White-tailed eagles, Eoligarry

I'm starting to lose count of the number or eagles we have seen on this trip so far and today we added another two white-tailed and a single golden eagle to the tally. This was our sixth sighting of white-tailed, involving at least five, possibly seven birds, and by eagle standards the views have been spectacular. 

The photo above reminds me of my very first encounter with the species, in Greece in 1985. We were close to the Bulgarian border at Lake Kerkinis when we saw two huge birds flying much more distant than this. Even though I'd never seen them before the jizz of the species was immediately obvious, particularly the long necked, short tailed look. We watched them land out of view but we had a rough idea of where they were and eventually our track took us right past the spot. They were eating a fish, pestered by two magpies which kept hoping towards them, stealing a mouthful before backing off rapidly. I never dreamt that I would see them so well in the UK.

Meanwhile at Nask we had our fifth sighting of at least our eighth golden eagle. This species has generally been a little more distant, but even so we've had good views, much better than I usually expect of a species which I see far less often than white-tailed and usually in far more difficult terrain.

Today we continued our walk down onto Scurrival beach and spotted presumably the same two white-tailed eagles landed on one of the rocky, seaweed clad tidal islands which appear just offshore at low tide.