traveller issue 4
Our Bourton helped us travel for three exciting weeks in the Outer Hebrides. It is barren and beautiful, sunny and stormy, the islands are fascinating and driving is courteous, but wider patches of road are strictly for passing oncoming vehicles. There were many interesting moments but the highlight was finding eagles around us one afternoon on South Uist.
In a glorious break in foul weather and having scrambled the Bourton up to seaward on a narrow road where every other opening was the sacred "passing place", we spotted an eagle, it was a white-tailed sea eagle, we watched as it drifted over an inland cliff and disappeared.
We stayed, intent on an impromptu lunch. The eagle returned and rested on a rock just 50 yards away, it then glided towards us over the cliff and dropped to an unnoticed ledge and a huge pile of old sticks. There, to our amazement, where she had landed, two fluffy white/grey chicks popped up and she began to feed them. She tended them very carefully, then flew away, after a short delay returned to continue to feed the chicks, this happened several times in half an hour.
A second eagle circled gently then settled on a clifftop post: "our" hen rose and settled companionably opposite for a while before resuming her duties. Her mate sat on his post for a long time, and then we noticed a lump of some prey in his left talon. Eventually he reached down to tear at this with his beak. Then it occurred to us he was not eating it, but shredding it.
His mate clearly understood his male awkwardness, and when he finally dropped over the cliff to the ledge and nest, she moved aside to encourage him in. He then moved to the middle of the nest turning slowly round and round, until finally just dropping his contribution and left the nest. The hen continued to feed the chicks.
Two herring gulls appeared, ridiculously half her size and in their boldness dared approach her and finally attempted to "buzz" her. She had regally ignored them but at this she turned her disdainful glance briefly upon them, they never returned.