White-tailed Eagles around the Isle of Mull

I’m just back from an amazing trip to the Isle of Mull off the west coast of Scotland where I’ve been photographing White-tailed Eagles, aka Sea Eagles. They are a magnificent sight up close, with a wingspan over two metres and displaying amazing agility for a large bird, adjusting their position to catch prey. They are the UK’s largest bird of prey and Mull is a great home for these birds. White-tailed Eagles went extinct in the UK in the early 20th century and the population in the UK now is from reintroduced birds. Disturbing the birds is illegal because of their conservation status.

We went out to sea from Ulva Ferry and had six different birds visiting the boat, some on multiple occasions. Each fish they consumed is about 100g, so only a small contribution to the diet a White-tail needs of about 1kg or more of food per day, so the boats don’t replace the need for the eagles to hunt for food. In fact, as fishing has declined in the area this replaces, to some extent, food they would have got from fishing boats.

Mull is a rare haven for wildlife in the UK; my wife saw two Golden Eagles as soon as she dropped me off for the ferry , as well as an otter which are reasonably common around the shoreline (I missed that one too). I couldn’t complain too much as I was lucky with how many eagles we had the opportunity to photograph. I went out with Gary Jones who organises regular trips to see the Eagles, on the Lady Jayne run by Mull Charters. If you come to Mull you should also check out the Highland Cows that hangout on the beach! We saw some at Lochbuie

The birds dived for fish thrown a short distance from the boat. I shot with a 100-500mm Canon R5 on a fast shutter speed and with the aperture wide open on high speed continuous plus. I was shooting mainly about 200-250 as the birds are so quick it’s very easy to cut off one of those massive wings when you’re zoomed in too closely. When I got back on dry land I found id taken a few thousand pictures, with many more out of focus than in, and many hours of reviewing and deleting pictures on my hands. Here are a few of the decent ones, including two available on the site if you’re after a framed picture.

If you’re tempted to come up to Mull to photograph the Eagles I’d recommend coming up for a week, there’s quite a few great places to stay (try looking on Air BnB) and some nice restaurants. Reach out to me on my comments page if you want any recommendations. I regret not having long enough to go out looking for otters, (there are people on the island who can help you find them) and to head up Ben More looking for Golden Eagles who are also commonly seen on the isle.

Hope you enjoyed the blog post. Let me know if you’ve tried photographing these wonderful birds before and if you have any tips to share on getting the perfect shot! Check out more of my pictures and keep in touch by following me on Instagram.