Scotland: eagle watching in Mull

Weighing in at up to 15lb, white-tailed eagles are our largest bird of prey Photo: ALAMY

By Sara Evans

Through binoculars I can see them in perfect detail – a red deer fawn and four hinds. From its mossy daybed, the fawn – honey-coloured and drowsy-eyed – watches the hinds nibble gently among the wild flowers that decorate the lower slopes of this mountainside on the western edge of Mull.

But lovely as they are, it’s not deer that I have come to find. It’s Mull’s eagles. Just a 45-minute ferry trip from Scotland’s west coast, Mull – the second largest island of the Inner Hebrides – is home to some outstanding birds of prey.

My first sighting is of a white-tailed eagle. Flying high above me, its attention is focused on a rabbit. Not one scampering around below, but one that’s already been caught and is being carried aloft by another bird of prey: a buzzard.

Usually buzzards look large, but against the eagle – now approaching purposefully – it appears dwarfed. Weighing in at up to 15lb, white-tailed eagles (often called sea eagles) are our largest bird of prey. With its meat-cleaver beak, talons that Cruella de Vil would kill for and startling eight-foot wingspan, the white-tailed eagle is a formidable feathery beast; the undoubted king of the British skies... read here...