We have yet to see an eagle here, and sightings of other raptors, such as this buzzard, aren't common. It's not that we're failing to look in the right places, as....
....this map, taken from the Raptor Persecution website - link here - testifies. In the Golspie area, marked with the red arrow, the golden eagle population density is a miserable one per 100 square kilometres.
The Raptor Persecution website makes depressing reading as it contains a litany of stories of killed and wounded birds. Little appears to have changed since....
....Victorian times, as described by Dr Pennie in his 1962 booklet about Sutherland's bird life - see earlier post here.
An indicator of the lack of top predators is the way in which the local rabbit population behaves. Bunnies are quite happy to feed out in the fields in broad daylight and only, rather reluctantly, move closer to the security of the hedgerow when a human approaches, particularly one with a dog. These rabbits are on the edge of Ben Bhraggie woods which have the unlikely reputation of having a population of the Scottish wildcat, one of whose principle prey species is the rabbit.
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