White Tail Eagles  Brian drives to Scotland to see White Tailed Eagles. by  WirdSmiff - listen to the podcast at Steamy Stories. Brian decides to drive to Scotland to see the White tailed Eagles. He picks up a pretty hitch-hiker before he’s an hour down the road. The problem with Television programs these days is that… they are mostly total rubbish. Soaps, reality or competitions of one sort of another. Even nature programs have a ‘message’. If I watch anything it is sport, mostly but not football, ever (that’s soccer if you live on the other side of the pond). Sports programs tend to carry a lot of advertising and that’s when I channel hop, or make a cup of tea. It was on one such channel hopping sessions that I came across a little item on the White Tailed Eagle. I’m not a twitcher. I don’t rush all over the country to try and see a rare, off course, migrant but I do enjoy birds, feathered and unfeathered. In fact I enjoy pretty much anything to do with nature or history, the older the better. That’s history not birds, you understand? It seems that the White Tailed eagle was re- introduced to Scotland back in the 90’s and had done well. They had a plan to re-introduce it to the Isle of Wight in Southern England the following year, 2019. I’d not seen a White Tailed eagle, in the wild before. Of course I could have waited a year or two then taken a trip to the Isle of Wight, maybe a little over two hours from home, spot the birds and still back home for tea. Like I said, I’m not a twitcher but I am retired and filling time with enjoyable activities is what retirement is all about. Google took less than 10 seconds to tell me that White Tailed eagles were resident in North West Scotland (all year round). That was it then, sorted! The following morning I organised everything I would need. That afternoon I prepared and provisioned the van and loaded it up ready for a reasonably early start the following morning. I say reasonably because I didn’t want to hit the motorways during the rush hour. I lived about an hour twenty from the nearest motorway so planned on leaving about 8 to 8:30 ‘ish. Up with the lark and the rain was hammering down on the glass of the conservatory roof. I could barely hear myself think much less hear the 'snap, crackle and pop’ of my breakfast cereal. Should have checked the weather forecast I muttered to myself as I put my wellington boots next to the 'things forgotten’ bag by the front door. The app said things would brighten up around 9 so I made another cup of tea and double checked that nothing else needed to go in the bag. By 9:10 things had indeed brightened up so I made a dash for the van and got on my way. By 9:30 I was approaching the main road with my windscreen wipers clicking back and forth on slow. Traffic wasn’t too bad and we were making 40mph on a 50mph road. At the crest of the big hill behind Brighton I looked ahead into the valley where there was always a bit of a bottleneck. Sure enough the vehicles in the nearside lane were, essentially, stationary. As my eyes travelled back up the line of cars ahead I spotted a figure standing at the beginning of a layby. Hitch-hiker? Hadn’t seen one of them in donkey’s years. Needless to say nobody was stopping and 'it’, the hitch-hiker was getting soaked with spray from the passing wheels. My mind went back to the days of my youth. Bin there, done that. Instant decision, if 'it’ looks respectable then I’d offer a lift. If 'it’ didn’t I’d be turning off just up the road/or not and offer a lift that far. If all looked good? I’d play it by ear. Flicking the indicator on I slowed then pulled into the layby tooting my horn encouragingly as I eased passed the 'it’ and pulled to a stop. The rear view camera showed 'it’ hauling the big rucksack onto it’s back and striding purposely towards the vehicle. As I’d passed I noticed that both the waterproofs and the rucksack had the same logo that my bad weather equipment had. So, at least whoever it was it was pr