And Then There Were Two!

After an early start for a WeBS count on Friday morning we were all looking forward to a nice, relaxing Friday evening at home watching TV and catching up on some sleep. Emma and I were just about to start our tea when Emma checked her mobile to find about three missed calls from Tom, and a text message saying that not one but two White Tailed Eagles had been seen at Rattray Head.

Food, my wine and Emma's beer were swiftly abandoned and we dashed down to the reserve.Tom and Alan (our current residential volunteer) had been down to the south end of the loch and had seen both eagles. Both of them had red wing tags- Red A who had visited the reserve on Thursday, and Red Z. At least one of the eagles had flown north up the loch so myself and Emma borrowed the truck and went for a tour along the loch side past the plantation. Despite some brave off-road driving and some scrambling up and down some very big dunes there was no sign of either eagle and we had to head back before it got dark.

Tim, one of our regulars, was at Rattray this morning and again had two Eagles, one at Rattray itself, one further down the dunes towards St Fergus. After a busy day on the reserve directing visiting twitchers to Tower Pool Hide we made a second trip down to Rattray. This time we managed to see both birds cruising over the dunes. One of them swung back towards the loch and we followed it as quickly as possible. It settled just at the edge of the loch, only slightly down from where we'd driven the night before. A quick check with the scope confirmed that this was Red A. We again followed him back to Rattray and Emma managed to get a few shots to comfirm the wing tag. We didn't get close enough to check the second tag but we definitely had two different individuals, and we'll try again tomorrow.

The evening trip on Friday wasn't wasted though. As we drove back to the reserve, two herons flushed a large, brownish bird out of the reedbed south of the plantation. After a bit of excited shouting on my part we stopped the truck and Emma managed to get a couple of record shots-

The bittern flew over the reedbed for about five minutes until finally dropping just out of sight. Even after working at Titchwell for three months, this was by far the closest I've ever been to a Bittern and was an incredibly exciting moment for me.

To round off the past two days, we also had our first osprey on the reserve today, catching a pike somewhere on the low ground. It was missing a couple of feathers in its left wing, so hopefully it'll be easy enough to identify if it pops back in again!