The great thing about Kelly kettles is that you can take them anywhere and, as long as you have a source of fuel and freshwater, they can supply a cup of tea in minutes. Well that is the theory anyway, but on some damp days they can be difficult to get going and on really damp days, when you really need a cup of tea, they can literally be a damp squib. Usually an audience doesn’t help, but I think that I am getting the hang of it. Even when the audience is three Lancastrians who have just been fed on piccalilli from Yorkshire.

And it does help when the you are in a place as sublimly beautiful as Carabhat, an enormous Loch in the bottom half of the island, which is teeming with trout that for the most fleeting of moments feel and fight like monsters. It was also something of a draw for ancient man: although the OS map shows only two duns, seemingly dividing the loch into yours and mine, the north part is completely strewn with them. As we drifted along, we passed one island after another, all of them obviously inhabited at some point in the past. One of the draws was definitely the migratory fish, that now sadly have all but disappeared from the loch. They must have been here in numbers, as the stream from the tidal Oban nam Fiadh is guarded by an ancient fish trap. The hill to the north is covered in Chambered cairns and on the far side a stone circle. It was from that side of the island that the moorland fire descended on Carabhat, burning a huge swathe of the hills. It also ragged over Beinne na Coille, a hill that rises 68m above sea level – very much a hill and from the roadside not even that conspicuous. But in the fire ravaged north, there is a particular outcrop of rock that is hugely attractive to a pair of golden eagles. So attractive that as the kettle boils an eagle appears for the umpteenth time that day and swoops up on to the rocky ledge, disdainfully looks down on the strange group standing staring up at it, perhaps worried that the smoke issuing from the kettle presages another threat to the nest. Can you ever get bored of seeing golden eagles? Maybe only if, like London, you are bored of life. They are simply masters of all they survey and perhaps the most accomplished effortless flyers from one end of their territory to the other. With scarcely a wing beat, they climb, soar, glide and stoop from one likely spot to another in the search for prey. The Carabhat eagle had spent the day appearing suddenly over our head, then gliding to a tiny dot over a far hill, then returning to see how the fishing was going, before gliding off back in to the distance, seemingly bored by the lack of action. As we drank tea, it simply sat peering down at us, its golden colouring suddenly illuminated by the appearance of the sun.

The golden colour is distinctive but identifying your first eagle can sometimes be difficult, particularly if there are buzzards in the area. The buzzard has become very common in Scotland, making up for a crash in its numbers following the crash in its favourite food after the scourge of myxomatosis. It is often known as the tourist eagle, as at a distance it is easy to mistake a buzzard for a golden eagle. But when you actually see a golden eagle it becomes obvious what is a tourist and what is a golden eagle – the wings and tail are so much longer and it is just so much bigger. It is just so much more of an eagle that I always think – now that’s an eagle!

There is another eagle interloper that has been reintroduced to Scotland recently: the white tailed sea eagle. In this case bigger, I think isn’t better. When you see a sea eagle the description of a flying barn door is very apt, but it is an ungainly barn door. All flaps and effort. Since the sea eagle has been reintroduced they have taken to the Outer Hebrides with some zeal. Some say that they have ousted the golden eagles, others that they live comfortably side by side.

What I do know is that golden’s don’t like sea’s in their vicinity. Suddenly the golden eagle looks up and my eyes follow its. Directly above the eyrie, an enormous flappy giant appears. There is an immediate reaction from the golden that launches into the air and surprises the sea eagle from beneath. But sea eagles are pretty confident in their enormous bulk, so there is little aerobatics, but the golden eagle makes one last flypast, before returning seemingly satisfied to its rocky perch.

It was a single moment that must have happened so often over Carabhat in ancient times, when both eagles were so much more common. It is only in the past ten years that you have again been able to see both eagles in the air at the same time. If things are going really well you will have also been able to make the Kelly kettle work and have a cup of tea in your hand.