Scotland - part 2

Image by Sebastian Niedlich (Grabthar) via Flickr

I bade a sad goodbye to Grantown and made the slower than expected drive over to Oban, where I was to spend the night in the rather less than glamorous (but perfectly adequate) Oban Backpackers. The next day I took the ferry journey over to Mull for a day of birdwatching with Island Encounter. I had been on a similar trip two years ago with a rival firm and Yorkshireman David, who was brilliant, but I wanted to try the opposition. I wasn't disappointed. Richard was, I was pleased to discover, another Yorkshireman (why are there so many on Mull?! they weren't the only Yorkshire accents I picked up that day) but with a slightly less gruff manner than David and just as much knowledge injected with a good bit if humour.

We started off looking for white-tailed sea eagles, without any joy, though I was delighted to see a male marsh harrier, which I've never seen before as well as some little meadow pipits darting in and out of the hedges.

We moved onto the shore and were rewarded with cormorants, curlews, eiders, gannets, canada and greylag geese, an abundance of grey herons (spotted constantly throughout the day), blackheaded, common and herring gulls, kittiwakes, oystercatches, ringed plovers and shags.
We stopped to watch some seals playing just a little way from the shore.

Driving a little further on Richard stopped the car suddenly and we were rewarded with my only ever sighting of a couple of red deer. A fawn staring staring straight at us and his/her mother, rump towards us but neck arched all the way round so as to keep us in her sights.

We did manage to spot what I had come to see - but only right on the horizon. A pair of golden eagles soaring gracefully above the mountains disappearing in and out of the drizzly fog.

The highlights of the day came in the afternoon. We stopped the car to look for otters and it wasn't long before we were rewarded. A single otter, just metres away from the shore and the sun glistening on his wet fur, dived and dipped in and out of the water and emerged with a fish. He was so close I could hear him eating in the surrounding silence.

We watched him for a bit before heading on to another good place for sighting sea eagles. It was raining and Richard started scanning the trees where they often sit. And sure enough, there they were, a male and a female sitting a few trees apart, looking composed and haughty as the drizzle streamed off their feathers. The day was ended on a high after I spotted another of the eagles (or possibly one of the pair) flying quite close overhead with some sort of animal in its talons.

Funnily enough it was back on the mainland in beautiful Plockton two days later where I got to see a golden eagle up close. I went out on a seal trip with the jovial Calum and got a great view of the colonies we had come to see. But then, just as we looked to the horizon...was that a gull...a big gull? No, as it flew overhead we got to see the golden eagle in all its glory.

What a trip...and coming up shortly: South Africa!

Scotland: part 1

Image: the-owl-barn.com

Imagine looking through your binoculars at a red squirrel only to see a Great Spotted Woodpecker poke its head out from behind the squirrel. Two beasties I've never seen in one sighting! I was up in Scotland visiting the Osprey Centre near Aviemore in the Cairngorms.

I had been lucky to arrive just in time to see an osprey sitting on a tree at the far end of the reserve. It was there for 5 mins, long enough to get a good look through the telescope, before it rose up and soared over the building, giving us an even more magnificent view. 

The centre (closed now for winter) is a fantastic place to sit and watch literally dozens of different breeds of birds (and animals) feasting on the feeders. I suppose you could argue (and dedicated twitchers no doubt will) that it is a bit of a zoo, given that the birds are there for the feeders. But it is a fantastic place to see all sorts of birds in one go. As well as the osprey, red squirrel and woodpeckers I also saw greenfinches, chaffinches, coal tits, blue tits, great tits and robins. 

I learnt how to identify the different genders of great spotted woodpecker; the juvenile has a red cap on its head, the male has a red patch on the back of its head and - as usual - the female is a little more drab with no red patch.

I spent three days staying in the Grant Arms in Grantown-on-Spey, "the wildlife hotel", home to the Birdwatching and Wildlife Club. The club organises walks and tours and so on from the hotel, some you can do on foot from the hotel itself. I set off on a couple of hour hike with the club to the woods behind Grantown, where red squirrels are in abundance. The birds were in short supply that day unfortunately but the walk is beautiful and comes out at the maginificent River Spey. 

Taking advantage of the decent weather, having arrived - and left - just before the floods, I also spent an afternoon heading up to RSPB reserve at Udale Bay. The drive up there is beautiful, with sweeping views of the Cromarty Firth. The reserve ittself is 'blink and you could miss it'. One hide overlooking wetlands. But there is certainly no shortage of birds from oystercatchers, curlew and plover to teals and mallards. 

Further round the coast, a gorgeous spot to stop for tea and cake is Cromarty. From there it's short drive to Chanonry Point, the best spot in the area for dolphins apparently. I was unlucky that day - but hey, you can't have everything.

Struck gold...

Image by jvverde via Flickr

I saw my first goldfinch this morning. A pair of them; parent and juvenile. They were in the neighbours' garden, which says something for leaving your green patch as a bit (I'm being kind) of a jungle. Last night we harvested our first beautiful juicy green pepper and four whopping leeks, so I'm sticking with our tidy(ish) veg patch though, birds or not!

Warbling amongst the rushes

Reed warbler: Image via Wikipedia

It was a beautiful day today, the perfect weather to take my parents out for a stroll (well a bit of a hike as it turned out) around Rye Meads and then up the canal to Hertford.

Bar a couple of quick and gentle showers, we had the perfect weather to warm us throughout the day. We headed up the reserve's kingfisher trail, our hopes pinned on seeing the elusive bird in the hide at the end.

Tiny pale blue and larger deep red butterflies flitted between the bushes, heavy with ripe blackberries, that lined the path we were taking. The vast clumps of bullrushes showed evidence of having been visited by the birds as they swayed in the breeze, while blackbirds hopped in and out of the bushes as we ambled by.

The first two hides were a tad disappointing today; just a few coots and the odd duck or two. But when we got to the kingfisher hide, things instantly changed for the better. A beautiful, slightly scraggly grey heron sat on top of the water tap near the kingfisher hide preening its feathers, stretching its legs and yawning occasionally. The thick spread of algae on the water would make it difficult to spot fish; it didn't even seem interested.

After 20 minutes or so of spotting coots, terns and, for the first time in my case, reed warblers we were rewarded with what we had been waiting for. One of the kingfishers shot out of the nest hole, with something large and white in its beak (probably the faecal sac I was told). Ten minutes later he (or she?) returned, hovering with a blur of beating wings outside the nest hole for a few wonderful seconds.

As with all these things, the sighting was brief but very rewarding - and my parents were happy, which was the main aim. While we were in the hide, a few more people joined us, one with a lense about the length of my arm. I sensed they were getting slighlty annoyed when I accidentally dropped my rucksack on the floor with a bang and my dad was struggling with the zip on the binoculars' case, though neither had any effect on the birdlife outside. What is hide etiquette? Are you meant to remain hushed and try your best not to make a sound or is it generally acceptable to have a chatter and maybe a spot of lunch while you while away the time? Personally, I think as long as kids aren't running around screaming and people are not shouting across the hide at each other I'm happy - though of course there is something beautiful and unusual in pure silence.

The king of birds

Image by SteveB! via Flickr

A sense of anticipation hung in the air at the Kingfisher hide at Rye Meads yesterday. The half a dozen people in there exchanged whispers - and sandwiches - while glued to the sand bank a few metres across the water to our left. And then it happened in a flash - a kingfisher shot out of one of the holes, straight up and over the foliage across the water...and it was gone. The shutters went off but there was no chance of getting a picture.

We waited another ten minutes and were rewarded. Back through the same space came another kingfisher - the female, I was told, as she has a red beak, the male's is black. Happily, she landed on the the pole metres from the nest and sat there for a good ten seconds or so. It gave us all a good chance for photographs or in my case, just to get a close look through the binoculars at my very favourite bird.

I waited another half hour, all of us hoping she would come back out or that the male would return, but eventually I gave up.

The other hides were also fruitful. There were tufted ducks, coots with their chicks, a coromorant, a common tern, a flock of black-headed gulls and a grey heron that sat for a good hour at least on the top of a low tree by the water (I saw it on the way to the Kingfisher hide and the way back).

I'll be back to check on the kingfishers in a couple of weeks time.

Walkers spoonfed in Norfolk

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRENNAN MULROONEY

I would love to have been with the group of visitors on a guided walk at the Norfolk Wildlife Trust's Cley Marshes last week. The group were treated to the amazing sight of 12 spoonbills feeding together. This is the highest number recorded in a group since the Second World War when 17 were seen in 1940. 

Following the recent hot weather and lack of water (ha! well at least that was the case...), staff at the nature reserve opened an inlet pipe that runs water on to Pat's Pool. Stickleback fish - the 'genius' of the fish world - were sucked through the pipe, attracting the spoonbills. 

The colour rings on two of the spoonbills indicated that the birds were hatched in the Netherlands. One has been recorded as far north as Caerlaverock, Scotland and Cadiz in Spain, where it spent the winter. These same two birds have regularly been on the south west coast of England, showing the distances they travel. 

"It's not going to put your girlfriend in a coma is it?"

Image by gussifer | thecolorawesome.com via Flickr

Three things I have learnt of late.....

The amazing:
Once they are born, swifts can fly for up to four years without ever landing. I include the words 'up to' as although I swear this is what they said on Springwatch, a certain male close to me decided to check that particular fact out with 63336, who replied that it was two to three years. Yeah, whatever. Maybe that's just the lazy ones.

The bad
I was listening to Stephen Moss and Chris Watson on Radio 4 earlier presenting a programme about water birds. Apparently sailors used to kill kingfishers and hang them upside down because they belived they would then point in the direction of the wind. What the..?! A travesty!


The downright weird (but very amusing!)
Chris Packham is a cheeky little chap isn't he? According to two of my friend, L & D, who are big Morrissey fans, Packham spent the whole of Springwatch sneaking the glum ones' lyrics into his on-air patter. Check this out - it really is true. Particularly love the way Kate Humble appears to have no idea what he's on about except for her give away right at the end of the series when he gives her the flowers. Humble: "It's not going to put your girlfiend in a coma is it?" Packham: "No, some girls are bigger than others". Pure genius. Nice one Chris! Just choose a better musician next time....


I have been getting back to the books (and the web and the mags) to get up to scratch gradually on birds, wildlife and conservation related issues.
Thanks very, very much on that front to the wonderful ladies at the Wildlife Trusts who were good enough to take time out in their lunch hour to share some lovely sandwiches with me and talk about birds. We had a stroll round the beautiful Camley Street Natural Park, which I highly but reluctantly (sssssh! These things are best kept a secret. Or am I starting to display twitcher like tendencies?! See previous post) recommend if you haven't been already. They are about to embark on a project to encourage kingfishers to land nearby, which I await in eager anticipation.

I have also signed up to LearnBirds, which is a real beginner's tool but for me absolutely brilliant as I love studying, even if it is largely 'click and drag' bits of birds and listen to their songs! I was torn between learning via the books or online, but this is interactive so I think it will keep me engaged.

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