Where Eagles Dare

Over the last few years we’ve headed up to Scotland at this time to enjoy the fabulous landscape, Autumn colours and of course the fantastic wildlife this region has to offer. It’s always a bit of a balancing act, the often adverse weather means that there are long periods where everyone (wildlife included) just hunkers down out of sight but when the weather breaks – this has got to be one of the most jaw droppingly beautiful places on earth. What’s more with fewer other tourists around in late October the wildlife often seems more confiding.

We had a brilliant week with some cracking species seen including Red Squirrel, Red Deer, Dipper, Black Guillemot, Great Northern and Red Throated Diver, Eider Duck and Slavonian Grebe.

We also had some brilliant views of adult White Tailed Eagle’s (with at least one pair around regularly), the first ones I’ve encountered here and a sign of how well this species is doing since its reintroduction.

Since my return home I’ve been thinking about why certain places and species seem intrinsically linked. Take the Dipper for instance, a bird I will always associate with the gin clear rivers of the Derbyshire Dales, so much so that when we encountered a Dipper on the coastal shores of Loch Linnhe during our holiday (likely forced down from its mountain river by the excessive rain) it took several seconds before my brain would accept what I was seeing!

For me the rugged mountains of the West Highlands will always be associated with one bird in particular – the Golden Eagle!

Since my first sighting of this magnificent raptor, above a rain shrouded cliff at Gribun on Mull, no other bird (except the Hobby) has captured my imagination and obsessed me as much as this one and every year I count the weeks till our journey North and my chance to encounter this bird again.

Why the Golden Eagle? It’s no longer our largest bird of prey – that prize going to it’s cousin the White Tailed (or Sea) Eagle. There are sleeker more dashing birds – think Peregrine and Hobby, and there are more graceful and elegant birds such as the Hen Harrier and the Kite but, to my mind, none capture the imagination or reflect the rugged beauty of our rapidly dwindling wildernesses like the Golden Eagle. Part of its appeal to me is that it’s not easy – it shuns human habitation and the places where we congregate (unlike the White Tailed Eagle which is far more at ease near us), it haunts the high ground and the lonely mountain’s, the remote  Glens where few people tread. A bird of our few and final wild frontiers! It’s not enough to drive the eight hours or more through rain and wind up to the highlands to see one. They then make you walk ten miles off the beaten path through bog and over ankle turning tussocks until, cold, wet and knackered (if you are lucky and the weather has broken) you may just be treated to a view of this superb raptor soaring above a remote peak or quartering across a nearby ridge. They make you work for it and every glimpse is one to savour! And yes I managed some great views of my favourite again this year (and they were well worth the soakings)