Kleptoparasitism at the double

Kleptoparasitism: Where one animal steals food from another.

Theo's tour:

A windy day with a bright morning and cloud cover and then showers in the afternoon.

The tour started with an Adult male White-tailed Eagle sat out on the reef with both Seal species out there too, before the local Adult female WTE flew right by us spectacularly!

A dog Otter was rolling around on the reef having a preen, not far from the Eagles.

A guest then spotted an Otter fishing behind us, a female... with her 2 cubs in tow! They fished down in front of us for a while before heading off.

2 immature WTE then started calling overhead and headed out to the loch where they both plunged down towards the loch and started chasing a young Gannet, 1 bird briefly grabbed the Gannet before the Gannet clearly regurgitated its catch and one of the young WTE's grabbed it!

We noticed the adult WTE's calling on the island before 1 flew off carrying some prey and a piece of weed... noticing the other bird moving behind it towards the shore an Otter ran up towards the top of the island clearly just having lost its catch to the adult WTE!

2 instances of Kleptoparasitism in 5 minutes!

A Golden Eagle flying over the far hillside alerted us also to a group of Red Deer, the group watched both in the scope for a while before the Eagle headed off.

After over an hour of superb wildlife watching we moved on, more Harbour Seals on the reef and Red Deer on the hills before heading up to the windy moorland.

A ringtail Hen Harrier briefly lifted from the hillside and a Golden Eagle was flying low over the valley.

Over a well earned hot drink a male Hen Harrier hunted the moorland for a while with 2 Kestrels hunting there also.

We ended the tour with a high at the final stop, watching a big female Golden Eagle flying low over the near hillside, not far away at all, up in front of us, making light work of the strong breeze.