White-tailed eagle in Norfolk @WildKenHill is a positive step, a decade or so back opposition by landowners and a coalition of people frightened of change stopped this amazing project. It must succeed this time against the inertia of fear and reaction against change.

Sea eagles were a normal part of Southern Englands avifauna, persecuted driven to absence. You would think birdwatchers would welcome them back, but humans are funny things, people just can not imagine them in their landscape, they are too ‘wild’, I imagine the same people never

imagined red kites, buzzards, ravens, polecats in Norfolk, all things seen as too wild, belonging to Wales not Norfolk. They were only absent due to persecution, same as sea eagle. People want proof they ever bred in Norfolk, archeological evidence is not enough they want to know

in which tree and when the last nest was, a shame the killers did not take notes. Netherlands has 44 pairs, we have farmers and birdwatchers obsessed with finding reasons why sea eagles will cause harm. Will the birdwatchers feel the same about natural recolonisation?

The arguments made, scaring waders on Wash, maybe killing a hen harrier, disturbing breeding terns will they make the same arguments against natural recolonisation? Join with reactionary keepers and pig farmers. I know who is a bigger threat to hen harrier than an eagle!

This is a divisive issue, arguments will be constructed, facts marshalled as armies to win minds and hearts. The same facts used now by some to object to a release will they be making them against natural recolonisation? I hope not, then these facts are not valid.

Each person will make up their own mind, I suspect many out of reaction to change, an inability to see the paucity of nature caused by persecution, the same people who would tell you 30 years ago that buzzards did not like Norfolk as it was to dry for them, nothing like Wales.

Buzzards and kites, ravens, polecats did not like Wales it was the only place they survived after relentless persecution. Much we do not know about sea eagles, past wintering birds returning to part of their range killed mercilessly numbers reduced until the very thought of them

as a natural thing here is lost, people can not imagine, have lost hope, fear change. Understandable in a way, well their fears must must not stand in the way of recovery, hope must be seen to win for how else can we dare to dream of bigger restoration of a wilder landscape.

Friends will differ, arguments abound, division and persuasion, make up your own mind, recognise that factual arguments are emotional also, those who fear, those who hope. Well each of us has to be honest and have our own view, people I respect deeply will disagree, they may well

be right, I will continue to respect them and like them during this coming ‘battle of the eagles’ in which we all have to follow our own convictions.

photo ebird