There are a few things that will drag me into work on my day off, and a phone call from Emma this morning saying that a White Tailed Eagle had been seen on the reserve was definitely one of them!
Locals have been reporting an eagle in the area for a couple of weeks (Vicky spotted one from the Ythan and Mark, the leader of the Aberdeenshire RSPB group saw it again at our small reserve at Meikle Loch) and we'd been hoping that it would eventually make its way up to prime eagle habitat at Strathbeg. It was just as impressive as we'd hoped, spending the day causing a little bit of chaos on the reserve. Ducks and geese generally chose to beat a quick retreat. Grey Herons, crows and the local Buzzard tried to mob it for a while with no effect whatsoever. Even the ponies came over to investigate while it sat on a fence post on the low ground.
The perchs it used were close enough to read the eagle's wing tags- Red with a white A. A quick call to Rhian Evans at the East Scotland Sea Eagle project confirmed that this was one of here birds and had been released in Fife last year. It has spent most of the winter on the West Coast and Arran and you can read a bit more about him in the East Scotland Sea Eagles Blog here. The latest ESSE Blog post here also has news of 'Brian' our rescued Irish bird who didn't quite get released at Strathbeg last year!
Typically in my dash to the reserve I forgot to put the memory card in my camera so we've got no photos at the moment, although we're hoping the Red A will hang around over the Easter weekend and we'll be able to get some pictures of him for you if you can't make the trip up yourself.
Great to hear you've seen RedA, he's certainly well travelled now! Good he's doing well, I saw him in Oct while he was still hanging around in Fife.
~ Karen ~Pet & Widlife Artist living in southern Perthshire. A self confessed White-Tailed Eagle-holic!
White tailed eagle! Can you keep it on the reserve until I come back? Don't care if you have to shoot Tom and feed him to it as carrion, if it keeps the eagle on the reserve!
...bit too far for me to travel, what a shame.