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.

Eyes Up!

Some real West Coast weather this week but the chicks don't seem too bothered by it. On Monday we were treated to a cracking view of the osprey feeding above the loch. It had found itself a great wee perch to enjoy a trout or two so fingers crossed it'll book that table again!

Skye and Frisa have been feeling the draft and have taken to perching out of the wind up above the nest so our intrepid visitors have been leaving the warmth of the hide. Their patience has been more than rewarded with some great views. This morning, the male bird, Skye, flew right over our heads, so close that you could clearly see his eyeball. Absolutely fantastic! Later on, a juvenile also flew over our heads. From below, we caught the yellow wing tags but no more - could it have been Haggis or Oatie, the 2006 chicks? Fortunately when this year's chicks fledge we'll have the satellite tags so no more wondering what they are up to!

Won't be long now though. With the chicks celebrating their 10 week birthday on Sunday, they could fledge any time after that so the next fortnight we'll be keeping an extra-close eye on them.

Keeping Tabs

Its not just the birds that fly up here, time seems to as well. The chicks are now 8.5 weeks old and have been introduced to some real Mull weather this week as the we 'enjoy' some refreshing showers - keeps the dust down at least! They should fledge sometime in mid-July so they can be seen stretching those wings at the moment and building up some much-needed muscle. Yesterday, the satellite tags were fitted to the birds so once they fledge we can keep a really close eye on them and find out more about their dispersal patterns over the next 5 years.

Its a busy time for lots of anxious adult birds at the moment as all sorts of chicks take to the wing and some of the smaller birds are on their second clutch. Some enterprising swallows have built a completely round nest on the security light over the door of the hide. There are four eggs in there at the moment so we'll be keeping an eye on them too with the aid of a CCTV camera.

Nest To See You

Another fantastic week of weather despite a few showers which have at least served to keep the dust down. Justin, the RPSB tree-climber was up this week to ring the chicks which are now 7 weeks old. The 2008 nest seems to be in great shape and there was plenty evidence of prey up there so all's well and the chicks are still growing, growing, growing. Mind you, from up there he may have got an eagle's eye view but he did miss the osprey mobbing a juvenille sea eagle near the hide! We've also been treated to a cracking view of a very obliging peregrine falcon which perched near the hide for over an hour! Just goes to show that Loch Frisa is still full of surprises!