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It’s that moth and flower time of year…
9th July 2013 – This lovely micro moth was in the trap this morning, it’s a Map-winged Swift (Hepialus fusconebulosa).
The afternoon was sunny but the day started off very misty and now, as I write my diary (at nearly 10pm), the low mist has come rolling in again off the sea.
Had dinner with a lovely friend who is visiting from Lewis, so nice to catch up 🙂
Note to self: Must take some photos of the wildflowers they are looking spectacular now – will try and get out tomorrow and get some shots – it will be a good excuse to escape from my end of contract report writing!
Map-winged Swift
10th July 2013 – The Drinker. …No, she hasn’t been on the whisky 🙂 This is the somewhat unusual looking moth called The Drinker (Euthrix potatoria) – I have no idea why it has been named that. Anyway, I think she’s kind of cute looking and I don’t see them very often. I’ve never caught one in the trap, this one was found out in the garden during the daytime.
The Drinker
11th July 2013 – Wandered into the nearby meadow with my iPad, it’s looking so stunningly beautiful at the moment, the sheer variety of plants and flowers there is just amazing. We even have three orchids coming up in our lawn – when Ian mowed the grass the other day he mowed around the orchids 🙂
Nearby meadow
12th July 2013 – It’s been mostly overcast today, but warm (well it hit 16.8’C anyway!). Around lunchtime I noticed these bizarre clouds gathering along the east side of the island – I don’t know what type of cloud they would be classified as but they looked very unusual.
Weird clouds
13th July 2013 – Girl’s day out. A great day out with my lovely friend Jane, we were birding, exploring, hitting Art on the Map, supping tea and eating cake, braving Hut of the Shadow and our highlight of the day – Otter watching 🙂 Jane sketched in her pad each time we stopped and I took photographs. The weather was dreary and grey but we had sunshine in our hearts.
Day out to North Uist
North Uist, machair looking beautiful!
Don’t speak too loud but i think summer might almost be here…
3rd June 2013 – Almost a summers evening! It was a pretty balmy evening and we had the most magnificent sunset – of course, i’d gone for a walk down the road and didn’t have my camera! The moth trap was on and the sun was setting, no midgies, what more could one ask for?!
Lovely sunset tonight!
4th June 2013 – Well there wasn’t too much in the moth trap overnight – Knot Grass, Glaucous Shears, Flame Carpet, Garden Carpet and Pebble Prominent plus this, our first hawk-moth of the year. The Poplar hawk-moth is probably the most common hawk-moth species in the UK and the larvae feed on poplar, aspen and sallow.
Poplar Hawk-moth
5th June 2013 – This wasn’t the technically best photo that I took today but it was the one I liked the best. A parent Oystercatcher finding grubs for it’s chick. I was able to watch them for an hour as they were on the plot I was surveying, i just sat quietly in my vehicle and they stayed there for the whole hour only about 20 feet away.
Oystercatcher feeding it’s chick
The beach at Kilaulay
6th June 2013 – This brown Silver-line (Petrophora chlorosata) was the only moth in the trap this morning!
Brown silver-line
7th June 2013 – My day for working in Berneray and it was the most fabulous day – sadly my picture comes nowhere near capturing how amazing it looked in real life. Only downside – I saw my first cleg of the year but thankfully it didn’t get me 🙂
Berneray
Berneray
8th June 2013 – OK so I have to admit, I didn’t take this great photo. Ian was up and about really early as he went out to go and see if he could find any wader chicks to ring. What a great sight, these Redshanks standing on the fenceposts! He said that there was another one but the noisy Oystercatcher came along and took it’s place on the post
Redshanks and a single Oystercatcher
9th June 2013 – It was my day for a long walk today so Ian dropped me off in Eriskay at the ferry terminal (the wee ferry that goes to Barra). The weather was absolutely stonking, warm and sunny and the view was outstanding!
The walk went well, 10 miles although it is a bit daunting to think that when I go to do my long walk in September I will have to walk at least this every day, and probably more, every day for 5 to 6 weeks!
Fantastic Eriskay!
I was almost home when my mobile rang, i fished it out of my pocket. Sara, my daughter. I was rather worried as she never phones me on my mobile. I answered the call with some trepidation. Happily she was really excited – “mum, mum, a Hen Harrier just flew over the house!” (She lives in Shropshire, on the outskirts of Ironbridge).
Just me and the empty beach…
More walking, working and birds…
27th May 2013 – Early yesterday morning, our neighbour received a phone call about a stranded Pilot Whale in Lochboisdale. The single animal, believed to be a male, had made its way into a particularly shallow loch with many channels and rocky outcrops. Apparently, it had been seen late Friday stranded on the rocks but was freed by the rising tide.
Since then we’ve been assisting with monitoring the animal and passing all relevant information to the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) in Stornoway. The BDMLR have now arrived on site and have set up their incident centre overlooking the loch with a view to guiding the whale back to the open sea. They are currently assessing the situation and calling upon as much local knowledge of the area as is possible as the shallow water and complex channel network means that the RIBs that are normally deployed in such circumstances cannot be used. A shallow draught or inflatable boat is their priority.
It is hoped that a rescue attempt can be made as quickly as possible to take advantage of the high tides, but it may be as late as Wednesday. I really don’t know whether the outcome will be good or bad…
Pilot Whale
28th May 2013 – A calm, balmy evening. The good news of the day is that the Pilot Whale was ushered gently out of the estuary on the high tide early this morning and was last seen swimming out to the open sea!
Evening light
29th May 2013 – Lots of Dunlin around again today, mostly resting with their heads tucked under their wings but a few were feeding. They must still be heading north and the flock of a couple of hundred or so birds also included many Ringed Plovers and a few Sanderling. Added Gadwall to the patch list in the evening.
Dunlin
30th May 2013 – Worked in North Uist all day today, a lovely sunny day with a gentle breeze. As i was driving back from the machair I could see the mist forming over the estuary, it looked quite ethereal and wasn’t quite sure I would be able to capture how lovely it really looked…
Mist on the estuary
31st May 2013 – Just can’t resist photographing the Lapwings on the machair, this one had a couple of chicks in tow but the only decent chick photo I got was one standing by a large sheep turd 🙂 I just love the colours on the adult birds.
Lapwing
At the end of May my patch list stands at 103 species, i don’t think that’s bad at all for an area of just 3km square!
1st June 2013 – Yeuk, gruesome alert!! Good job this isn’t smellyvision, the pong coming off this poor dead creature was pretty rank – I could still smell it for at least an hour afterwards! It’s washed up on Howmore beach, and is about 9 feet long. I’m not sure how long it’s been there, since earlier in the week i think and by the state of decay it was dead for a wee while before that.
It’s a Risso’s Dolphin and we were asked to remove a section of skin/blubber and also a couple of teeth. From this the scientists hope to be able to tell how the dolphin died and how old it was.
Dead Risso’s 🙁
2nd June 2013 – The Machair Way. A ten mile walk was on the cards today, further training for my long walk later in the year. I decided on an early start and Ian dropped me off at the Polachar Inn, South Uist at 5.40am. I walked north until I reached home, fabulous scenery and I didn’t see a soul! No blisters this week so that was a relief!
Machair Way
May, spring is finally arriving!
14th May 2013 – I always find there is something really fascinating about watching a field being ploughed, the way the plough cuts through the earth and turns it over. The daisies below hadn’t quite been turned in.
You can see from the picture how sandy the soil on the machair is here. One of the reasons that there is always such an amazing variety of wildflowers on both the cropped and the fallow plots is because the ploughing is only shallow here, meaning that the wildflower seed doesn’t get buried, giving it chance to germinate. If you haven’t seen the machair in full bloom in July you haven’t lived, really, it’s amazing!
Ploughed machair
15th May 2013 – There were hundreds and hundreds of Dunlin around on the range today, one of my very favourite waders. In amongst the Dunlin there were also small numbers of Turnstone and Ringed Plover. No doubt they are all on their way north, further north than here, to breed.
A very mixed day weatherwise – a bit of everything i think – sunshine, strong winds, heavy showers, the odd rainbow. Lovely sunset tonight.
Dunlin
16th May 2013 – Working at Berneray all day today. This is a really crud photograph but i spotted these tiny Lapwing chicks and they were pretty far away, right on the limit of getting any sort of photograph really. Hope they survive, the weather has been very cold and wet and then there is the constant threat from the gulls and skuas that patrol the area. Nature is harsh.
Stonechat new for the patch today.
Lapwing chicks
17th May 2013 – I’ve been meaning to stop for ages and re-photograph this old, derelict blackhouse. I originally photographed it eight years ago and wanted to compare the photographs to see how much it had deteriorated during that time. To my surprise and given the harsh conditions here it hadn’t got much worse, apart from the last section of roof caving in.
Much to my amusement there is a Starling on the left hand chimney and in the eight year old version there is also a Starling – i guess they are nesting down the chimney. I also noticed that the old belfast sink is still outside on both photographs.
When i got home i found a very excited Ian who was saying “you have to have a look at the photo i took!” He’d got a stonking shot of an otter running across the beach in front of him!
17th May 2013
13th May 2005
Otter!
18th May 2013 – I must say I was very disinclined to even set foot outside of the house today, the cold northerly wind was gusting up to 41mph, although it has been bright and sunny so not all bad. After a week of early mornings I allowed myself the luxury of a lie in – even though I did wake up before 7am!
The photo today shows the view from the front window across the loch, looking towards the cemetery. I was quite impressed with how the waves on the loch were breaking over the edges of the far bank – nigh on impossible to capture and convey the strength of the wind in a photograph.
Breezy day on the loch
19th May 2013 – We had a whole day birding our patch today, leaving the house, on foot at 5.40am. The weather started out pretty cold and windy but by mid morning it was a balmy 16’C
We were amazed to find this male Ruff (Philomachus pugnax), almost in full summer plumage. There are very few spring records for Ruff here in the Outer Hebrides, they are mostly seen in the autumn when they are migrating back south. The only other place i’ve seen Ruff looking as magnificent as this is Sweden where i saw them on their breeding grounds.
Our total number of species for the day was 67 – not too bad for a 3 square kilometer patch 🙂
Stonking Ruff!
Winter birds, summer birds…
7th May 2013 – It’s been a long day, i was out at 6.45am doing a bird survey, it was very enjoyable though, there were plenty of birds out on the machair – Lapwings, Oystercatchers, Redshank and one of my most favourite Snipe.
I was finished work by early afternoon, apart from the paperwork, so once that was done I had a wee walk with Ian to the beach. He had found some interesting fungi growing out of some cow dung earlier in the day. Ian had a look through the books and posted the photos he’d taken on the local Wildlife sightings forum. Very soon the local fungi expert, Chris had replied confirming Ian’s tentative id of Snowy Inkcap (Coprinopsis nivea). Chris also told us that spring records here are uncommon.
Snowy Inkcap (Coprinopsis nivea)
On returning from an after-dinner walk we spotted an unseasonably late Waxwing in next-door’s tree, very unexpected! On the walk we’d added Sand Martin and Sedge Warbler to the patch list. It wasn’t the best of light but i was pleased to see it nevertheless 🙂
Waxwing
8th May 2013 – Another early start for bird surveys, first I had transects to walk (wish i’d worn my wellies, it was mightily boggy out on the machair today). Then later I had a series of 1 hour vantage point surveys where I sit in my vehicle and record what birds are using specific plots and how they are using it.
While doing my third vantage point of the day, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, something moving. After staring at the empty spot for 30 seconds or so the bird showed itself again briefly and I grabbed my camera. A skulky Corncrake! My first for the year. There wasn’t much cover and it had been hiding behind a rusty metal object that had been discarded.
An evening walk turned up a Corncrake calling on the patch 🙂
Skulky Corncrake
9th May 2013 – Heard my first Cuckoo of the year when i left home early this morning. Had a brief stop-off at Stinky Bay, Benbecula – it wasn’t particularly Stinky on this occasion though 🙂
Stinky Bay
10th May 2013 – Moth trap out last night. Found this Puss Moth (Cerura vinula) low down on the outside of the house first thing this morning, they are fairly common here at this time of the year. This one is a male (you can tell by the feathered antennae).
Puss Moth
11th May 2013 – Saturday but still a busy day, catching up on paperwork for my other job, but i did manage a brief trip out down to the beach, stopping off at “Pochard Point” on the way. It’s called that because last year a Pochard turned up on Loch Hallan and that is where we saw it from. Today, once again there was a Pochard! The Sanderling are starting to look very smart, almost in full summer plumage. There were at least 200 on the beach plus Dunlin and Purple Sandpipers – all heading north, on migration.
Sanderling fascinate me – they run around on the water’s edge, in and out of the water and remind me of wind up toys 🙂
Sanderling
12th May 2013 – No work today so you’d think i would like a rest from birds but no we headed out to do our monthly Wetland Bird Survey. We have two sites to cover, both in South Uist: Loch Bee and the South Ford. The weather was really grim, very misty and drizzling most of the time, this afternoon it came out sunny but was still rather breezy.
There were thirty odd Grey Plover on the South Ford, no doubt on their way north to the tundra to breed. They were feeding almost continually and looked like they were finding small worms of some sort to eat.
A quick trip to the beach in the van before going back home, added Arctic Skua to the patch list.
Grey Plover
13th May 2013 – A busy day but feet up in the evening and watched The BBC’s Hebrides: Islands on the Edge. Some stunning footage, although to my mind the script/narration leaves a bit to be desired, i think it’s a bit romanticised and notice there’s a fair bit of artistic license in there!
Spring, arriving slowly. A little bit of winter still around…
30th April 2013 – 300 Barnacle Geese flew north over the house early this morning, new for the 2013 patch. A day spent working out on Bornish machair doing bird surveys. Today started very calm and sunny which was lovely but it gradually got windier as the day went on. This very bold Goldfinch ( Carduelis carduelis) was in the garden this afternoon when i got home.
Goldfinch
At the end of April my 2013 patch list stands at 88 species.
1st May 2013 – :-O I’m *ot able to write much today, i spilt coffee o* my keyboard & a letter *ot work *ow 🙁 Hope it dries out by tomorrow!
This Skylark kept sitti*g o* this large pile of cow du*g but every time i poi*ted the camera at it it flew off. Patie*ce was rewarded eve*tually!
Skylark
2nd May 2013 – Where’s summer?! These two wet male Wheatear’s shelter from the weather, they must be thinking what the hell have they come to the Hebrides for! It was very cold sitting in the van for hours on end doing my vantage point surveys, just 4’C and that horrible damp feeling cold. I was at Iochar today and after the first three hours I took a break and popped along to the cafe at Hebridean Jewellery and warmed up with a hot chocolate. Just the job!
Two bedraggled male Wheatears
3rd May 2013 – Little Tern Sterna albifrons. Happy to see these summer visitors today!
Little Tern
4th May 2013 – Computer keyboard is 6 keys down still. The coffee spill turned out to be fatal, awaiting delivery of new keyboard. Using iPad to write diary. Anyway, it’s been a wet and windy day yet again but at least i didn’t have to work today – much as i love my job it was nice not to have to get up at just gone 6am! I spent the day catching up on the papers and some magazines and will also get on and do some course work.
Rainy day reading matter
5th May 2013 – Found wandering around in the garden this morning 🙂 Common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos). In summer it breeds here by lochs and streams. Sunday, so had a walk around the patch. Apart from the Common Sandpiper I added Brent Goose to the patch list taking me up to a nice round 90 species for the year.
Common Sandpiper
Brent Goose, 90th species for my 2013 patch list
Twite
6th May 2013 – Well the male Wheatear’s are looking much more cheerful now – the females have turned up! I watched a pair while I was working this morning, they were checking out suitable nesting holes.
Wheatear, female
Work continues, as does the wind…
22nd April 2013 – Black-tailed Godwit added to the patch list. And the first Willow Warbler heard on the patch this year 🙂
23rd April 2013 – Wind blown. Another breezy day here today. I spent the day on the machair at Bornish, South Uist. Things were pretty quiet there birdwise although I did take some photos of some Whimbrel – they are passing through on migration at the moment. For my blip today I decided on this photo of the dunes – the sand is constantly blowing over from the beach and is gradually burying the fence line. I thought that in black and white the sand looks almost like a wave of water washing in.
Whimbrel, Bornish
Dunes at Bornish
Wheatear and Lesser Black-backed Gull added to the patch list.
24th April 2013 – A catching up on paperwork day. Lovely and sunny outside though and kept getting tempted out with the camera. Ian headed off for a walk this afternoon but I declined the invitation to join him. After an hour or so I got restless indoors and headed down to the beach to find him on his way home. After all the winds we’ve had there is so much seaweed on the beach, mountains of it when the tide is out. Added Razorbill and Whimbrel to the 2013 patch list.
Patch walk…
25th April 2013 – Spent the day in North Uist working in and around the RSPB reserve at Balranald. A day of very mixed weather, started off with hail and 2.5’C and ended up with 9’C and sunshine! Eider are one of my favourite ducks, that green on the male’s head always seems such an unreal colour to me 🙂
Eider
26th April 2013 – Birds are my prime passion in life but are closely followed by an avid interest in moths. Knowing this our neighbour popped around earlier with this guy to be identified.
It’s a Brown House Moth – Hofmannophila pseudospretella a very common moth in the UK which apparently is an Asian species introduced into Europe in the 1840s. The wonderful habits of the larvae (caterpillar) include feeding on all the detritus that accumulates indoors behind skirting boards and other hidden places around the home.
Brown House Moth
27th April 2013 – Berneray all day today. Quite a few Ringed Plover around on the freshly ploughed machair. I haven’t found any nesting yet but i don’t suppose it will be long…
Ringed Plover
28th April 2013 – The following shot could have been great but sadly it’s not sharp enough! There were lots of Sand Martins (Riparia riparia – and know as Bank Swallow in North America) whizzing around the loch at the back of the C0-op this morning. The conditions were pretty horrible, strong winds (gusting to 47mph) but these amazing birds were still managing to find food – picking insects off the surface of the water.
I didn’t have my tripod with me and struggled with the mega beast (my 600mm lens) balanced on a fence post trying to take bird in flight photos. It was certainly a learning experience:-
* Take tripod
* Use a faster shutter speed! (This was taken at 1/640 sec but not quite fast enough)
* Practice should make perfect
* Feel grateful that i don’t have to struggle to survive by finding flies to eat in strong, cold winds
Sand Martin
Arctic Tern added to the 2013 patch list.
Spring finally on the way!
We had a couple of weeks down on the mainland, the main reason, of course, for going was Ian’s mum’s funeral. Everything went as well as a funeral can go, it was a lovely celebration of mum-in-law’s life and there were lots of people there as could be expected really, she was such a lovely soul who never had a bad word to say about anyone.
While in close proximity to London we were able to catch up with friends. One of which, Gill suggested visiting the Ansel Adams exhibition that was showing at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It wasn’t really Ian’s thing so i headed off on my own into London – feeling very country girl hick! Managed not to get lost.
Ansel Adams – always loved his amazing landscape photography
Anyway i enjoyed the exhibition immensely and then became even more adventurous by heading off into central London to go to the National Portrait Gallery where i had pre-booked tickets to the Man Ray exhibhition. I arrived a little early – before my allotted time so sat on the wall in Trafalgar Square taking in the sights!
Trafalgar Square – snapped with my mobile! I was having a black and white moment after the Ansel Adams exhibition 😉
Once finished in Essex we headed up to Shropshire to spend some time with my own family. It was my daughter, Sara’s, birthday on the same day as mine and our day out of choice was birding 🙂 Well, Sara’s first word was bird so no surprise there then. First we headed off to Venus Pool, the Shropshire Ornithological Society site outside of Shrewsbury where all the usual suspects were gathered! Nothing out of the ordinary but a pair of Bullfinch was nice – not something you see in the Hebrides very often (i last saw them in Lewis in the Northern Bullfinch invasion of Autumn 2004). We had a lovely hide picnic, spreading ourselves and our food and goodies out along the shelf 😉
Common but rather lovely. Mallard at Venus Pool
In the afternoon we headed down to Wall Farm at Kynnersley – wow, that hide hadn’t changed in years – it must have been 12 years since Sara and i had visited. The posters that we had put up in 1998 advertising the YOC were still up on the wall. Yes, good old YOC, remember them? None of that Wildlife Explorers stuff back then! We half expected to see our own ancient notes in the hide log book but that at least had been updated recently. We thought we might see some hares out across the field but no luck.
Robin in mum and dad’s garden
Ian hadn’t explored shropshire very much so we did a little bit of touristy stuff. Visited Ironbridge, bought pork pies from Eley’s.
The famous Ironbridge across the River Severn.
Another day we went out to Church Stretton and up over the Long Mynd – couldn’t see a darn thing for the thick fog! Ah well next time. Stopped off at Wentnor (home of my ancestors) and had a look around the church there. A lovely spot.
Wentnor church, Shropshire
Mum and dad’s garden had a constant stream of bird visitors and i kept a list every day i was there. Good to see was Nuthatch – too quick for me to get a photo though. Siskins and Reed Bunting were also regulars and of course all this activity attracted the attention of a Sparrowhawk which had the occasional flyby. Needless to say we had no ringing equipment with us!
An uneventful journey back north but we seemed to have got out of the south just in time – we left Shropshire on Thursday 21st March at 4am and a few hours later it started to snow, and didn’t stop for three days! At the time of writing (8th April, mum says there is still snow lying under the hedges in places).
Plenty of snow down south!
Dad with the icicle off the back of the shed…
No such trouble with the weather here in the Hebrides! We’ve had a very cold easterly wind but it’s been wall to wall sunshine for more than two weeks now and not a drop of rain.
Meanwhile, here in the Hebrides… Fab day for a walk on the beach!
Snow, what snow? None here!
Cold, frosty mornings but cloudless sunny days.
Straight back into patchbirding as soon as we got back and a few additions have been Black-headed Gull, Sparrowhawk, Linnet, Shoveler and Goldfinch plus the Pied Wagtails have arrived 🙂 We had a trip down to North Uist to have another look at the Harlequin Duck – no good shots, it remained distant all the time we were there. Nice view of a Merlin on the way back to the car though – it was carrying it’s supper of Turnstone.
Merlin with prey item (Turnstone), RSPB Balranald
Bar-tailed Godwits
The funniest thing that happened was that Ian had spent weeks being cheesed off because i saw Rock Pipit on the patch while he was away – we’d not recorded it on our patch before so he was holding out little hope of seeing one. The morning after we arrived back from England he found a dead one outside on the decking. He so wanted to tick that bird, but nope, sorry, dead don’t count!
Had some great sunsets over the last couple of weeks too.
Oh go on then, just one more black and white shot…
The three hills of South Uist, taken from Stilligarry. From left to right: Hecla, Ben Corrodale and ben Mhor
Migration seems to be in full swing now – there were hundreds of Golden Plover and Redwings on the machair this afternoon, they were all feeding, fuelling up no doubt for their journey north. I spent at least a couple of hours there watching this amazing sight, all to the background soundtrack of singing Skylark’s and displaying Lapwings. I love the machair!
Golden Plover
Harlequin etc…
I guess it’s the only survey where i’m really happy if i find nothing at all – the annual National Beached Bird Survey organised by the RSPB. It’s the third year running that i’ve done this survey and out of the three years have only found corpses last year. Once again i covered the Orasay to Askernish stretch and Bill next door very kindly gave me a lift to my start point at Orasay where i saw my first Goldfinches of the year – a nice little posse of 8 on the wires there. It was an absolutely stonking day for a walk along the high tide line – blue sky, sunshine and hardly a breathe of wind – Hebridean winter days don’t come much better than this!
Orasay, my starting point
How tropical does this look! But no, it really is South Uist…
Well i apologise in advance but i’m going to bore you with a few more sunny beach shots. Will sorry be alright? If not, tough, deal with it!
Bird tracks – not sure what species though – any suggestions welcome 🙂
The Turnstones were being very confiding, i took this with my wee compact camera from about 8 feet away.
I had to take this one, it shows the beginning of Our Patch, the mast at Hallan is just off the right hand side of the picture.
Just me on the beach 🙂
Found a few random yellow objects along the way but no dead birds fortunately
Another random yellow object… I was tempted to bring this home but there are only so many colourful floats you can use as a decorative feature at the front of your house and Ian thinks i have too many already. Dunno why but i have this weird kind of compulsion to collect them…
The only other person i saw on the beach was Bill who had surveyed the Frobost to Askernish section and we met up at Askernish when we’d both just finished. Happily Bill had found no dead bodies either. He was holding a small bag so i asked him if he’d found anything interesting. He said “no, just a bit of rubbish i’ve picked up from along the beach“. It made me think about a documentary i’d watched a few days previously, to cut a long story short, it was about three guys who wanted to run across the Sahara dessert. They started in Senegal, at the Atlantic and there were shots of them on the beach – they wanted to start with their feet in the Atlantic Ocean. What really made me sit up and take notice was the sheer amount of crap, debris and rubbish on the beach there, it was undescribable. It made me pretty depressed really, i suppose if i dwell on the subject, which i try not too, it just confirms the fact that as long as there are people around, the world is f.cked. I suppose there’s no point me giving up, i don’t think i could, and i’ve just got to carry on doing my own little bit, much like Bill picking up the rubbish off Askernish beach and hope for the best that it will rub off on other people…
It must be that time of year when the land users get the urge to burn off the moors. On returning from the Beached Bird Survey there was a lot of smoke appearing over the hills in the south of uist and a few days later Barra (or Mordor as we fondly call it – due to it’s very often gloomy, cloud-laden appearance) looked like it was on fire.
Mordor, sorry Barra, in the distance, looking like it’s on fire
As far as the Patchwork Challenge goes I ended February with 62 species for the patch. Can’t complain at that. I didn’t quite see as many species during February as during January. I extracted a graph from BirdTrack
My species per month on the patch, from BirdTrack
Ian arrived home on the 24th February, seemed like he’d been away for ever but at least he got to spend some time with his lovely mum during her final days.
A few foggy days followed Ian’s arrival back home but we were still able to get out birding.
Geese in the mist
A few new birds were added to the list, including Glaucous Gull – white wings have been pretty few and far between this winter so it was good to find one just down on the beach at Askernish, on patch 🙂 Also on the beach was a Raven with a ring, we wondered if it was one of the one’s that Terry had ringed in the nest.
Glaucous Gull, Askernish beach.
A few more scarce (for here) species turned up on the patch as well, a couple of Pink-feet in with the White-fronts, plus Scaup and Pintail on Loch Hallan.
Two Pink-feet in amongst the White-fronts
The Pintail had turned up as a pair.
Lovely male Pintail at Loch Hallan.
Spot the Scaup in amongst the Tufties…
The Whooper Swan numbers are starting to build up on nearby Loch Hallan. They gather there every year and leave, to fly north, en masse. It’s fabulous to go outside at most times of the day and be able to hear their trumpety calls in the distance.
Whooper Swans gathering up on Loch Hallan.
Once Ian had caught up with all his jobs around the house, including planting another 100 trees (making a total of 800 since 2010), we decided to have a trip up to North Uist to have a look at the drake Harlequin Duck that had turned up there. I’ve seen Harlequin here before, when i lived in Lewis i went to see the long staying female that had turned up there in 2004.
The drake Harlequin was fairly distant and photographing it was fun – 100 shots of the sea and 12 of the duck 😉
Drake Harlequin at Traigh an Iar, North Uist
In flight shot of the Harlequin Duck
We also added the Loch Sandary Pochard to our 2013 Western Isles list and my 100th species for the year was the Snow Geese that are on the fields near Loch Sandary.
Snow Geese. Yes, i put them on my list, well it is MY list so :-p
Well, that’s me done with rattling on for now. We are leaving on the overnight ferry tomorrow night to head down to the mainland for Ian’s mum funeral 🙁 On a brighter note we’ll be able to at least catch up with friends and my family while we’re away. It will be both mine and my daughter’s birthday on the 19th and we already have a birding trip planned for that day 🙂
Finally here is a picture from a few years ago of Ian being silly as usual – he’s dressed up in the clothes that he had given to him by his Moroccan friends – or is he the genie that just popped out of the lamp (watering can) that his mum has just rubbed…
“Your wish is my command”
Stormy week!
Had a very stormy start to the week with high winds Monday and Tuesday. Monday was particularly abysmal with winds gusting to 60-odd miles an hour and horizontal snow.
This is what the swell chart looked like for Monday – you can’t fail to be impressed with this eh?!
Swell chart for Monday 4th Feb 2013
Some video of the massive waves “up the Butt” from the Eoropie Tearoom Facebook page.
Shetland and Orkney have also been suffering, take a look at this footage of the lighthouse on Fair Isle from this blog post: http://fair-isle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/lighthouse-walls-fall-to-biggest-waves.html
And a blog post from Fair Isle from the day after, with lots of pictures: http://fair-isle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/damage-done-south-lighthouse-fair-isle.html
Since Wednesday it’s just been grey and drizzly but at least i’ve been able to get out every day for a walk around the patch. I was hoping something had been blown in but it was pretty quiet all along the beach.
I was very happy to add a couple more species to my 2013 patch list: a Moorhen was heard calling from the reeds by Loch Hallan and then two days later one was on the loch at the front of the house. Friday i added the 60th species – Dunlin when three were on the beach with the other waders (Barwits, Oycs, Sanderling, Ringed Plover, Turnstones). Nice flock of 24 Long-tailed Duck not far offshore.
Met RSPB Stuart on my walk back across the machair and had a chat with him, hoped he might be able to point me in the direction of some on-patch Corn Buntings no luck but we had a nice chat in the pouring rain, swapping tales of what we hadn’t seen, bemoaning the lack of Glaucs and Iceland Gulls here this winter.
Ian is still away down in Essex and getting ever more twitchy to get back to the island. I sent him a phone photo from the beach – it was completely empty, not a person in sight in any direction, no sounds apart from the birds and the sea. He sent a very grumpy text back saying he was in Ikea surrounded by hundreds of other shoppers. Shame 😉
It’s been nice for the last few weeks, my friend Jane has been visiting here from Lewis and we’ve had plenty of time for long chats and girly nights with lots of glasses of wine. 🙂 Jane’s been working down here but in her spare time has been sketching and painting. Up in Lewis she runs the Blue Pig studio in Carloway. You can click on the two following photos to visit Jane’s facebook page.
One of Jane’s Uist sketches
Jane’s favourite birds are waders
Is spring on it’s way? There were quite a few Redwings around on Friday, are they beginning to make a move back north?
Well Saturday dispelled that Spring theory as i went to do the monthly Winter Thrushes Survey and didn’t find a single Redwing or Fieldfare! A smattering of Blackbirds and Song Thrushes only. Mind you as i walked through the woods at North Locheynort it was noticeably noisier – plenty of Robins and Wrens singing.
Winter Thrushes Survey, Locheynort. Beinn Mhor had it’s head in the mist.
Saturday afternoon had a phone call which said “would you like a Heron?” Well, yes, why not? My friend Louise turned up with a Grey Heron that she’d found dead in her garden after the storm the other day. Poor thing. I’m always up for a learning experience though and i haven’t handled any fully grown herons so i had a good look at it, got Baker* out to see about the ageing. I came to the conclusion that it was a bird hatched last year: grey crown with just a little dark streaking. Short dark grey ornamental feathers. The bird had died in pretty poor condition, there was virtually no muscle on the breast.
Grey Heron
Grey Heron, wing
Sunday’s weather was pretty poor (pouring rain and breezy) and i didn’t venture out but still managed to have a quick scan around the patch using the ‘scope out of the front window – the best sight was an otter running from Loch Hallan, across the golf course and machair and into the dunes.
*Identification Guide to European Non-Passerines (BTO Guide 24), Kevin Baker, 1993
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