WHAT about Culver the sea eagle then?

Originally from a nest on the Isle of Skye, this lively Scottish import has been in the headlines recently.

Just a few days after being released into the wild on the IW, the adopted Islander took the path so many Island youngsters do, and took off to London.

Except instead of grizzling about ferries, this motivated youth simply flew there.

I wish I could have done the same when I was a teenager ready to spread my wings.

Culver took just fifteen minutes to cross the Solent following the route of Wightlink’s Yarmouth ferry — no operational difficulties for him — before making his way towards the capital with unerring precision.

So much so that through the precision of GPS technology we know that, at 2.23pm on August 31, he was directly above Big Ben at an altitude of 705m, or 2,300ft.

This is a long way up — but he is a very big bird, with a wingspan of some 2m.

I wondered at the time what air traffic control must have made of him. After all, with all the security scares about drones you can be sure they knew he was there.

If somebody managed to fly a 2m-wide drone above the Palace of Westminster you’d better believe the alarm would be raised.

Some control room conversations would have been worth hearing that day. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, hang on, it really is a bird. Blimey.

So while the new Prime Minister and his ministers blustered away half a mile below, the eagle just flew on. He didn’t pay congestion charge, he didn’t file a flightpath, he didn’t even have a blue passport.

He was the first wild sea eagle to fly over London for more than 200 years.

Eventually, he alighted in Essex and took a well-earned break. The next few days, via Kent and Sussex, he made his way back to the Solent, flying as high as 1,200m at times.

Finally, Culver arrived back on the IW after an amazing 680km, or 420 mile, round trip, making landfall at the eponymous Culver Cliff.

I’ve been gripped by this eagle reintroduction story from the start.

For one thing, I love the symmetry of the IW being the place for the first wild English sea eagles to be released, after we Islanders shot the last ones on Culver Cliff in 1780.

For another, I genuinely think this is an example of us being able to undo some of the damage we have done, and maybe even get some benefits ourselves by attracting eagle tourists.

After all, the Scottish and Irish reintroductions seem to have been successful not just for the eagles, but for businesses and landowners in the areas too.

I’m interested to see if we can capitalise on them in the same way — as long as they don’t all fly off to London.