Eagle owls, the largest owls in the world, have been in the news recently with the revelation that a pair has reared 20 chicks in a hidden valley in northern Britain since 1996. What tends to be forgotten is that several years ago a pair nested for two years in the Highlands, in Moray and Nairn. This pair hatched one chick in the second year and that autumn the male was killed on a road. The female lived another nine years laying infertile eggs. The latest record was last week from Inverness where a single eagle owl was found sitting, appropriately, on the scaffolding of the part-constructed new office of Scottish Natural Heritage. The problem is that all these records have been taken as owls that have escaped from captivity or been deliberately released, but now a few people are having second thoughts. While it is believed that many sightings are obviously feral birds, there are some doubts over others, especially those in the north and east, which could easily have been migrants from the continent. Once a few birds can be proved to be migrants then, no doubt, some conservationists will want to add them to other birds of prey that have been reintroduced - like the red kite and sea eagle.
Some conservationists are saying that they could adversely affect some of our rarer and protected birds. This has been proven in the case of the red kites and sea eagles and both these programmes still have annual costs of monitoring. Rearing the young birds and releasing them is only one part of such programmes. Monitoring also involves expensive miniature radio equipment so that individuals can be tracked. Eagle owls are big and the silent flight on wings with a span of two metres means they can take a range of large prey. Rabbits and hares are often the commonest prey, but they will take young deer, foxes and pine martens, with herons and buzzards also recorded. Extraordinarily, eagle owls have also been known to kill their own kind.
So how long until eagle owls return? If they do increase in numbers and breed once more, then we shall have to keep a close eye on our six dachshunds.