Eagles

The barometer is way down this morning, with the BBC promising a day of rain, but the weather ignores both: a brisk southeasterly is moving layers of flat-bottomed clouds with enough gaps between them to allow a watery sunshine to burnish the hills with gold. As we walked down to the shop three buzzards stopped hovering in the updrafts in their eternal search for mice and flew upwards calling, a sure sign that something was bothering them. It turned out to be another buzzard, high above them.... Except, it wasn't a buzzard but an eagle, soaring across the village in the direction of Ben Hiant, the second we've seen this week.

We've had visitors arrive in the village breathless with the news that they have seen twelve eagles between the Salen turn and Kilchoan. Do we tell them that they were far more likely to have been buzzards, or do we leave them with their excitement and earn the village a reputation for eagle sightings?

Seen from below, it's very difficult to tell the two birds apart, mostly because of the lack of scale. If a seagull starts chasing the bird, it gives the relative size that's needed - three average-sized gulls fit across an eagle's wingspan. Other indicators are that eagles tend to flap less and more slowly, glide longer in straight lines, have slightly wider wings in relation to their length, and more visible pinions.

But we have a further problem, distinguishing between our golden eagles, which nest on the peninsula, and the sea, or white-tailed eagles, which drift across from Mull and Rhum. The latter are much larger and the adults display white feathers across their rump, but these are difficult to spot unless they are flying below you or banking steeply.