Scotland Holiday 2018 Day 8 : Loch na Keal 20th June 2018

Another of our pre-planned trips was a boat trip down Loch na Keal lookign for White-tailed Sea Eagles on the Mull Charters boat. We again had the drive down to Salen then across towards Gruline before turning off on the B7083 that runs along the north shore of Loch na Keal. We stopped off at various places on our way to the Ulva Ferry pier and got a good range of birds during the course of the day. The big action, however, had to be the boat trip.

We had a 1pm sailing and we were there in time to find that the loos there are not working anymore which was a shame. We found a whole bunch of photographers waiting for the same boat trip and a certain amount of comparing gear and settings inevitably happened. Rather reassuringly the majority were carrying the same as me – a Nikon D500 with grip and a Nikon 200mm-500mm zoom lens. Some of them had been using the 500mm lens and had given up carting it around and sold it instead. This rather encouraged me and was happy to obviously have the right gear for the job. I had used a 500mm before and found it too unwieldy for a fast – very fast – bird of such a size.

The skipper told us that he usually went a bit more out to sea first before returning to Loch na Keal but he considered the weather a bit too rough to venture out there so we headed into the loch past the island of Eorsa but it wasn’t until we got to the bit of water across from Kellan Old Farm that we saw our first Sea Eagle. This bird was huge and performed rather well. The photographic problem is two-fold. First the bird is often against a very light sky and so if you expose of the bird it is always against a virtually white background. When it is against the hills and trees it is much further away but, because it is not directly above you, you can get more balanced colour and a generally better shot. We did notice that some cars were parked right underneath it – probably where we had been a couple of days (?) before and they must have had great views of it looking towards the mountains.

This pattern was repeated a couple more times but the bird is so fast in coming down to pick the fish out of the water that it is very hard to get the money shot – just as it lifts it out of the water. I know that I didn’t manage to get that shot – just because there are too many bodies in front of you and the bird is so fast and boat is rocking so much – and since no one was bragging and showing off their photos I don’t think any other photographers were sure they had that much-prized shot. This also made me feel better. I actually found that when I got the photos on the computer, and increased exposure a bit more, there were actually some quite acceptable shots – or at least acceptable to me.

We had three chances at an Eagle and each fly-by perhaps took ten seconds so really you have to maximise the chances available. I don’t know if I did but I felt that everyone was in the same boat both photographically and actually so we were all both happy and disappointed.

Eventually it was back towards the Sound of Ulva and it started raining so we took cover in the small cabin and had tea and biscuits. When it stopped we were all back out just in time to catch a quick view of a Hen Harrier that had been hunting locally. We continued on past our boarding point and looked around for more wildlife but eventually we called it a day (actually three hours) and returned to the landing at the Ulva Ferry when we disembarked the “Lady Jane” and got back in the car for the long trip home.

We took the same route home but didn’t tarry. In the end we had a reasonable list of birds for the day but on Mull you will almost always have quality over quantity – and what quality we had.

Bird Sightings : Mull 20th June 2018