Stuart Rae grew up in Aberdeen surrounded by coast, farmland, woods, and moors, all within walking or bicycling distance. Exploring the outdoors and all wildlife was captivating, although birds were the most readily watched and so became the focal attraction. Gradually, he ventured into the hills; the pinewoods, long glens, cliff s and high plateau. Those hills, the Cairngorms, became and still are his favourite stomping ground. Much of those early hill days were with his older brother, Robert Skitts and it was he who showed him his first eagle eyrie. There were two full-grown chicks perched on the edge of a huge eyrie in a Scots pine, an indelibly impressive sight to a 14-year-old. Stuarts teenage years were spent rock and ice-climbing and studying birds throughout the Highlands, all the time gathering experience on eagles in different parts of the country. Then in 1982 he landed a dream job studying golden eagles with Jeff Watson, and he has been studying them professionally and privately since.
