Skip to main content

Golden Eagles

The move to declare the Golden Eagle as Scotland's national bird continues.

The Eagles are majestic creatures, although I have always had a soft spot for Puffins, which always strike me as rather attractive, with their clown like beaks.

I have only twice seen Golden Eagles in the wild.

Once was on the Isle of Mull. I was under a tree, taking shelter from the Atlantic showers. A rabbit appeared on a patch of grass about four metres from the tree. Suddenly the rabbit seemed almost to disappear, and in its place the Eagle. The rabbit had been killed instantly by the fell stoop of the gigantic bird. Slowly, almost lazily, it spread its wings once more and casting a contemptuous glance over its shoulder at me, its huge wings pushed it back into the sky, clutching its prey in its talons.

The whole encounter lasted only a few seconds but it was hard not to be in awe of this tremendous bird.

The other time I encountered these birds was walking up by Braemar, beyond Linn of Dee. There in the high hills I saw two Eagles. The were flying higher and higher, then they linked talons and folding their wings they span towards the earth- almost dancing. At a certain point they broke off and flew up to a greater height once more.

I am told that this was the mating flight of these great birds- and Eagles mate for life, so it is very rare to see them doing this.

I shall always recall with exhilaration the day I saw the Eagles dance.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
I've only ever see Golden Eagles from a great distance. I have seen the Sea Eagle a little closer as one surfed the updraft by a cliff I was standing at the top of on Canna. However my best Scottish ornathological story is seaing an Osprey dive into a Loch near Forres and take off again with a fish in its talons.
1:33 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post Truth and Justice

The past decade has seen the rise of so-called "post truth" politics.  Instead of mere misrepresentation of facts to serve an argument, political figures began to put forward arguments which denied easily provable facts, and then blustered and browbeat those who pointed out the lie.  The political class was able to get away with "post truth" positions because the infrastructure that reported their activity has been suborned directly into the process. In short, the media abandoned long-cherished traditions of objectivity and began a slow slide into undeclared bias and partisanship.  The "fourth estate" was always a key piece of how democratic societies worked, since the press, and later the broadcast media could shape opinion by the way they reported on the political process. As a result there has never been a golden age of objective media, but nevertheless individual reporters acquired better or worse reputations for the quality of their reporting and ...
1 comment
Read more

Liberal Democrats v Conservatives: the battle in the blogosphere

It is probably fair to say that the advent of Nick Clegg, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by our Conservative opponents. Indeed, it would hardly be wrong to say that the past few weeks has seen some "pretty robust" debate between Conservative and Liberal Democrat bloggers. Even the Queen Mum of blogging, the generally genial Iain Dale seems to have been featuring as many stories as he can to try to show Liberal Democrats in as poor a light as possible. Neither, to be fair, has the traffic been all one way: I have "fisked' Mr. Cameron's rather half-baked proposals on health, and attacked several of the Conservative positions that have emerged from the fog of their policy making process. Most Liberal Democrats have attacked the Conservatives probably with more vigour even than the distrusted, discredited Labour government. So what lies behind this sharper debate, this emerging war in the blogosphere? Partly- in my ...
20 comments
Read more

One Year On

  Head vabariigi iseseisvuspäeva! Happy Estonian Independence Day! It is one year since I stood outside the Estonian Parliament for the traditional raising of the national flag from Tall Hermann tower. Looking at the young fraternities gathered with their flags, I was very sure that Estonia too would soon be facing the aggression of the criminal Russian regime. A tragic and dark day. 5 eyes intelligence had been clear: an all out invasion was going to happen, and Putin´s goals included- and still include- "restoration" of Russian imperial power across Europe, even to the Atlantic. Yet there was one Western intelligence failure: we all underestimated the guts of the Ukrainian armed forces, the ZSU, and its President and people. One year on, Estonia, and indeed all the front line states against Russia, knows that Ukraine saved us. Estonia used that time to prepare itself, should that "delayed" onslaught ever be unleashed, but equally the determination of Kaja Kallas, ...
Post a Comment
Read more