#WildAboutBritain winners!

Once upon a time Mummy was driving me home from my friends house and it was a cold evening. I saw a deer standing in the road. Mummy stopped the car and we watched it. The deer had blue eyes and looked pretty. She had antlers and she had four legs and she had a swishy, fluffy tail. As we watched her she looked at us and then she went past the car. She made me so happy and I loved her so much that I could burst.
Sarah Scott (entered on behalf of Isobelle, aged 4)

Last summer we noticed a duck nesting on the ground in some of our garden shrubbery, she made a beautiful duck down bed and settled in it for days. We were concerned for her safety but she made her presence noticeable very loudly if we went too near. One morning at about 6.30am we heard a big commotion, looked out and there she was – Mrs Puddleduck with her brood of ducklings. They were delightful, we’d made a ramp to our tiny water feature hoping for a sighting but they studiously ignored that, made for a hole in the garden fence and spent the morning swimming on our neighbour’s proper pond. We didn’t see them again – we only hosted the later stages of pregnancy, birth and hatchings, no aftercare needed.
Jacqui Sclanders

I stifle a sneeze as I get out of the car. “You need to be quiet, as we will be in earshot,” Sue had said. It’s always at such moments that you really need to sneeze. And I don’t want to ruin it for all the others. But I seem to have got away with it. Everyone’s looking skywards towards a huge dark, rectangular fluid shape. It’s my first glimpse of a white-tailed eagle and it’s incredible.

“It’s being mobbed by two buzzards,” Sue whispers. I know what a buzzard looks like. I know what size they are. Huge. Especially when they fly in front of your car on a mountain road in Wales. But the buzzards look about a quarter of the size of Britain’s largest bird of prey. Handy for them to fly into the scene to give me some sense of scale.

We head down the hill to the ‘hide’ – a cleared area within the pine trees from where the group of 12 of us look through the telescopes at the giant eyrie 300 metres ahead. The fresh, crushed pine smell is tantalising to the nostrils and seemingly an effective midge deterrent. Just 10 minutes ago I was cocooned in my waterproof coat, being nibbled all over my face.

One grey-brown head pops up above the parapet of the giant nest, then another. There are two chicks here this year and 10 white-tailed eagle nests on the Isle of Mull. Extinct in the UK from the early 20th century, these birds have made an incredible come-back since they were reintroduced to nearby Isle of Rum in the 1970s.

The two grey-brown heads disappear into the safety of the nest – perhaps it’s time to sleep after full bellies, or maybe the chicks have spotted the shape of their mother
coming back. She lands four branches up from the nest and looks down to check the siblings aren’t squabbling again.

She sits there perched, a bit stuffed turkey-looking and quite cumbersome. But then she flies – a flash of white tail, yellow feet and black wingtips curled up like hitchhiker thumbs. This is what she was made for.

And in a few weeks, the two grey-brown heads and rest of bodies will be making their maiden flights. Our journey to Scotland seemed quite epic, but it is nothing compared with the journey these birds have been on. No longer are they seen as vermin – these birds are now a tourist attraction. And as I hand over a cheque to pay for the visit, I know that it is money well spent.
Kate Smith

Well done Kate, Sarah and Jacqui – I’ll be in touch soon to arrange delivery of your bags!

Don’t forget the RSPCA’s children’s story competition at www.wildaboutbritain.org.uk closes on Monday 10 December at midnight, so get your entries in!