For most of today, the weather on Mull has not been at all conducive to finding eagles. However, all the latest satellite data shows that both Mara and Breagha are fine and continue to spend most of their time on the south side of Loch Frisa. Mara continues to be the more active according to the data which had me a little worried about Breagha. However, whenever I've seen them both together, there is no difference in their apparent levels of fitness or flying prowess. I asked Roy Dennis of the 'Highland Foundation for Wildlife' who helped us fit the tags why the data seems to show Mara as the more adventurous.
He believes one possible reason is that, as the bigger bird, the satellite tag may be deeper in her plummage and therefore covered by Breagha's feathers more often. This means that the miniature solar panel is getting less charge so the data is less precise. We hope this will sort itself out in the weeks ahead. The more they fly, the more exposed the tag is to the sun and the better the detail of the data. The grey weather of late won't have helped either. By late evening though there was blue sky at last and a wonderful sunset in between the numerous rainbows over Salen bay.
It was a high tide tonight which had nudged most of the common seals off their favourite haul out but we did just glimpse two otters near the old boats on our way to Tobermory. I hope it's the mum and her cub as we had an otter killed on the road there just last week which we think may have been her well grown cub from last year. We'll keep watching and hoping that mum and this year's young cub are okay. Tomorrow looks to be a brighter day so we'll see what that brings. For now, all seems well with our sea eagle family, so rest easy.
Dave Sexton RSPB Scotland Mull Officer
2220hrs