Climb every mountain

There are some days which put you on top of the world and for me, one day earlier this year was one of them. There is a pair of sea eagles on the Scottish mainland which is just so elusive you wouldn't think they had eight or nine foot wingspans! I mean how could anyone miss them? And yet, year after year, they have proved very difficult to track down.

They have now had three or more different nest sites, all many miles apart. They range across vast sea lochs and mountain ranges; one day they are at the south end of their territory, the next at the northern extreme. The quest each winter is to monitor the rare sightings we receive of them and to try and piece together where they might be prospecting for a new nest. But last winter the sightings were even fewer and farther between - almost non-existant. Just where did they go? 

For the UK's biggest bird of prey and as one of the world's largest eagles, they kept a very, very low profile. So by the time they should have been laying eggs in March we had absolutely no idea where they were. And once incubation commences, they are even harder to find.

For a start, there is only ever one bird out and about while the other is sitting on the eggs and for obvious reasons they seem to work even harder at not giving themselves away. But surely by the time they hatch in April or fledge in July, they would have given away a few clues? All those feeding flights, back and forth. Someone must have seen something for goodness sake!

Well, it would seem not. For the pair in Territory 40, life proceded as normal - I have a sneaking admiration for them evading the eyes and ears of experienced fieldworkers from the RSPB, the local intelligence network of the police, the on-the ground knowledge of the Forestry Commission rangers and well, pretty much everyone. And so by the time it got to mid July we had a few vague reports of adult sea eagles matching their description - the female has yellow wing tags and the male is unmarked. Someone saw an adult with food flying south along the coast. They must have young! Why else would it be carrying food?

Then a breakthrough - and of course it came from the people who live and work on the ground and on the sea. Staff at a local marina saw an adult flying twice in the same direction. It wasn't much but we had a lead. With no one else available I took a day trip from Mull and ventured onto the mainland to follow up the reports.Time was running out.

My first stop was the marina and as I was talking to the owner, my eye glimpsed a familiar silhouette in the far distance. It was a sea eagle, an adult and it was heading our way. My heart was already racing. Was this to be our really big break? It flew right over us and headed inland, right over the near ridge and kept going. Follow that bird! I leapt into the landrover and set off in the general direction of the eagle - or at least as best I could given the Highland roads and forestry tracks which never quite take you in the direction you really want to go.

I started that search at 1000 in the morning; by 4 o'clock in the afternoon, having had no lunch and having abandoned the vehicle and sweated my way deep into several likely looking glens, I had drawn a complete blank. This day was going to end like all the others in the search for the Territory 40 birds.

As I got about as far away from the landrover as I could get and was frankly, cold, wet and a bit lost in a forestry plantation - a spark of a mobile signal made it through the gloom. It was the messaging service. I had one message. It had been left five hours previously! The news made me both exasperated and elated all at the same time. And I've never retraced my steps in the mud quite so rapidly before.

To be continued...

The death of our 2007 Mull sea eagle chick 'White G' continues to make the news with major coverage in the weekend's Sunday Mail  with the headline 'The Eagle Killers'. Read the article online. The Sunday Mail has the biggest circulation and readership of any national newspaper in Scotland so White G's story and the issue of illegal poisons killing our wildlife in the countryside will have reached another new audience.

Thank you again to everyone who has written a comment under the 'White G: RIP' blog and for the letters you have written to the press and your political representitives. It really will make a difference. Please, if you haven't written yet, consider doing so this week. Please see the 'White G: RIP' blog in the Archives for what action you personally can take to ensure White G did not die in vain.

Meanwhile, I've received a possible sighting of Breagha on Morvern in the middle of last week. It came from Mike Wagemakers who runs 'Isle of Mull Experience Tours'. On holiday for a week on nearby Morvern, Mike saw a young sea eagle with a satellite tag on Friday. Of course I guess it could have been Mara but we know from his last sat tag reading that he was way to the north and east on Ardnamurchan just a day or so before. Yes he could have swung back to be on the Morvern coast but I like to think it may have been her. She/he was chasing a raven and nearly caught it! Soon, that expensive bit of technology she has will tell us one way or the other!

Dave Sexton RSPB Scotland Mull Officer