Up, Up and Away

Well...thats all folks! Mara and Breagha are both off the nest and getting ready to make their way in the world. Soon you'll be able to follow them on the RSPB website and they should be hard at work soon learning how to hunt, fly and fish. Fingers crossed they keep entertaining us for a good few years.

Ranger-led trips to the Hide will close on Thursday 24th June but from Tuesday 29th July - Sunday 31st August, the hide will be open to the public from 10am - 1pm on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. For more info, call 01680 300640

Enjoy the rest of the summer and keep your eyes on the sky!

Up, up and away

Its a nerve-wracking time waiting for the chicks to fledge but on Sunday, Breagha (female), took her first tentative flight much to our delight. Her first voyage took her up around the nest a couple of times before landing behind the forest to spend a couple of days gathering herself for the next one. Mara is still to make the leap. He was bravely branching-out yesterday so will he still be on the nest this morning...better go and have a look!

On The Edge...

Well, it could happen any day now. At nearly 12 weeks old, Mara and Breagha are due to make their first flight - albeit a flight scheduled to land fairly soon after take-off and involve a week on the runway before the next departure. Skye & Frisa seem to be enjoying the rest as they reduce the number of feeds going into the nest in order to make the chicks take more likely to venture out for a feed. The adults have done an awful lot of sitting around this week and not always in their usual spots so they are certainly keeping us on our toes. We were treated to a spectacular fishing expedition though - after a morning of carefully eyeing-up the loch, Frisa treated up to a display of fishing eagle-style one early afternoon. That wee trout couldn't have seen her coming but the chicks were certainly glad of it and made very short work of it!

Introducing...

Well, those clever folk in the lab have returned the DNA results on our chicks so we can proudly announce that we have a male and female chick in this year's brood. Salen Primary School's Gaelic Department had the honour of naming them so ... without further ado, I introduce Mara (male) and Breagha (female)! Both of these are Gaelic names, with 'Mara' meaning 'sea' and 'Breagha' meaning 'beautiful' and pronounced 'bree-ha' - very apt as I'm sure you'll agree!

Thankfully, Mara and Breagha remained unruffled by the high winds and heavy rainfall that marked the start of July up here - ah, Scottish summers! It really isn't going to be long before they fledge and on Sunday they'll be 11 weeks old. Skye and Frisa seem to be slowing down the feeding efforts a little, hoping no doubt that hungry chicks will be a bit easier to tempt off the nest when its time to make the jump. After that, its some intensive eagle training as Mara and Breagha learn the ropes.

PS. Good news too from the swallows nest with the hatch of the first chick early Thursday morning. All seems to be going well there so hopefully all four eggs will bear chicks.