In Eagle Country

In Eagle Country is a distillation of golden eagle observations made over four decades on Skye, combining longer chapters based on particular field studies with batches of supplementary short stories on related themes.

Largely anecdotal in style, it is both wide-ranging and intimate in scope. Major themes concerning Skye’s whole golden eagle population – individual longevity and productivity; the impact of sea eagles; acclimatisation to windfarms – are explored through the daily lives of individual breeding pairs.

Each short story depicts a rarely recorded incident – a young pair building separate nests; a lone male’s attempt to evict breeding sea eagles from his old nest; the unprovoked killing of an adult eagle by a sub adult.

A final short chapter provides an overview of the current status of golden eagles on Skye: what has changed since our first 20 years and the threats and challenges that lie ahead.

Above all, In Eagle Country is a celebration of fieldwork and those long hours sitting out on the hill.