ON THE WILD SIDE
GOLDEN EAGLE
WHENEVER I see beautiful, clean, young lambs wobbling their way into the world I can’t help but remember visiting Scotland.
When lambs are born their placentas feed a vast number of creatures from ravens to foxes, but up in the Highlands of Scotland, they feed something more spectacular.
Although people think of golden eagles taking lambs, they cannot carry anything that heavy, but they can carry placentas to their nests.
They drop them like a bomb, exploding blood all over the nest. It’s a gruesome sight, but the chicks are happy.
Let’s take a closer look at these kings of the Highlands.
Golden eagles are spectacular creatures despite not being the biggest, strongest or rarest bird in the UK.
They play second fiddle to the white-tailed eagle, but more of them means they rule the Highlands.
They are incredible hunters and have been known to kill foxes. It’s not that common, as they are happier with tastier prey like mountain hares and grouse.
But like so many birds of prey, because of their taste for game birds they have been pushed to the brink of extinction, being pushed out of England and Wales in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Attempts have been made in recent years to reintroduce golden eagles to their old haunts, but with mixed success.
Scotland now has a fairly stable population. There are somewhere around 500 breeding pairs there.
But, historically speaking, there is no evidence that numbers have ever been higher. This is to do with the size of their territories. A golden eagle pair likes to keep a territory of 60 square miles or more, and since Scotland’s area is just over 30,000 square miles, that makes 500 pairs just about the maximum.
Golden eagles happily live for over 20 years, and in their home territory may build several nests on cliff sides or treetops. These nests, known as eyries, can be 6ft wide and are often reused year after year, sometimes by multiple generations. They don’t start fresh and just pile more nesting on top. Occasionally old nests get built on so much and become so heavy that they collapse the tree they are in. Maybe one day they will come back in numbers to the rest of the UK, as they can’t grow much more in Scotland.