Sea Eagle Chicks - Giants Arrival
On Mull, the sea eagle chicks have managed to survive the endless rain but, they are still very short of food. In the sea below their nest the expectant mother seals can wait no longer but, where should they give birth? They have to choose carefully. Their bellies ripple as their pups move inside them. They seem so uncomfortable but, strangely, water births haven’t occurred to seals.
Now her contractions are starting, so strongly that she is expressing some milk. It won’t be long. And, from their nest the eagles watch everything. They’re having a hard year.
They have aggressive neighbours. Buzzards, who’d attack their chicks if they left the nest unguarded. And the chicks are growing fast, building muscle and new flight feathers like their fathers’. It all takes energy and they are hungry, especially the bigger female. Moss can’t keep her alive.
Hebrides: Islands on the Edge - Ewan McGregor
This spring life is proving very hard on the land but these are sea eagles and now they need the sea to be full of food and it is!
The vast plankton bloom is feeding millions of fish. Common Dolphins come to the Hebrides just for the summer. Timing their journeys to arrive here now when the sea is at its richest.
They are joining from all directions it’s a huge group - a super pod, almost a thousand strong and they’re chasing the fish straight towards the coast where the Eagles live.
But, it makes no difference how many fish are swimming down there, for now, they are too deep for her to catch and the female chick is fading. But, fishing in deep water is no problem for seals. The large shoals are one reason why so many give birth here and from their nests the Eagles can see the new pups. Surely, soon, they’ll find something to feed their chicks.
This seal pup is a little different from the rest, it’s mother has misjudged the time and her pup is running out of time to feed. It can’t drink underwater. But as she tries to help, she moves just out of reach. This is why the pup won’t follow, the mother hasn’t bitten through the umbilical cord and the placenta is like an anchor dragging it down and now it’s stuck in the weed.
She doesn’t understand why the pup won’t come with her, so she tries sweeping her flipper under it, untangling the weed and the pup climbs onto her back. Like this it can swim without being snagged. For the moment, a piggyback from mum has saved its life but, it still hasn’t fed and the longer it spends in the water the more chilled it’s becoming all the more tired. She has to go to shore before it drowns.
Sea Eagle Chicks
The sea eagle chicks are begging for food. The adults can see the crisis is near but still they wait.
The mother can easily manage, but the rock is too slippery for the seal pup. It’s barely an hour old. It’s been struggling in the sea for almost its whole life, with the placenta dragging it down and it can’t climb out. So close, but it just can’t do it. At last, she sees what’s wrong and she bites the cord but, it might be too late. The pup has never fed and it no longer has the energy to move. The gulls have seen the floating placenta and grab their chance and so do the Sea Eagles.
With nothing to hold it back, the pup has reached its mother but both Eagles are here. The gulls scatter ahead of her but the male has seen something else. The threat of his mate has drawn the other gulls away freeing him to choose his target. It’s not the pup he wants, he wants the afterbirth. It’s full of nutrition for the chicks and there’s so many seals pupping now, for once, the chicks have more than they can eat.
And so, the sea’s richness is transformed into a young eagle.
This pup is a lucky one, what a first day and at last, it gets its feed. Perhaps, it will live to see the summer after all. It’s not far away now. And the giants are almost here.
At the cottage in the woods, the pine marten mother is checking for danger. She knows this dog and it’s quite safe. There’s a bond of trust established over the years and so tonight she’s brought her kit here for the first time to show it what to do. But, the kit still has lots to learn. Everything is new. For mum it’s easy but she was a clumsy kit too when she first came here and now her own youngster must learn to reach the same high windowsill.
The owner has put a log there especially.
Basking Shark
You’d think that seeing this coming towards you would be a reason to keep clear. But, the seals have nothing to fear because basking shark teeth are tiny. Instead, they feed by sieving plankton from the water, filtering the volume of an Olympic sized swimming pool every hour. And, once it has a good mouthful, the shark pauses to gulp it down. The plankton collects around areas of cooler water which show up as calm lanes in the sea. This is where the sharks concentrate and it’s where they used to be harpooned for the oil stored in their immense livers. But, now they can feed here in peace. Much about their lives is a mystery but, it has just been discovered that some of the sharks could have crossed the Atlantic to be here now.
For weeks the young female Eagle has been exercising her wings and today is the most important day of her life. It’s a dangerous moment. Other young Eagles have died taking their first flight from this nest. Her father leads the way and she goes. At first she’ll practice flying close to home and then she’ll really spread her wings. Over the next few years she’ll travel the length of this coast exploring the islands meeting and playing with other young Eagles and one day, perhaps, she’ll reclaim an ancestral nest site of her own here among the islands. The white-tailed Eagles of the Hebrides are truly back where they belong. And so are the sharks. With the sea around the islands, so productive that it sustains even their enormous bodies as it sustains the Eagles and everything else living here. Here at the edge of an ocean. Here at the edge of a continent. Here in the Hebrides.
External Links
Sea Eagle Chicks - RSPB Scotland
