Wednesday 19th July 2017
One day after posting about the imminent fledging and the larger, female chick made the jump!
Fledged Female
On arriving at West Ardhu (North West Mull Community Woodland) on Thursday 13th July to set up for the forthcoming trips I checked the nest site and suspected that one of the eaglets may have fledged, but it wasn’t until further into the morning session we knew for sure when we were only seeing one youngster in the eyrie. The smaller chick, which looks like a male was still in there, giving us great displays of wing flapping and helicoptering but he was definitely alone! He was also very vocal and I suspect that he could see his sibling beyond the conifer trees – maybe he was wondering why she’d made a break for it?
First flight
We didn’t spot the fledged bird at all throughout Thursday, so after two days off I retuned on Sunday to provide a trip and see if we could confirm that she was okay. We had good views through the telescope of Star (the adult male) and also enjoyed the remaining eaglet’s antics in the nest. Suddenly, the male took off and the fledging appeared in the air alongside him! The visitors were treat to amazing views of the two in flight together over the woodland – this also confirmed my suspicions that the fledgling was a female; she was much larger than the adult male when in flight.
The male quickly settled back down to conserve energy, whilst the youngster relished the opportunity to stretch her wings with a strong wind to help. She gained height and disappeared out of sight.
Crash landing
On Monday morning we had some more great sightings. The fledgling had returned to the nest tree and was perched above the remaining chick, probably wondering why he was hanging around in there! She took off and then returned to a nearby conifer tree but missed the first three branches at least, managing to settle a little lower in the tree than she’d anticipated. The next day she popped back into the nest – maybe in hope of an easy meal. She then played at being a kite – hanging onto the branch with her enormous yellow feet whilst allowing her open wings to be buffeted by the wind.
Visiting soon? What to expect…
So, at the moment when visiting West Ardhu be prepared to for an array of sightings – we’re still seeing the remaining chick in the nest through the scopes, although we’ll be expecting him to fledge in the next few days. He hasn’t yet branched out much and so should have some exploring to do around the edge of the eyrie first. When he does fledge we’ll have four eagles in the patch, giving us really great chances of spotting birds in flight, as well as perching close by. The fledged juvenile eagles will remain in the area for another couple of months to learn from their parents and get to grips with being an eagle before spending much of their first winter fending for themselves.
Sightings can be slightly less predictable without birds being confined to the nest, but we’ll do our best to give you a great visit, share our knowledge and to spot wildlife for you – including our eagle family.
Other sightings
As usual we’ve been watching out for the vast array of species found in the woodland at West Ardhu. Along with our White-tailed eagle family we’ve spotted Buzzards, Bullfinches, Siskins and Crossbills. A Sparrowhawk pair appear to be nesting nearby and often fly past carrying prey. Insect life has included Red Admiral butterfly, Golden-ringed dragonfly, Giant Wood Wasp (Horntail) and lots of Clegs!
Join us for a guided trip…
You can book with Mull Eagle Watch by calling 01680 812556 or by calling into the Craignure Visitor Information Centre.
Visit Hope, Star and their two youngsters (both soon to be fledged, but in/around the area) or why not visit Iona, Fingal and their eaglet at Tiroran Community Forest? This chick has a couple of weeks before it’s ready to fledge, so watch out for updates on that in the near future. You can head over the read Meryl’s RSPB Mull Eagle Watch blog.
Back soon with more updates and you can watch out for the Mull country shows coming up too; we’ll be at Bunessan Show on Friday 4th August and Salen Show on Thursday 10th August so pop over and say hello!
Thanks for reading, Rachel : )
Mull Eagle Watch 