Welcome back sea eagles and red kites
Immigration is a sensitive subject these days. For instance, it may have been a major factor during the Referendum and indeed possibly one of the main reasons for the resulting Brexit vote.
Yet increasingly we are being reminded of how vital immigrant labour is to fruit and vegetable farmers up and down the land. Furthermore, our vital National Health Service would grind to a halt were it not for the large numbers of immigrants currently employed by it. Many of our industries, including what is for Scotland one of our most important sectors, tourism, is also heavily reliant upon migrant labour.
However, there is another aspect of immigration that may be marginally less controversial and which does not in fact relate to human beings. Nevertheless, it is an immigration of choice which has seen the reintroductions in recent years of red kites and the white tailed or sea eagles.
Apart from a rump of red kites, which managed somehow to hang on in mid-Wales, both of these birds, previously endemic to these shores had disappeared a hundred years or more ago. Both I’m afraid, were shot and poisoned unmercifully and with the exception of that core of kites in Wales, otherwise became extinct as British breeding birds.
The last British sea eagle is reputed to have disappeared in 1916 and meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, their numbers although falling, nevertheless persisted despite widescale persecution.
But the introduction of organochlorine pesticides such as DDT and dieldrin and the use by industry of PCBs quickly led to a further depletion in numbers, especially in the Baltic region.
Only in northern Norway, where levels of industry and the resultant pollution had remained low, had breeding populations of these magnificent raptors bucked the trend and shown increases rather than decreases.
Attempts had been made to re-introduce sea eagles to Scotland between 1959 and 1968, without success. The Isle of Rum was, in the 1980s, chosen as the most suitable place to try again. Rum had become a National Nature Reserve under the auspices of the then Nature Conservancy Council, subsequently coming under the control of the newly-created Scottish Natural Heritage.
The first of the new immigrant eaglets arrived in 1975. By1985, a total of 82 youngsters, taken from nests in northern Norway, had been released. Sea eagles frequently rear twin chicks and so where that had been the case among selected nests in Norway, one of those two chicks had been removed to contribute to their restitution in Scotland. Sea eagles take a few years to mature and it was 1985, nearly 80 years after the last recorded breeding success that Scotland’s first new generation sea eagle chick emerged on the island of Mull.
Red kites had been absent for rather longer. Condemned to extinction in England since 1871, a similar fate had befallen the kite in Scotland by 1879. Their disappearance was again, largely due to persecution. Yet for centuries, kites had been virtually the “skaffies” of many a town and city up and down Britain long before the concept of Environmental Health Departments had materialised.
Until their inception, most conurbations were pretty smelly places, for rubbish and more potently sewage, was literally dumped in the streets. And kites did a pretty good job in cleaning up those streets by picking away at what scraps of half eaten and rotten food could be found in that rubbish.
Curiously enough tales of kites swooping to snatch the likes of fancy handkerchiefs from the breast pockets of passing gentlemen were rife. Today’s new generation of red kites retain a curious fascination for scraps of material, for they frequently decorate their nests with bits of old clothing they have purloined. However, the efficiency of red kites as they scoured the streets for scraps and therefore kept them cleaner than would have otherwise been the case, even earned them the protection of royal decrees.
Kites therefore, presumably became less fearful of mankind, which perhaps contributed to their demise for they were probably very easy targets for the guns.
Only in the remoteness of central Wales did kites persist. In recent times there have been successive re-introductions of red kites to many parts of Britain, mostly brought in from Eastern Europe where they are plentiful.
Now most of us can enjoy the languid, floating flight of these highly attractive birds as they proscribe wide circles in the sky. A day or so ago I had the pleasure of watching one such bird pirouetting right above me, showing off to perfection its magnificent aerobatic skills, its widespread wings – with a wingspan as much as six feet – and its hallmark, that characteristic forked tail.
Essentially, kites are scavengers. Although they may sometimes feed on small mammals such as voles and may also prey on rabbits where they still exist, like buzzards they are great opportunists, always eager to exploit carrion.
These re-introductions have not of course, been void of controversy. Sea eagles, now breeding successfully in many, mostly coastal parts of Scotland, are accused of taking lambs. It can be argued that in crofting country, lamb mortality is naturally high and dead lambs represent easy pickings for all kinds of predators. However, any loss seems doubly significant on crofts, which inevitably find the going financially tough. Still, I can’t help feeling that the scale of losses claimed, is often wildly exaggerated.