With no one to teach them a thing, they slipped comfortably into a routine of incubating those eggs for the next 38 days and nights. Despite his youth, Skye did his fair share but Frisa would always take over as dusk fell, shuffling the eggs under her cosy brood patch and keeping them warm through the long chilly nights.

Skye seeing off an intruder by Debby Thorne

What happened next must have been hard to bear. Only one egg hatched but their precious chick thrived and grew on the generous offerings brought in by Skye. But suddenly one day in mid-June Frisa could not get her chick to raise its head to feed. She gazed down sensing something was badly wrong. She tried again and again but her chick, her first born, was lifeless. Unaware of the unfolding sadness, Skye flew in with fresh prey and he too tried to feed. By now, her mother’s instincts told Frisa it was all over for this season. She sat motionless on the edge of the nest, gazing into the distance. Eventually Skye joined her. They called frequently to each other and then flew far and high, their desperate calls echoing through the glen.

In 1998 they would experience the joy of raising their first chick to fledging. They moved and built a new nest many miles from the first. Maybe they had learned lessons and did things differently? Maybe Mother Nature was just kinder to them that year? Their beautiful female chick took her maiden flight on 13 August aged 12 weeks and was seen flying strongly nearby in September. Skye and Frisa had finally done it.

But the course of true love never did run smooth. The following year tragedy was to strike them again when their healthy five week old chick fell from the nest. In 2007 again in a freak accident, the nest slipped sending both chicks just a few days old, tumbling through the branches to their deaths on the forest floor.

Left: Skye by Iain Erskine; Right: Frisa by Debby Thorne

Yet, all other years Skye and Frisa have successfully produced young, often two chicks a year. To date they have raised a remarkable 22 chicks and many of them are now breeding far and wide across Scotland. Their first chick from 1998 has fledged many chicks of her own, last year from a cliff nest on a remote stretch of Mull’s rocky coastline.

Skye and Frisa are already building up this year’s nest ready for eggs next month. Just this week they were perched close together, their wings touching, occasionally preening each other. Their unbreakable bond endures. Love conquers all.