(courtesy Adele)
For the month of May, the majority of the UK has been basking in sunshine whereas the West Coast of Scotland has had more than its fair share of rain. May is usually one of our best months weatherwise - and its also one of our busiest months on Mull for visitors. I really felt sorry for visitors to the Island as day after day, we were faced with rain all day, every day. Added to that we also experienced some of the strongest winds reaching up to Force 11 in some parts. Many trees were uprooted, there was a lot of structural damage and there would certainly be many nesting birds who would have lost their young or nests in the strong gales.
We held our breath until the winds passed, then gradually Dave was able to get round most of the Island to check on most of the nests. Thankfully, he is pretty sure our eagles with young managed to survive - by way of a small miracle no doubt.
I wondered how Skye and Frisa would have fared had they had chicks on the go - the nest they used this year was extremely exposed - instead they chose to hunker down until the worst of the weather passed. Hopefully that awful weather is behind us now as we have been enjoying some well earned sunshine and a chance for those saturated nests and eaglets to dry out.
Our visitors to Loch Frisa are enjoying the new drive through experience - we meet at the north end of the Loch and then stop along the way until we reach the hide. We have had some great sightings including golden eagles, cuckoos, red breasted merganser, male and female hen harrier, juvenile white tailed eagle (possibly Heather!) and a great hit is our young whooper swan who has remained on the Loch. Skye and Frisa of course are the stars of the trip and we could usually find them sat chilling on a favourite tree. The sand martins are doing really well and of course the siskins are really popular.
Some of our visitors have asked for news on our pair known as Green "T" and Blue 9 - delighted to say the two chicks are growing at a rapid rate of knots - they have gone from the white fluffy chick stage, to grey downy stage and in the space of 2 days turned chocolate brown and are now starting to look like young sea eagles. They are helping themselves to food left on the nest so if they feel peckish when Mum and Dad are away they wont go hungry.
Our other chicks are all doing well - this week is ringing week which gives us a good chance of checking on them.
Dont forget if you want to book a visit to the hide, call our friends at the Craignure Visitor Centre on 01680 812556 - more details on Mull Eagle Watch can be found at this link. Dont forget you can also keep up with daily news from Loch Frisa by following us at @skyeandfrisa
Debby Thorne
White Tailed Eagle Information Officer, Mull
Thanks Debby...lovely as always to keep up with what's going on in Mull and now I have picture in my head as I have been to some of the places you are talking about. So pleased to hear that at last you are having some sunshine up there. The rain didn't put us off when we visited and next time we come we will just hope for Sunshine all the way LOL!!
Fantastic photo of all the siskins on the feeder. Good luck with ringing this week!!