Saturday 28 August 2010

White Tailed Eagle

Well well what can i say. Bank Holiday Weekend and we saw one of the most beautiful birds i have ever seen and one i would have never expected to see at The Farne Island a White-tailed Eagle.

Now i know it's the largest UK bird of prey but as i have only seen pictures before i did not realize how big they are, and this one was a youngster. As i manoeuvred the boat closer and closer to it,  i just could not believe my eyes the size of it.

I quickly grabbed my camera as i did not want to miss this opportunity of a picture as i knew i would probably never see this great creature at The Farnes again.  I stopped the boat at the right angel, opened my window and took a picture. Bingo got it, but the Eagle never moved so i just kept on clicking and clicking just in case my pictures were not that good. Then i noticed that the bird was tagged on both wings and ringed. The tags were bright yellow and had the letter 'V' on it. It also had a satellite tracker on its back. Well that's what it looked like anyway.

As i was snapping away the bird decided to fly away and as i sat back into my seat i heard a gentleman say to his daughter "Well i hope you enjoyed that as you are a lucky girl to see such a great bird at The Farne Islands" She replied with "Yes daddy but will i still see a Puffin"
Kids eh!

As we steamed away to another island we watched the bird fly away then all of a sudden it turned and landed on Staple Island. I quickly picked up my phone to ring the lads on the islands. "Sorry this phone is turned off" again i tried another number "Sorry i'm not here at the moment" Well I'll try another number. It rang and Tom from the Inner Farne answered.
All i could say was get yourself across to Staple Island as there is a ........signal gone. Typical.

WHITE-TAILED EAGLE
UP UP
AND AWAY
Well I did get in touch with the lads and they did get to see it so they were very pleased. Fingers crossed it will still be there tomorrow.

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