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.

Puffins are still here.

Well i have never known the Puffins stay as long. We only seen 4 today but they should have gone a good while ago. Mind I'm not complaining though as they are still a great bird to see. I will give it a few more days and they will be gone for good. I will have to ask David Steel (Head Warden) at The Farnes if he knows when the last puffin was recorded to be still here. I do know that they have been known to come back to the islands later but to stay as long as this who only knows.

I'll report back with my findings soon.

Puffins

Well the puffins are still here which is great as they seem to leave when the school holidays start so at least the kids get to see them. I think it was about the 27th July last year that they left so i just hope they stay a little longer.

The weather has not been to bad over the last few weeks, so fingers crossed it keeps up.

Over the last 2 weeks we have been keeping our eyes open for the odd bird or two which you don't really see very often. About a week ago we saw 2 Guillemots on a ledge on the south of Staple Island. We were a little shocked as all the Guillemots have left a long time ago.  As we have watched them day after day we noticed that their was a chick below the mother. On the morning of 4th Aug we noticed that the last Guillemot family had finally gone.

SIGHTING SO FAR

Whimbril
Turnstones
Purple Sandpipers
Heron
1 Harbour Porpoise