Mull eagles film wings its way to BBC
Footage of Mull’s whitetailed sea eagles caught on camera by wildlife film-maker Tom Campbell has been broadcast as part of the BBC’s Blue Planet UK.
A five-minute version of Tom’s film Where Eagles Dare was watched by millions of TV viewers in March.
Thanks to a crowdfunding appeal that featured in The Oban Times last year, Tom, then a film-making graduate, managed to raise £1,200 to fund the full-length film which was part of his degree course.
The film has an original musical score composed by Alex Hill and is narrated by Scottish actor Garry Summers. It also featured Mull RSPB officer Dave Sexton and Martin Keivers from Mull Charters.
Tom, who is the son of Margi Campbell, provost of Oban St John’s Cathedral, said: ‘I was really honoured that the BBC used my
‘I have been lucky enough to start getting more work as a freelance cameraman and hope to keep progressing and to continue to document the beauty and plight of our natural world.’
footage and really hope that more people will better understand the sea eagle and therefore strive to protect them as well as want to go see them.
‘The best way to see sea eagles and support them is to visit Mull and book to be taken on a Mull Eagle Watch tour which is currently running on Craignure Golf Course where the pair Anna and Scalla are believed to have a new chick.’
This April saw Tom return to Mull to catch up with friends he made as well as Anna and Scalla.
After working as a runner on the BBC’s popular Winterwatch show, he has now rejoined the programme for Springwatch as a story developer keeping a close eye on webcams and recording any action as it happens.
‘I have been lucky enough to start getting more work as a freelance cameraman and hope to keep progressing and to continue to document the beauty and plight of our natural world,’ he said.
Whitetailed eagles were declared extinct in the UK in 1918 but were reintroduced to Rum in the 1970s and then spread across different areas of the Highlands, including Mull. The island became home of the first wild-bred chick in the UK for around 70 years.