The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: CarolineJ on April 10, 2016, 07:49:22 pm
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With spectacular timing, given the whole village started lambing this week, a pair of young golden eagles has moved into the area - I've seen them hunting the burn twice today and then one landed on a telegraph pole on my croft.
Beautiful to see, but why couldn't they have taken up residence a few months later in the year??
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Think I'd donate a lamb to be able to watch golden eagles.
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I used to live very near to an eagle's eyrie and we often used to see the pair flying over our head. It being an area of hill sheep, there must have been a few lambs disappeared.
There was only local tale of two climbers who were heading up a rock face immediately below the eyrie when half a sheep plummeted past them, very close. The climbers looked up, saw two angry looking eagles and decided that somewhere else would be better to climb.
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There'd be no point in them hanging around when there were no young lambs to take :innocent:
But yes, how wonderful to live somewhere you can see eagles close up.
We had a Peregrine sitting on a post just outside our kitchen window today, but not quite as exciting as eagles.
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Isn't that a quote most popular in action movies? :roflanim: :roflanim: I do love golden eagles myself, fascinating creatures; however if one of them started decimating my lamb population (IE livelihood) then no matter how spectacular they are something would have to be done, but only if caught in the act. I prefer watching them in their natural habitat in America or north Africa. I think I read somewhere that they also are native to scotland, can't remember where though ???
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So what 'something' would you do WBF, given they are a protected species and you need to stay within the law?
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seeing as it is against the law to shoot them I would gather as much evidence as possible and explain my position, not that they would listen as they haven't with the badgers, and see what the authorities would do. However seeing as I live in rather a harsh part of Wales it is highly unlikely that they would choose to live here. Partly because I havent many trees. There was one further in land a year or two ago which was just passing through and I think it made a page in the local news.
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Well I guess there are only so many lambs an eagle can eat. Easy for me to say as they are not likely to start roosting in Cambridge. I took my son eagle flying for his 18th birthday it was a wonderful, but very windy experience.
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I was living in Scotland when we had some nearby and I know there are lots of areas there that have them.
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I have never seen a Golden Eagle and would love to, even if it meant keeping lambs indoors for a few weeks. We have buzzards which decimate my beloved bantams given the chance and a sparrow hawk who seems almost friendly I see him so often!
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No indoors to take them to for most people here, just a few lambing pens for the new arrivals and then straight back out (in rain jackets if necessary).
They were back again this morning, so some rather rubbish pictures - they were about half a mile away for the flight shots and about a quarter of a mile away for the telegraph pole one, and even my 400mm lens struggles at that distance! (Cow included for scale in the first shot...)
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll302/cazmanian_minx/eagle1_zpsjzwgfdh3.jpg)
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll302/cazmanian_minx/eagle3_zpsu3l9qdpw.jpg)
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll302/cazmanian_minx/eagle2_zpsx34dwent.jpg)
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Great photos.
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:love: :love:
Gorgeous creatures. I was lucky enough to get close with a (tame) Harris Hawk once and have nursed a fair few barn owls and kestrals in my previous job but those eagles are something else .. wow
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Beautiful birds,I suppose you just have to hope their are plenty rabbits around to divert them from your lambs
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I just read that the last Golden Eagle we had South of the Border has not returned to Haweswater so is presumed dead.
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Not a wild eagle but a stunning bird flying day in the Lake District
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Hi Caroline
Great photos, but these are buzzards you've got, not golden eagles. Even without the pics, the fact that you said you saw it perched on a telegraph pole was a good clue - golden eagles very seldom do this, but it's a favourite habit of buzzards.
Still nice to have around, with the bonus that they pose no threat to your lambs! - just the local rabbit population.
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Hi Caroline
Great photos, but these are buzzards you've got, not golden eagles. Even without the pics, the fact that you said you saw it perched on a telegraph pole was a good clue - golden eagles very seldom do this, but it's a favourite habit of buzzards.
Still nice to have around, with the bonus that they pose no threat to your lambs! - just the local rabbit population.
I'm not sure it isn't an eagle, it doesn't look as pale underneath as buzzards do round here. But can't zoom in enough to see if it's wearing trousers or what it's bill looks like. I wouldn't know from the flying pictures, need to see them flying to tell them apart. I'm sure more knowledgable people will know. As for what you could do: scare crows in the fields?
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Does look more like a buzzard and we have far too many of them around here. They've wiped out the adders on the local common land. They often perch on telegraph poles (and sometimes on the bridge across our pond, only 10 metres from the farmhouse). We could be seen doing a wild, capering dance complete with bloodcurdling yells on occasions this Spring as we tried to discourage them from hunting around the farmyard and pond, which is home to many quite rare wild birds as well as our poultry. The plumage of young birds differs somewhat from that of mature ones.
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We've got buzzards here as well and they were dwarfed by this pair! I've also never seen a buzzard hover in the same spot for quarter of an hour. Positively IDd as juvenile golden eagles by three birdwatchers in the area. Thankfully they've moved on now, haven't seen them for 8 or 9 days.
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The problem with birds in the air is that there's nothing to scale them against. But hovering / hanging in the air is a behaviour of buzzards (edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iea0gmRPgPA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iea0gmRPgPA)), much more than eagles. You can also compare the shape of the tame eagle in pharnorth's picture with the flight pics - the eagle has a proportionately (as well as absolutely) longer wings and tail - buzzard is altogether "stockier" looking in flight. Finally, and conclusively, the buzzard perched on the pole, although a bit distant, distinctly shows the slightly U-shaped pale breast band characteristic of buzzard, and never seen in eagles.
Not trying to be contentious - but here in NW Scotland when there's lambs about, it's useful to know the difference!