Magazine article

Leopard magazine have published an article in their August issue based on pieces lifted from the Eagle Days book. This is a general interest, and the best-selling magazine in north east Scotland. So it is good that some of what I have described in the book will now reach people who do not usually read wildlife books or magazines. 

Dead eagle chick

While checking golden eagle breeding success this week Derek Spencer (above) and I found this dead chick in one eyrie. It had died when about three days old, which would perhaps fit with how long it could live off the nutrients held its yolk sac post hatching. Had it died due to insufficient food being brought to it by its parents, or was it a sickly bird from hatch? The body will be analysed for clues to what happened. The chick's head and feet had been eaten, by an adult bird, or some scavenger? 

Several of the eagle nests we checked were empty. There has been a prolonged period of cold, snowy, northerly winds this spring and perhaps this has caused some birds to abandon their breeding attempts for this year. 

Golden Eagle paper

A scientific paper of which I am a co-author has been accepted for publication by the journal Ornis Fennica.

Adam Watson, Stuart Rae & Sandy Payne: Mirrored sequences of colonisation and abandonment by pairs of Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos.

As the summary states:
'We report colonisation by extra breeding pairs of Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos, and
subsequent abandonments, in part of northeast Scotland during 1895–1985. The number
of pairs rose from three in 1895–1937 to eight by 1948, and then fell to four during 1959–
71 in reverse of the colonisation sequence. This fits the concept of hierarchic quality of
habitat used, or of bird quality. Possible mechanisms to explain this are discussed.'


This is now available for view in the online early page of their website: http://www.ornisfennica.org/ornisfennica.org/early.htm 

Ringing a Golden Eagle Chick

Yesterday I was up in one the more remote glens in the Scottish Highlands ringing a Golden Eagle chick. The eyrie is set in a high corrie, on a cliff overlooking the wide glen below.

There was only one chick in the nest, about six and a half weeks old. It would have hatched in mid-May when the weather was rather wet and windy, which could explain why there was only one chick when eagles in that area can easily rear two chicks per year. Eagles here usually lay two eggs and as there was no sign of a failed egg, it could be assumed that one chick had died earlier - perhaps due to the adults not being able to provide enough food for two.

Ewan Weston clambered over to the nest and ringed the chick as well as collected DNA samples for parental identity and other relatedness with other samples from birds collected over recent years. The nest is typically large for a golden eagle and easily big enough to hold our weight and size as well as that of the chick.

 Prey items in and around the eyrie included mountain leveret, red grouse chick, meadow pipit juvenile and a water vole - a species considered rare in the UK now, although they are common in some Highland glens such as where this one would have been caught.



Ringing golden eagle chicks


I spent Monday ringing golden eagle chicks with Ewan who is studying their habitat use. All three nests were in Scots pines and there was only one chick in each, which is unusual for the area they live in. They often rear three chicks as there is abundant prey in the area, mostly mountain hares, red grouse and ptarmigan.

Ewan climbing up to one nest which requires skilled rope-work to do so safely.

Me with a five-week old chick. The eyries are so large that there is plenty room to sit on the nest along with the bird.

Two plucked red grouse lie in the nest with the chick.