The Yorkshire Vet: Spotted... a mysterious bird of prey - Julian Norton

It was a spectacularly sunny Sunday, and I didn’t want my bike ride to end. High up on North Yorkshire’s moors the view went on and on. I hoped my ride would too. I had tactically taken a route that passed through High Paradise Farm, which is a perfect place in many ways.

Just above Boltby Forest and slap-bang on the Sutton Bank “red route” for mountain bikes, the tea rooms are ideally placed for providing welcome sustenance. Today, because I was travelling alone, I simply needed to refill my water bottles. I felt a bit guilty, not stopping for a cream tea, but the café was bustling despite its out-of-the-way location. Ginny, the owner, has done a fantastic job of turning the family farm into an idyllic stopping-off point on the Cleveland Way. I have treated her dogs on numerous occasions. They love nothing more than bobbing about saying hello to the visitors, hoping for tasty treats, and have a penchant for eating the wrong things! It is a beautiful spot and I would recommend anyone to visit. It is accessed only by bike or foot (or horse), but it’s only a short walk from the top of Boltby Bank and worth the exertion.

Suitably refreshed and refilled, I was quickly back en vélo. When I do solitary rides like this, I often make up the route as I go along and, before long, I was on a quiet section of the moor. To be fair, pretty much all of the moor was quiet, though on a sunny day there are always walkers on the Cleveland Way. During one easy section of downhill I noticed, high up in the sky, a huge, gliding bird soaring on a thermal. With large and wide wings and a white, fan-shaped tail, this was no Red Kite and it looked too big to be a buzzard. I stopped to focus in more detail. I attempted to take a photo, but the outcome was as disappointing as you’d expect- a photograph of mainly the purest blue sky with no trace of a bird, other than a small dark smudge. I quickly deleted it. Now, I’d heard that a White-Tailed Eagle had recently arrived somewhere nearby. I didn’t know the actual details of this immigrant, other than that its tracker had stopped sending signals a month or so ago, so it was presumed deceased. But I was fairly sure this was it. Was I wrong? I’m not an expert on these things, despite being an avid ornithologist as a child, so I tried to crystalise my mental image of the bird circling high above and continued my ride, resolving to look into it when I got home.

When I was finally back, and having cleaned up myself and the bike, I set about some research into this possible sighting. Yes, it was true that these huge birds (apparently with a two and a half metre wind span they are bigger than a Golden Eagle) have been spotted in Yorkshire. However, most of the breeding pairs are in either Scotland, the Isle of Wight or Exmoor. Further investigation did confirm that there had been a tagged bird whose tracker had stopped working, the bird presumed by the police to have disappeared. My ornithological expertise as a youngster had obviously waned with advancing years and, disappointed, I started to think that I’d been mistaken. That is until last week, when I treated the little dog of a client who is an expert in birds of prey. Once I had emptied the terrier’s anal glands, I questioned him about it.