Outdoors: Sea eagle spotting

Published on Sunday 25 April 2010 12:58

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first successful breeding of a pair of Scottish sea eagles on the Isle of Mull, following the reintroduction programme that began on Rum in 1975. It was a landmark event for Scottish conservationists, providing inspiration for the subsequent reintroduction of the red kite and more recently the beaver.

A total of 82 eaglets were released on Rum over a ten-year period, followed by further releases in Wester Ross in the 1990s to help sustain the fragile west coast population. It has been a painfully slow process but the programme has been a success, with the breeding population soaring to 46 pairs last year, stretching from the Isle of Lewis to Argyll.

In the last three years an east coast release scheme has resulted in these birds, which have an eight-foot wing span, spotted in the strangest of places. Now it is not unusual to see the eagles flying high above the A90 between Perth and Dundee as they commute between their inland roosts and feeding grounds in the Firth of Tay.

And another couple of eagles have this year taken up residence in the Pentland Hills near Balerno. Inquisitive by nature, the pair have been seen soaring over Edinburgh zoo attracted, it is thought, by the calls of a captive pair of closely related Steller's sea eagles.

The eagles, it seems, are as comfortable in the much more populated environs of eastern Scotland as they are in the remote wilds of the west coast.

Claire Smith of the RSPB, project officer for the east of Scotland release scheme, says sea eagles are much more tolerant of people than their cousin the golden eagle, and in other parts of Europe such as Germany and Poland they commonly live close to populated areas.

"People seem really excited about the sea eagles and the fact that they have such an impressive bird of prey right on their doorstep," she says. "This winter, a couple of eagles took up residence at Loch Leven in Kinross for three months and visitors to the area were really amazed at how well the sea eagles fitted into the natural environment. They were also surprised at how lazy they were as they often spent hours just sitting on the ice doing nothing."

Analysis of the diet of the Loch Leven eagles showed a varied mix that included geese, cormorants and even a fox and a buzzard. A small group of sea eagles that recently based themselves near Tentsmuir Point in north-east of Fife spent the winter scavenging dead seals and catching gulls.

The release scheme, managed by the RSPB in partnership with Scottish Natural Heritage and Forestry Commission Scotland, is using eaglets from Norway and will continue for at least another two years. The sea eagle, or white-tailed eagle as it is also known, formerly occupied much of eastern Scotland with the last breeding birds persecuted out of existence about 200 years ago.

The east of Scotland eagles are not expected to breed for at least another couple years when those first released will have reached maturity. So far, the survival rate has been pretty good, with 33 out of the 44 Norwegian birds having survived. Causes of death include being hit by trains and electrocuted by power lines. A couple were also killed through illegal persecution.

"There is so much hard work involved in this project, with many volunteers participating in both Norway and Scotland that there is a huge degree of frustration at all this effort going to waste when eagles are needlessly killed," says Claire Smith.

In time, such setbacks will be overcome, with the majority of birds thriving in their new-found homeland. What's particularly encouraging is the interaction between the east coast and west coast birds.

"The ultimate aim is not to have two separate populations on the east and west coast, but rather a broader distribution that encompasses much of its former range throughout Scotland," says Claire.

For more information on sea eagles in Scotland, visit www.rspb.org.uk

&#149 This article was first published in The Scotsman Magazine, April 24, 2010