Sorry for the delay in updating things for you. It's just that time of year...

It's been a long day and the eyelids are drooping so just for now, here's today's busy headlines. One day on Mull in 10 bullet points.

• 0900 Loch Frisa: now you see them, now you don't. Frisa & Skye AWOL. Not a hint. They're not where they should be. Worried.
• 1100 New pair just established have had their first…

I don't know what to make of Kellan today.

Kellan was the only chick from a pair of white-tailed eagles on Mull. He was found by a friendly farmer last autumn with a broken wing and other injuries. After months of expert care from the Scottish SPCA he was as ready as he was ever going to be to return to the wild and came home to Mull in December. Since then he has made amazing progress; he can fly and perch well;…

Down through the ages, there are certain white-tailed eagles who you remember more than others. A bit like people really. Some are real characters; some have big adventures that make them stand out from the crowd and a few are just, well, special. Don't get me wrong, they're all special! But a handful have an extra special place in my heart.

Contrary to popular belief we don't name them all! A few have ended up…

There have been so many times over the last three years that a young white-tailed eagle from Mull called Kellan has occupied my thoughts. From those early autumn 2010 days when he was in the Scottish SPCA wildlife hospital to the first weeks and months after his release he has never been far away from our minds. We were all so pleased and relieved how well he did to begin with but deep down none of us really knew what…

courtesy of Vanilla Ice and more recently Jedward!

The beautiful weather continues on Mull.  Crisp, frosty mornings with blue sky and sunshine with the thermometer creeping up to about 5 degrees at lunchtime.  Crocuses are out and love is definately in the air.  I have been watching oystercatchers displaying and males chasing off the competition.  The garden birds are singing their hearts out as the circle of life turns…

Wow!  What a day it has been.  The weather has changed, again!  Warm and sunny with just enough  breeze to keep any midges away.  As I arrived at the Hide this morning, I was greeted by Skye and Frisa have a fly around together, enjoying each other's company with just a bit less stress now that Heather is doing so well by herself.  They still keep an eye on her but she is getting ever more adventurous, flying higher and…

As we reported a while ago, Mull suddenly seemed a slightly emptier place recently when Mara and Breagha, our two satellite tagged youngsters from 2008, both left the island for the first time. In the last year, one has gone on a fly about and then returned and then the other has gone and returned and they continued to spend alot of time together here. So now, for both birds to have been gone for so long is, well, a bit…

From across the glen, the heat haze was too strong but I could just make out some flapping on the nest. One chick was still there. During the morning both Frisa & Skye came in but went straight to the nest. As the heat of the day intensified, I moved in to watch from near the hide. The haze was less but still only one chick was visible. Then I ventured into the cool of the dark forest where a gentle summer breeze kept…

If she'd stayed in Scotland, there's no guarantee she would have been any safer. And yet I can't help feeling we betrayed her. A young golden eagle chick from Mull - like others before her - was donated last year to the bold and successful golden eagle reintroduction project in Ireland. She was from a brood of two and was whisked off to her new home along with other young Scottish goldies. Her sibling fledged successfully…

This is not the blog I intended to write but now it's late and I will write more in the morning. I'd planned to brief you on the activities of the females chasing the male sea eagle, of the most recent report of Mara and of the golden eagle and the deer but I've just read the Met Office Inshore waters forecast for Ardnamurchan Point and the title of this blog says it all. I'd been hoping that the dire warnings on the…

Weekend sat tag update:

As hoped our male sea eagle juvenile Mara has popped up with a good signal on 4 December. At 0723, as dawn was beginning to break, he was a few miles west of Tobermory in the north west of Mull not far from Glengorm castle. That is probably where he spent the previous night (in a Sitka spruce plantation not as B&B in Glengorm Castle which is very nice but he prefers to roost in trees). I'm heading…

Just a quick update tonight but what an update!!

As mentioned earlier, our chicks at Loch Frisa were ringed last Wednesday.  One of the guys working for the Forestry Commission (Scotland) who was helping took some photos of the chicks.  It is just so exciting to be able to see them so close rather than staring at them through a telescope and binoculars.  They will be 8 weeks old tomorrow and are ever edging closer to fledging…

Buzzard - Photo Debby Thorne

Dave is busy dashing round the Island - its leg ringing time and we have Blue Peter helping out!  I will let Dave tell you all about that. 

Well - what a start to the day - blue skies, sunshine and very, very warm that I was forced to wear short trousers (not a pretty sight!).

Our first group in the morning consisted of 5 visitors - which I thought was a mistake as the trips have been virtually…

A warm welcome to any new visitors to this Blog who have just dipped their toe in after watching 'Autumnwatch' this week. Tonight's your first night without Bill, Kate, Simon and Gordon! How will you cope? Well hopefully you'll enjoy catching up with our wonderful white-tailed sea eagles here on the Isle of Mull and perhaps have a glance back through some of the archive Blogs from the last few months to get an idea of…

NEWS ALERT 

In The Guardian newspaper today, Monday 10 November, there is an article relating to an ongoing police enquiry after a young sea eagle hatched on Mull in 2007 was found dead on an estate in Angus.

The eagle (a male, wing tagged 'White G' from Scottish Territory no. 29) had died from eating an illegal poisoned bait.

Whilst this is not one of Frisa and Skye's chicks or one of the two satellite tagged eagles…

As I type this blog, the rain is falling hard and fast - our house sits on a slight incline, and the rain is running down the front path forming a small river, then turning into a mini waterfall at the front door step!  It has rained everyday since last Tuesday - not just drizzle but heavy, persistent rain while a lot of the UK has been basking in sunshine and hot temperatures.  To test the power of positive thought, please…

The snowdrops and crocuses are out and bring some welcome colour to the garden at this time of the year.  The daffodils aren't far behind and for the last week, a robin has been singing his little heart out as I refill the bird feeders.  Is Spring just around the corner?  There are days when it certainly feels like it.  I had a trip to the hide at the end of last week and it was a lovely sunny day - in fact we stayed…

We've been hearing alot this week about the 'hung Parliament' and of the state of the nation 'in limbo'. Life seems at times to be almost at a standstill. Sounds a bit like Loch Frisa.

I don't know why we keep torturing ourselves! Tonight at 7 pm on yet another evening check to see what they were up to, there was the familiar alert but relaxed eagle head watching me go past. I was really hoping,…

Thank you all for your patience and interest in the progress - or otherwise - of Frisa and Skye and all their fellow white-tailed eagles on Mull.

As you can imagine it's been a hectic period throughout incubation and now into the early chick stage. Everyone here does their best to keep them safe and to try and ensure they're all successful but there's always the hand of fate which intervenes to make some pairs succeed…

For a brief time last night the skies were clear and the stars were twinkling at their best.  A distant tawny owl was taking advantage of the calm conditions to proclaim his territorial rights and some curlews were calling down on the bay. There really were signs of spring - daffodils now out in force and a garden pond heaving with frogs having fun - but the weather forecast for the next few days told a very different story…

(what a great song that was from Ian Dury!)

I know over recent weeks, its been hard to be really cheerful with the failure of the nest at Loch Frisa but we do have lots of things to be really cheerful about.

Our most exciting news is that one of the eggs on our buzzard nest has hatched!  Our female buzzard has been incubating two eggs for just over a month - there is a camera on the nest with pictures beamed back into…

One of the great highlights for me every year is to actually see the young white-tailed eagles which you've watched over and fretted about for so long, actually in the air and flying! After all it's what they're born to do. Whilst it's the one thing we have little actual control over (as Loch Frisa proved this year) to see the chicks through hatching, growing and fledging is how we judge the success or failure of our…

As I neared the cliff, the full force of the storm became clearer. There had been a rock fall as well and the entire ash tree which had once supported the nest had been torn from the cliff face, roots and all. As the chicks had plummeted earthwards at the height of the gale, they would have been followed by a deadly cascade of boulders, branches and mud. Out of breath and with sweat stinging my eyes, I clambered up the…

Just a little more detail on the latest data from Mara and Breagha. On the 16th November, Breagha was on the south side of Loch Buie in the south of Mull at 1005. Her brother Mara was just north of Salen on Mull's east coast two days later on the 18th at 0648 so he had probably roosted nearby - and not a million miles from his old nest site at Loch Frisa.

The sat tags are now on their winter timings which means, I…

Contrary to popular belief, it's not only eagles we care about here on Mull. Calls from islanders and visitors to our local bird hospital (at Wings over Mull), the police or me at the RSPB are about everything from otters to owls, from herons to gulls. On the mainland, the Scottish SPCA would respond but here on the island we have to make do as best we can. So when the call came in early one morning about a bird in desperate…