Monday 28 June 2010

Eagle and otter spotting

Many visitors ask “will we see an eagle?” (Or otter, or either or both).

Let’s start with eagles…

Tourist Eagles, Golden Eagles and White Tailed Sea Eagles certainly live and breed on Skye. Sea eagles are more scarce, but any of the three species can be seen almost anywhere.

Here is a shot of a short sighted Tourist Eagle looking for the way to Staffin...

The Tourist Eagle is by far the most common of our eagles. This species has another, more correct name – the Buzzard.

Buzzards are so common, they probably outnumber our sparrows. In flight, they look very eagle-like, though they tend to ‘flap-flap, soar, flap-flap soar’ whereas golden eagles will flap strongly and steadily or soar for ages without flapping at all. The outstretched wings of a buzzard are slightly rounded at the front edge, and buzzards fan out their tails more than golden eagles in flight. Golden eagle's wings are straight-edged and their tails are longer and more square. Buzzards have a longer neck. Buzzards usually hover when hunting and then pounce from above, whereas golden eagles fly in onto their prey and will also take other birds in flight. Buzzards make a cat like ‘mee-oo’ call in flight. Eagles are silent. And that eagle you have just passed perched on a fence post will be a buzzard – Eagles don’t perch.

We also have hen harriers, which look a bit like buzzards…

But when you have seen enough of them – you really do start to see the differences – honest!

So that was easy!

Sea eagles are HUGE. When you see one, you will know you’ve seen one. They are often referred to as ‘flying barn doors’ because they have massive straight edged wings and when soaring, wings will be held flat (not in a shallow V shape). Sea eagles don’t soar as often as golden eagles, and flap heavily. Sea eagles mostly eat fish or sea shore carrion, so are most commonly seen over or near water.

I’ll deal with otters in a separate post…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha Ha! I made this very mistake on my first visit to Skye,and spent a good half hour or so watching what I thought was a Golden Eagle, pretty embarrassing really......

Nick

Richard Dorrell said...

It's OK to watch buzzards! When you see these birds often enough, you soon get used to recognising the differences - not long now til the move, Nick!