The big day – our wildlife tour. Spoiler – we saw golden eagles. And other stuff. It’s worth noting that a lot of what we saw today was a very, very long way away. Our guide was quite keen we got nowhere near the wildlife (fine) and was very good at spotting birds which we couldn’t see with the naked eye – some several miles away! So picture quality isn’t always great in this post!
Breakfast in the hotel (not a great hotel by all accounts, but that’s the luck of the draw) and we headed off to meet our guide, Andrew, 20 minutes from Tobermory in a village called Salen. We arrived on time, he didn’t, and the two other guests (Belgian) were even later, but the sunrise this morning had been amazing and once on the road we went to Loch Na Keal to revisit the site of the white tailed eagles we found yesterday.
The eagles weren’t in the trees, instead on the shoreline where Andrew said they’d been all night – about 1km from where we were. We stayed there a while, and saw a lone otter feeding.
We then headed back to the top of the loch, and around towards where the eagles were – a much better view from here!
From here we went around the other side of the loch, saw deer, more white tailed eagles and otters (which were in the act of making babies, apparently). And a small hydro power station.
We kept moving, our guide taking us to each potential site in turn, stopping, checking, and moving on if nothing could be seen. He knew all the eagle nest sites along the route, which made finding them easier. With otters every mile (that’s the size of a female’s territory, the males being around 7-8 miles where he ‘has control over ‘services’ therefore 7-8 females) they were pretty easy to spot in the calm waters. We found numerous more white tailed eagles before lunch, for us that was day 2 of M&S picnic lunch. Somehow our guide also spotted a juvenile white tailed eagle on top of a hill drying its wings.
Then onto “raptor alley”, apparently our best chance of seeing more eagles. We hit the jackpot here – we saw a pair of golden eagles soaring above us, then we think another (female) golden eagle, plus more white tailed eagles. The area we stopped in was geologically interesting too, with the hillside and valley bottom covered in drumlins. A bit further on we came across a herd of red deer, with a massive stag in its midst.
WordPress decided the golden eagle image above was the least interesting – this is the picture. Note the lack of feathers on the wing-tip. The other in the pair has feathers missing on the opposing wing-tip.
On the way back to our start point we saw numerous other birds – including more eagles and their nests. A good haul for the day.
Worth adding, our guide (Andrew) has lived on Mull for 30 years and has been a guide for 8 years. Before this he worked in the salmon farms, having studied ecology at Edinburgh University. He told us about the process of fishing – the sea bed under the cages is pretty much dead, but every 18 months they shut the site down, remove the cages, and fully clean the cages and equipment before returning them once the sea bed recovers. Also, the sea bed just 50m from the cages is unaffected, so the temporary damage is quite localised. Most of the fisheries in the Western Isles supply M&S – the supplied weight of fish he quoted was ridiculous – something like 30,000 tons per year. And it’s all died red/pink using a natural extract supplied by Roche, which is sourced from the crustaceans the salmon eat in the wild – this costs 20% of the final cost of producing the salmon, making it the most expensive feed given to farmed animals.
Back in Tobermory we had a wander in the evening sun, then takeaway for tea. The moon made an appearance in a cloudless sky – this could be the last for a few days as bad weather is coming….
Breakfast – The Tobermory Hotel
Lunch – picnic by M&S
Dinner – Hook’d, Tobermory
Hotel – The Tobermory Hotel