Almost two weeks on and things are still going well with Iona, Fingal and the offspring. John managed to get a glimpse of at least one chick in the nest for the first time this week when Fingal perched his heavy weight on a branch, giving us a clear view in. So we know one chick at least is doing great. We have our suspicions that we do have two youngsters but still cannot say for definite. Now that the chick(s) can maintain their own body temperature a little better, the adults are incubating far less. They still work hard to keep them dry in our rainy weather but now spend a lot of time sat on favourite perches nearby, keeping an ever watchful eye over the territory and one adult will always be on hand to defend the chick(s). Despite growing quickly they are still very vulnerable at this stage, species like hooded crow, raven, buzzard, golden eagles or intruding white-tailed eagles pose a threat if the chicks were left unattended for long.
One morning last week we had a great deal of action. Both Iona and Fingal were getting pretty agitated by an intruding sub-adult white-tailed eagle. They have been fairly tolerant of the birds that hang around but it must have been pushing its luck this time. It took to flying around directly above the nest, often stopping briefly to perch nearby, but not for long before it was pestering the pair again. We heard lots of vocalisation from Iona and Fingal, both showing their annoyance at the bird. With one parent on the nest the other took to the air multiple times, we had no real conflict – often you see things like talon grappling in similar scenarios. Maybe they settled their differences amicably?
I had an extra special moment yesterday during lunch, so unfortunately I was the only one to witness – a golden eagle flew right overhead and the best part was the constant calling coming from it; so rare to hear this species, they are much less vocal than our white-tailed eagles. I know people who’ve watched eagles for a long time and still never heard one!
Certificate of Excellence
We’ve just been award a Certificate of Excellence 2014 from Tripadvisor. This is brilliant and really shows our hard work and efforts put in. Thank you to everyone who has left us a review – it means a lot to everyone working here, and of course Iona and Fingal are thrilled too!
We are also applying for the Scottish Thistle Awards this year which will be very exciting if we are shortlisted. Right now, I’m working on our green tourism file – we are currently rated at silver although we’re always trying to improve things to reach for gold.
Another eagle education
Since my last post I’ve been to another of our primary schools; Lochdon Primary this time. Another great group of children and they enjoyed learning about the island’s wildlife, eagles and how predators and prey link together to keep everything running smoothly. I love working with the children; they are always enthusiastic and come up with brilliant, interesting questions that I try my best to answer.
I also had a visit from George Watson’s college. We got some views of the eagles and nest through the scope before building up our eagle nest – this proved to be exhausting as they’d already climbed Ben More – our only Munro – earlier that day. Unfortunately I discovered that our life size nest might be out of action for a while due to our very bad tick year.
Wonderful wildlife
Other sightings at the hide include our local golden eagles and buzzards, often perfectly timed to arrive just at the end of our trips. We have a large herd of red deer feeding on one ridge line. We’ve lots of flying beetles around, including the tiger beetle. Many more butterflies around making use of our sunny spells. Greenfinches have been joining our regular chaffinches and siskins. I’ll also take the time to mention midge repellent for anyone that is due to visit us – thankfully most days we have a nice breeze to keep them at bay but if not they can make a lovely meal of us all.
Brilliant bats
This week in addition to the hide I am also running a ranger service event, if you are about come along to my bat walk – we’ll spend some time leaning about our island bats and take a walk with detectors to listen and see them. We’re meeting in Aros park, one of our lovely forestry commission sites near Tobermory at 8.30pm, give me a call on 01680 300640 or 07540792650 to book for the session.
Thanks for reading again – Rachel.
Mull Eagle Watch 