Having decided to go on a few days holiday last week Ralf, our semi resident eagle re-appeared yesterday. At first he seemed to be quite jumpy and was quite easily pushed off some carrion by a couple of crows and a buzzard. This may have been a subtle ploy on his part to lull everything into a flase sense of security as within ten minutes he was pursuing a lone pink footed goose. He managed to make what looked like very frim contact with the goose in flight and knocked it down into the Loch. Ralf then spent several minutes circling over the obviously injured goose as it frantically kept diving out of reach under the water. Despite half lifting the goose out of the water Ralf eventually gave up and went and sat on the island in a bit of a huff!
The goose after a brief breather on the Loch decided that it would go and torment his would be attacker and slowely swam up to the island (can geese have suicidal tendancies I wonder!). This proved too much for Ralp who had another concerted effort - although unfortunately most of this attempt was hidden behing reeds.
After another couple of minutes Ralf re-appeared with out his goose and flew deliberately across the Savoch Low Ground towards his roost.
Despite appearing to have been bettered by a goose I wonder if Ralf was playing a longer game - the goose had clearly been injured in this attack so I wonder if rather than risk getting very wet pulling the goose out of the Loch Ralf is waiting for it to succumb to its injuries when he can get it without any further danger to himself - we shall probably never know!
Dom