White-tailed eagles: collecting chicks for translocation

08/28/20 • 20 min

Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation: hands-on conservation

In early August 2020, seven white-tailed eagles were released on the Isle of Wight in the second year of a five-year project to establish a breeding population there. Using an audio diary recorded by Ian Perks of the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, this podcast looks back at the early stages of this year's work, and finds out how some of the chicks were collected from their nests. The podcast follows Ian and Justin Grant as they travel to the Western Isles, where with the help of Robin Reid of the RSPB, they check nest sites for suitable candidates for translocation.
The Covid 19 outbreak meant a very different way of working for the team, but this podcast hears how, while observing lockdown rules, the project was able to continue uninterrupted. One of the biggest differences was that, due to the Covid 19 outbreak, the nests had not been checked in advance this year. Many were found to have only one young, and chicks can only be taken from nests with at least two. In some cases, though, Ian fitted a satellite radio to single chicks, meaning that data will be fed back from birds that will fledge in the Western Isles as well as on the Isle of Wight.
Ian and Fraser Cormack later made trips to Mull, Skye and Sutherland, in the north of the mainland, in an effort to get as many chicks as possible for translocation, before the birds were sent south to the Isle of Wight, to be kept in hacking cages prior to their release.
Contributors (in order of appearance):
Tim Mackrill
Ian Perks
Fraser Cormack
Roy Dennis
Robin Reid
Producer: Moira Dennis
Music: Realness by Kai Engel, downloadable from the Free Music Archive
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Previous Episode

White-tailed eagles, one year on: learning the landscape

It's exactly a year since the release of six white-tailed eagles on the Isle of Wight, a return to a place where they last bred in 1780. It's a good moment, then, to take a look at the progress of the birds released in 2019, and to hear about the impact they have had on some of the people who have encountered them.
In this five-year project, working in partnership with Forestry England, the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation aims to translocate up to sixty white-tailed eagles from Scotland to the island. In this, the second year, the Covid 19 outbreak has naturally meant a different way of working, but a second batch of birds has been released, as planned. Future podcasts will look at the detail of how this translocation was carried out: how the birds were collected from their eyries, how they were cared for by Roy and his team at his home in the Scottish Highlands, moved to the Isle of Wight and finally released in early August of this year. Already, a bond is forming between one of the 2019 birds and the new arrivals, and fascinating satellite data is telling Roy and his colleagues about the way that eagles learn their landscape, shedding light on the amazing journeys they undertake in the years before they are old enough to breed.
Producer: Moira Dennis
Contributors (in order of appearance): Fraser Cormack, Tim Mackrill, Dave Sexton, Pauline Jacobs, Roy Dennis, Ian Perks, Steve Egerton-Read, Ed Drewitt, RJ Macaulay
Music credit: Realness by Kai Engel, from the Free Music Archive
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Next Episode

White-tailed eagles: from Scotland to the Isle of Wight

In the previous podcast, Ian Perks described his work collecting eagles for translocation from nests in the Western Isles to a new home on the Isle of Wight. Now, the chicks safely collected, it's time to care for them while they wait to be taken south. This is the 2020 cohort for the white-tailed eagle reintroduction programme, a joint venture between the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation and Forestry England which had a successful start twelve months ago. In this year of lockdown, though, it's not as straightforward as it might be, with the usual team unable to travel to help feed the eagles and drive them south.
The challenges of this year of Covid 19 are dealt with, though, and the birds successfully taken for release on the Isle of Wight, thanks largely to a father-and-daughter volunteer team with exactly the right skills for this project.
Producer: Moira Dennis
Contributors (in order of appearance): Leanne Sargeant, Ian Perks, Moira Dennis, Roy Dennis, Graham Mountford, Phoebe Dennis, Helen Mountford
Music: Realness by Kai Engel, downloadable from the Free Music Archive
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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