[Chris Monk]

Job vacancy: Project Officer - East Scotland Sea Eagle Project

http://www.rspb.org.uk/vacancies/details.asp?id=3380207

[malgos]

Originally Posted by Chris Monk

Job vacancy: Project Officer - East Scotland Sea Eagle Project

http://www.rspb.org.uk/vacancies/details.asp?id=3380207

Fantastic job for someone!!

[Sandra (Taylor)]

Originally Posted by malgos

Fantastic job for someone!!

Hm - what a job! Not often I find myself wanting to go back in time but I wish I was 30 yrs. younger! But wait a minute - there weren't any sea eagles in Scotland then, were there? Doh!!

Sandra

Oops, I was looking at the first job - at the watch point.

[Chris Monk]

Possible White tailed Eagle reintroduction schemes on the east coast of
Scotland

_____

From The Scotsman web site 8/7/2006:

http://living.scotsman.com/travel.cfm?id=976672006

Hide and seek
BY KATH GOURLAY

Getting up close and personal with a white tailed eagle, also called a sea
eagle, is an awesome experience. With an average wingspan of 244cm - that's
nearly 8ft - they've been dubbed "flying barn doors" by the bird watching
fraternity, and at the world's only live and direct viewing site in Mull,
visitors can appreciate first hand the sheer size, power and beauty of these
massive raptors.

A bird of prey that size has no natural predators to worry about, but human
activity involving shotguns, poison and egg-stealing, collectively saw off
the last of Britain's native sea eagles around a century ago. The last
recorded native white tailed eagle was shot in Shetland in 1917, and to add
insult to injury, it was a rare albino.

The Northern Isles don't have a good track record when it comes to this kind
of thing - the last Great Auk in Britain was killed on Orkney's Papa Westray
in the 19th century. A couple of decades later, hunters in Iceland finished
off the job completely by slaughtering and stuffing the world's last two
Great Auks for collectors.

Fortunately, sea eagles survived in areas like Scandinavia and a
reintroduction programme began in the mid 1970s, when imported Norwegian
birds were released along the west coast of Scotland.

Conservationists started off by giving Scotland's newly introduced sea
eagles dignified, geographically related names like Skye and Frisa. Three
generations on, they sport more down-to-earth monikers. The current chicks
are Haggis and Oatie, and last year's fledglings were dubbed Itchy and
Scratchy.

"Trust local schoolkids to tell it like it is," says David Sexton, Mull's
RSPB Officer, "It shows they were taking an interest in the chicks' habits.
They love coming out to the hide when the eggs are hatching and it was a
group from Dervaig Primary who named that pair."

Frisa, the mother of Itchy and Scratchy, was the offspring of one of the
original Norwegian birds and, more than a quarter of a century on, around 35
breeding pairs of white tailed eagle can be found around the Scottish west
coast.

"Last year, 24 chicks fledged from Scottish nests," says Sexton, "and this
summer we're hoping to celebrate the 200th hatching from the time of the
original donor stock. We're very proud of what we've achieved."

Plans are now afoot to extend the sea eagle's range to Scotland's east
coast, and Scottish Natural Heritage is investigating the Forth and Tay
estuaries as possible sites. According to an SNH spokeswoman, individual
locations have yet to be narrowed down, but discussions with the RSPB have
highlighted areas where the white tailed eagle is known to have thrived 120
to 130 years ago.

In the meantime, eagle watchers have to head west where, if they want to
view sea eagles the easy way, then the Mull hide is tailor made. For those
hoping to track down some of the other nesting sites, the term "coastal" in
bird books could be a bit misleading. According to Sexton, the white tailed
eagle has a somewhat wider ecological niche. He explains: "They are more
associated with the cliff face nesting, but you'll find eyries in spruce
trees in forestry regions near lakes and rivers, or even on the ground in
some instances."

It's safe to assume that conservationists know exactly where the nest sites
are, but for obvious reasons they're not advertising that knowledge. Local
people and police help conservationists run a tight ship when it comes to
protecting sea eagles.

In Mull, it's all been organised so well that a decision was made to feature
one particular eyrie near Loch Frisa as an eco-tourism project, opening it
to visitors, with a special viewing hide during the breeding season. The
eagle watch project is run by Mull and Iona Community Trust, together with
SNH, the RSPB and the Forestry Commission (who own the land round the
eyrie.)

The well-established breeding pair, Skye and Frisa, don't appear to be at
all bothered by their celebrity status (they featured in BBC's Springwatch
with Bill Oddie and Kate Humble) and seem to accept the click of cameras as
part of their everyday environment.

According to the RSPB, these feathered stars have their own 24-hour guard,
in the shape of Strathclyde Police, a dedicated band of island volunteers
and the latest surveillance technology to protect the nest from illegal egg
collectors.

And for those wanting a guaranteed sight of these magnificent birds, this
really is the only sure-fire way of going about it. You've got to get
organised to do it this year though. The site is open from mid April to mid
July, when the chicks are ready to begin trying out their early flying
skills. After that it closes.

"Haggis and Oatie are three months old at the beginning of July and are at
the fledging stage," says Sexton. "At that time they're very vulnerable, so
until they master the art of flying their privacy is strictly protected."

Keep an eye out for Itchy and Scratchy in the skies around their parental
home though. They're not mature enough to breed for another three years, and
were still seen hanging around mum earlier in the year. Scratchy's been
visiting nearby Skye, but came back home before dad chased both of them off
at the beginning of the new breeding season. Itchy seems to have taken
umbrage and hasn't been seen at all recently. It's tough, being an
adolescent.

. To book a trip to see the Mull sea eagles tel: 01688 302038 or visit
www.rspb.org.uk/birds/brilliant/sites/mull/

[Capercaillie71]

Good to see this project going ahead so soon. I'll look forward to being able to watch them hunting eiders at the Montrose basin before too long!

It's ironic that this advert came out in the same week that a sea eagle made its own way to the east coast of Scotland though!