THE Isle of Rum brings back many memories of the time when I was a frequent visitor as part of the job with the then Nature Conservancy Council.
The wild goats, their origin and behaviours, always fascinated me and it must be one of the only places anywhere where you can see goats, Highland cattle and red deer all feeding in the same small area. What brings them together is the seaweed on the shoreline.
A good place for this was in Harris Glen on the west coast of the island. At night the Manx shearwaters were always worth going to see on the tops of the hills, or hear them would be a more adequate description. It was always said that the Norsemen who named the hills called one Trollval after hearing the shearwaters calling below ground. They thought they were trolls.
The red deer were also an attraction, although contrary to the media, in particular Autumnwatch and Springwatch on the TV, the stags do not spend all their time fighting.
Perhaps if there was one memory that stood out amongst all of them it was the sea eagles, as that was the place where the first of the major re-introduction programmes started off. John Love was in charge on the island of these magnificent birds of prey.
Very few birds have impressed me so much as the sea eagles and when the birds were older they were kept tethered in a large enclosure on the upper parts of the island.
What started my train of thought over the Isle of Rum was the recent publicity from the RSPB, one of the leading organisations in the latest re-introduction programme when birds were released at a secret location in Fife. The RSPB sent out some superb photographs, one of which is shown here courtesy of photographer Ken Jack and Ken Jack Agencies.
Even without anything to give an idea of scale, the sheer power and size of the sea eagle being released is readily apparent.
It reminded me of a very special day on the island when John Love let me know that the following morning he would be releasing one of the sea eagles. I can remember the thrill at being so close to the bird and the final moment when John lifted off the hood from the bird's head and then off it flew.
It circled some distance away and even then I realised that this was only part of the story as there would be monitoring of each bird's success for many years to come. It is easy to overlook or forget the monitoring, but the follow-ups are as crucial to the programme as the actual reintroduction.
The birds have leg rings but also, as the photograph shows, some wing tags. Both these methods means that observers can track their movements and give an idea what happens to them and whether they breed. On the negative side, it also gives details of any birds that are found dead for whatever reason, mainly illegal persecution that unbelievably still takes place.
As with many such reintroduction programmes there have been difficulties and perhaps the biggest controversy is over the relationships between sea eagles and lambs. It is still not clear how many lambs that are taken are fit and healthy ones or weak for some reason or actually dead when the eagle takes them.
Persecution in various forms has taken its toll, with some proven cases of poisoning, and then there are the egg collectors.
How egg collectors keep going in this day and age is a mystery, especially as in most case the eggs are just placed into a cabinet and not looked at again.
Despite all these setbacks the programmes have been a success and people are often in awe at any sightings of these birds. Fortunately there are now hides from which the sea eagles can be seen, such as on the Isle of Mull.
l The record of the week is an unsettling one. The story started to unfold with the finding of a pine marten dropping on the side of the road.
It was just a casual glance as I thought it would contain the remains of rowan berries, as they often do at this time of the year, but there was no sign of berries.
We may think of pine martens' prey mainly consisting of birds and mammals but it is a great deal more varied than that. They will take birds, as we know to our cost as in the past we have lost hens and ducks to them. But half of their diet in the north of Scotland is invertebrates, fruit and nuts, carrion and amphibians and reptiles.
However, the marten dropping made us look at rowans in the strath and we suddenly realised that there were virtually no berries on them. Having been in touch with one or two readers, their areas have been the same.
Rowans in towns and villages, mainly cultivated varieties, have been all right but in the countryside the rowans are largely bare.
Hopefully some readers will get in touch and say their rowans are full of berries.
This does not augur well for birds and to a lesser extend mammals that need them to survive the winter.
The Scandinavian thrushes such as redwings and fieldfares will come as usual and will just have to move south or west to find their winter food to survive.
