White-tailed eagles: from Scotland to the Isle of Wight
09/05/20 • 22 min
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/
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/
Previous Episode
White-tailed eagles: collecting chicks for translocation
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/
Next Episode
White-tailed eagles: a project milestone
The project to reintroduce white-tailed eagles to the Isle of Wight continues, and in this - the second year of five - seven birds have been released. This podcast picks up the story from when they were taken south from Scotland to their new home - pilot Graham and his daughter Helen Mountford of Civil Air UK making two voluntary trips to fly the birds to the Isle of Wight - but instead of focussing on the fortunes of this year's birds, we look instead at a major milestone in the project overall. One bird - G3-24 - has returned to the Isle of Wight after two months in Scotland. What this means for the project as a whole is discussed by Roy Dennis and his colleagues, as they outline what they hope for the future and reflect on the wider purpose of this reintroduction project.
Producer: Moira Dennis
Contributors (in order of appearance): Tim Mackrill, Steve Egerton-Read, Graham Mountford, Helen Mountford, Ian Perks, Fraser Cormack, Leanne Sargeant, Roy Dennis, Lucy Allen
Music credit: Realness by Kai Engel, form the Free Music Archive
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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