A Highland bird watcher has captured wonderful images of a baby golden eagle at just eight weeks of age.
Badenoch resident, Dave Pierce, regularly monitors ten nearby sites and was alerted to the presence of a six-year-old golden eagle which had settled on the Wildlands Estate last autumn.
The bird, named Mar, was born on the Mar Lodge Estate in Aberdeenshire and had been fitted with a satellite device at birth.
Thereafter, its movements were tracked by Aberdeen resident, Ewan Weston, who works at Natural Research.
During the first year of the eagle’s life, he travelled widely across Scotland visiting the Monadhliaths, Ullapool, Donside Angus and Perthshire.
He stayed in the latter location from the summer of 2013 until February 2015 when he decided to relocate to Badenoch.
Mr Pierce, who works for the Highlands Raptor Study Group, was made aware the bird’s movements had become restricted, indicating he may have been breeding.
The 65-year-old said: “The locations he was in had nesting potential and his movements indicated that he had set up a territory which ran roughly 4k from east to west and 10k from north to south.
“From the tracking data, it was evident that a territory was well established by the spring of 2016 and, after studying the most recent satellite information passed to me by Ewan, there was a striking cluster at one particular location.
“At this spot many years previously, I had seen traces of an old eyrie and I now wonder if Mar, who is now almost six years old, could have found a mate and nested there.”
Last April, Mr Weston and Mr Pierce visited the site, but were unable to find a nest. But they returned in June and finally found what they had been looking for.
Mr Pierce added: “As we set off towards the eyrie, Ewan was very excited to be walking through terrain he had previously only seen on Google Earth images.
“I was a little more circumspect, hoping to find the eyrie still occupied, but aware that, since confirming incubation back in April, there had been a lengthy wintry spell in the hills.
“Arriving at the nest, my concerns were unfounded when we were delighted to find a healthy 7 to 8-week-old eaglet standing proud.”