Fingal & Iona - This is their Life 3

By 2004, all the signs looked good for Fingal and Iona for their next breeding attempt. Their nest from the previous year had been added to significantly; huge sticks were carefully woven in or just plonked on top of each other and by mid March Fingal was carrying in great clumps of white hill grass - Molinia - to line the nest in preparation for egg laying. As he landed with yet another pile, Iona tugged it away and scattered it around the nest, pressing it deep into the sticks. Then she settled in as if incubating eggs, making a cup, pushing her legs out the back to form a safe place for her precious cargo which could now only be days away from being laid. Sure enough, right on cue in early April, we saw the first change-over in incubating duties when Iona lifted her great bulk off the eggs, stood protectively over them for a few minutes and then flew away, making room for Fingal to hop down from the branch above and settle himself in for the next few hours. He looked right at home; careful, dedicated, unwavering in his duties.

This should have been their pattern for the next 38 days, come rain or shine. Each adult taking near equal terms incubating the two white eggs. Iona would always incubate overnight, usually landing next to Fingal to resume her night shift as the late winter sun set behind the shadowy ridge. Sometimes Fingal was reluctant to relinquish his position and Iona would have to give him a sharp nudge to move him off. We crossed off the days on the calender: 28, 29, 30...just a week or so to go. Gordon Buchanan was filming them for his BBC Natural World production 'Eagle Island' and we were all gearing up for the big day. Then it started to rain; heavy and persistent rain, day and night for almost 72 hours. It was a deluge; swollen rivers crashed down the hillsides into the bay, big branches with new leaves broke under their own weight, deer and sheep were washed off river banks and down into the sea loch. On the morning the rain began to finally ease, Gordon and I returned to Glen Seilisdeir to check on Fingal and Iona. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by what we found. Both birds were sitting together in another Scots pine, dark, drenched and disconsolate. After watching for a while we ventured closer to confirm the worst and looked up. We could see daylight through the nest; the rain-sodden grass lining had been pulled through the base of the waterlogged structure dragging the fragile eggs with it. We looked down. There scattered and broken amongst the branches on the ground were the shattered pieces of eagle egg shell. I picked bits up; Gordon filmed them. It was not what he wanted to film. For Fingal and Iona, it was all over - again - for another year.

After all their set backs, the following year they moved well away from their doomed nest and built a new one in a Lodgepole pine near the top of a beautiful river gully. That year, 2005, it all worked out right for them: calm, dry conditions throughout incubation. I left it a few days beyond their presumed hatch date before climbing high into the hills to a safe watch point. Iona was sitting higher. Two hours passed with barely a movement from her, then a sudden fidget. She stood at last and revealed her single chick to the warming May sunshine. It looked strong and healthy, already stretching up to be fed. With luck and fine weather, this could just be their year. All the signs looked good. For the first critical 10 days of life, Mull's weather-god was kind to Fingal and Iona and their chick. Soon he grew into an even stronger eaglet, day by day, bigger and more feathered. At 8 weeks old we paid him a brief visit for a close-up health check, a few measurements and wing tags. He was 'Red V' or 'Valiant' as he was christened by local children. At 10 weeks he was fully grown but not yet ready to take the biggest jump of his life. After another two weeks of strengthening his flight muscles, he flapped hard one more time and launched off the top of his pine tree home and into a world of amazing adventures and terrible dangers he could never begin to imagine - but we could. It's always a bitter-sweet moment for us watching from afar. We're thrilled and relieved an eaglet has fledged successfully at last but we also know deep down that we've done all we can, our role in protecting them here is largely over and they must now fend for themselves in an often less-than-friendly environment for our stunning birds of prey. On Mull, Valiant should be safe but soon he would fly further and longer distances away from the protection of Fingal and Iona and then he would really be on his own.

By the late autumn, that day had come. Valiant had gone. Here one day, gone the next. Amazingly within just a few days we had a call from birdwatchers and then a radio station in Northern Ireland to say a young white-tailed eagle with red wing tags and the letter 'V' was being seen regularly on the Antrim Plateau. Valiant really had spread his wings and gone for it, helped aloft by strong northerly fall breezes, carrying him south down the Argyllshire coast, through the Mull of Kintyre and over the Irish sea. Even more amazingly, two weeks later he was back on Mull, seen by a wildlife tour operator on Loch na Keal! He was by now of course completely independent of Fingal and Iona. Their first successful fledgling had proven himself to be a real survivor, able to navigate the twists and turns of coast, hill, glen and loch. There would be more chicks for Fingal and Iona in the years to come but for them Valiant was their turning point from failure to success. He was special...and five years later he was to prove just how special.

On a remote stretch of coast near the Isle of Skye, an RSPB field worker followed up reports of a new pair of adult white-tailed eagles settling into an area. The male had red wing tags with the letter 'V'. Valiant had made it through. He has since gone on to raise and fledge chicks of his own. The Fingal and Iona dynasty has a bright future. Long live Valiant!

Watch Fingal and Iona with their two chicks from this year on Springwatch 2012 BBC Two 8pm week beginning June 11th. And then come and see them for yourself at the Mull Eagle Hide. Booking essential on 01680 812 556. 2hr trips Monday to Friday 10am and 1pm. Adults £6, children £3.  Gordon Buchanan's BBC Natural World film 'Eagle Island' is for sale from all good stockists on Mull, on the MV Isle of Mull CalMac shop, VisitScotland in Craignure and on Amazon.

Iolo Williams & the BBC Springwatch crew on board Mull Charters - photo copyright Richard Clutterbuck

Dave Sexton RSPB Scotland Mull Officer