24 minutes ago
By Victoria Gill, @vic_gill, Science correspondent, BBC News
Footage captured from a boat off the Isle of Mull shows a “miracle” white-tailed eagle chick in flight, after it was nursed back to health by two unusually caring parents.
In an unprecedented display of extended eagle parenting, the two white-tailed parents skipped this year’s breeding season to continue to tend to their year-old offspring.
The youngster’s wing was broken when the nest fell to the ground during unseasonably wild weather last year.
The footage shows a bulge in the bird’s wing – apparently a healed broken bone.
Mull’s RSPB officer, Dave Sexton, who described the bird as a “miracle chick”, said: “We normally think of eagles as ‘hard-wired’ and unemotional but clearly there might be another side to their nature.”
It is a story that had a stormy start, when the chick badly injured its left wing last July after its nest was blown down.
The young, injured eagle finally took to the skies in the autumn, but Dave Sexton described its flight as “wobbly”.
The new footage, captured by wildlife photographer Gary Jones, shows a visible lump in its wing – probably a healed broken bone.
RSPB officer Dave spotted the juvenile this spring – alive and well and in a new nest in an area owned by North West Mull Community Woodland.
The fully-grown chick was being fed fish by its parents, caring behaviour that the eagle expert described as “unprecedented” for the birds.
“In 30 years of watching them, I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.
“I’ve also consulted with other
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