Tag Archives: Scotland

Glorious Glen Affric

Posted on December 16, 2014 | 18 comments

During my excursion to the Highlands in June 2014 we took a trip from Garten up to Inverness and down the north shore of Loch Ness before heading up to one the wildest places I’ve been to in the UK, Glen Affric.

It seems that Glen Affric is right in the midst of the back of beyond and I can imagine it’s a harsh place to live in the depths of winter. But often with remoteness comes undistrurbed natural beauty, and so it was here. On arrival we parked up at a car park on the bank of River Affric, and after fastidious application of insect repellent to deter the midges we ate lunch at a picnic table . And as we sat and watched the river a dipper was busy skimming to and fro. A closer look after lunch revealed that it had built a nest on the underside of a bridge and it was bringing insects back to feed the chicks.

Dipper – Cinclus cinclus, Dansk: vandstær – contemplating the next foray upriver…

This was too good a photo opportunity to miss and I hopped from stone to stone into the river and eventually perched on a rock a couple of inches above the water that was just about stable enough to keep me out the river. I wanted to get a picture of a dipper as it skimmed past low over the water and I managed to capture this series of shots as it took care of the crucial business of feeding the hungry youngsters:

… setting off …

… passing through at high speed…

… and heading back with a beak full of grubs. A successful mission.

I’ve never had the chance to photograph dippers like this before so I’m very happy with this series of pictures. I rarely see them because they’re birds of fast moving rivers like the ones found in the hills and mountains and consequently they’re not to be found in my part of the world. Despite the fact I see it very infrequently, the dipper is a resident breeder in the UK and is green listed and therefore not of concern. And unlike most waterbirds which hunt by swimming or diving, the dipper hunts by running along the bottom of the riverbed. Some years ago I watched one do this in a mountain stream in Betws y Coed in Snowdonia, it’s a fascinating thing to watch and it made me wonder how they diminish their bouyancy in order to avoid floating off the river bed.

The reason we went to Glen Affric was to see rare dragonflies, specifically, the northern emerald which is very local to the Highlands of Scotland and absent from England, and the downy emerald which can also be seen in some parts of England but is uncommon. For the record, we saw a lot of downy emeralds over Coire Loch at Glen Affric but no northern emeralds. As we were dragon hunting I only took my long telephoto lens and I didn’t take any landscape shots of the terrain (or none which I’m happy to share), but to get an idea of the place follow the link above and the two pictures on the first page labelled ‘River Affric‘ and ‘Looking down over Coire Loch‘ best reflect my memories of it.

I didn’t get any dragon pictures here either because I couldn’t really get close enough to them, so as it was a gloriously sunny afternoon I just enjoyed the silence and the views and the whole atmosphere of the place, which was utter tranquility.

Grey wagtail, Motacilla cinerea, Dansk: bjergvipstjert

Like the dipper, grey wagtail were also darting up and down the river. They are resident breeders and passage visitors with amber conservation status in the UK, but their numbers are not of concern in Europe as a whole and they are beautiful little birds to be seen hunting insects over fast running streams. I think the name ‘grey wagtail‘ suggests something a tad dull and uninteresting, which does them a huge disservice, something like ‘saffron wagtail‘ would be more appropriate!

The best sighting of all at Glen Affric was one I didn’t get a photograph of because I was driving at the time. And it was also the most unexpected. We had just left the parking place at Glen Affric to return to Garten at around 6.30pm when a dark brown/black creature approximately the size of a cat bounded across the road and ran along in front of the car for four or five seconds, and it was a pine marten (Martes martes). We had paid to sit in a hide two nights previously to guarantee a sighting of this most elusive creature, and here was one running down the road in front of us. It’s funny how a whole four day trip can be made by a four second sighting of an incredibly rare and charismatic creature.

18 Comments

Posted in Anisoptera, Birds, Dragonflies, Glen Affric, Insects, Mammals, Mustellidae, Ornithology, Predators, Scotland, UK wildlife, water birds

Tagged Anisoptera, Cinclus cinclus, dipper, dragon flies, Glen Affric, grey wagtail, Highlands, Martes martes, Motacilla cinerea, Mustellids, Odanata, pine marten, Scotland, water birds

Loch Mallachie

Posted on December 15, 2014 | 12 comments

Loch Garten is mainly associated with the osprey and is the home of the flagship RSPB reserve set up to protect and provide access to this most remarkable of birds.

But the osprey isn’t the only bird to be seen in this part of the world, and as I’d never been here before I was really hoping to see crested tit and Scottish crossbill in the coniferous forest around the lake. Suffice to say, despite looking long and hard I saw neither. But far from being despondent I see it as an excellent reason to go back there and try again!

Common sandpiper – Actitis hypoleucos, Dansk: mudderklire

In the same part of Abernethy Forest and a short distance from Loch Garten is Loch Malachie, so myself and my companion decided to explore there after drawing a blank on tits and crossbills at Garten. But instead of them, we found common sandpipers and in my book that’s a fair exchange:

The sandpipers are very neat little waders and there were several of them patrolling the large boulders on the shore of the lake. They weren’t overly impressed with our presence and to show their disquiet made several low looping flights along the shore and around behind us through the woods, which felt like an unusual place to see a sandpiper in flight. So we collected a few photographs and retreated to leave them in peace.

Goldeneye – Bucephala clangula, Dansk: hvinand

On the same piece of shore line as the sandpipers was this female goldeneye with a pair of chicks. The goldeneye overwinters over much of the UK but has a very small breeding population of only a couple of hundred pairs, largely due to a program of nestboxes on Speyside – the goldeneye is unusual amongst ducks in that it nests in holes in trees. There was no male accompanying this family which is pity because they’re spectacular!

It was a grey, damp, overcast morning in the Abernethy Forest around Loch Malachie and may be because of that it was eerily quiet. There were very few songbirds and the ones we saw most of were wren and chaffinch, which are also common visitors to my garden. But then we saw a spotted flycatcher which is definitely not a visitor to my garden:

Spotted flycatcher – Muscacapa striata, Dansk: fluesnapper

The spotted flycatcher is a migrant breeder to the UK, it overwinters in Africa and is red listed due to overall decline as a result of decreasing prey species caused by pollution and insecticide use (>30% over 10 years). Despite that, the European population is estimated to be 42-66 million individual birds (according to Birdlife International).

Apart from the beautiful wildlife, what I really noticed in the forest was the complete absence of human noise polution (it was silent apart from the wind and the birds), and the smell of the pine forest, and there are few natural aromas as delicious as the fresh smell of pine mixed in with the leaf mould underfoot. But the best thing was the silence!

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Posted in Abernethy Forest, Birds, Cairngorms, Countryside walks, Ducks, Loch Garten, Loch Malachie, Migrants, Ornithology, Scotland, Songbirds, UK wildlife, Waders, water birds

Tagged Abernethy Forest, Cairngorms, common sandpiper, goldeneye, Loch Garten, Loch Malachie, Scotland, spotted flycatcher, summer migrants

Spiders, dragons, damsels and reptiles

Posted on October 11, 2014 | 5 comments

During my trip to Scotland earlier in the year with my friend we stayed at Boat of Garten in Speyside which is close by Loch Garten in the Abernethy Forest, the primary location in the UK for seeing ospreys. So, as well as the ospreys, one of the iconic ‘must-see’ creatures on my wish list was the pine marten (Martes martes), but we had fairly low expectation of seeing one so we booked an evening with Speyside Wildlife in a purpose built pine marten viewing hide. We spent the evening there with half a dozen other folk and a knowledgeable guide who told us all about the local wildlife. We saw a deer and a badger and then a couple of hours later, well after dark, a pine marten appeared and spent several minutes feeding right in front of us, just a few feet away. So it was well worth the wait! It fed from a branch right outside the window and it was a truly beautiful animal, and what struck me most was its size, it was much bigger than I’d anticipated. Because it was night time and I didn’t want to disturb teh marten there are no photographs, but if you want to see one there are images on Speyside Wildlife’s website if you follow the link above and browse to the Gallery. It was an evening well spent!

An unidentified, but spectacular, floating spider

The morning after the marten hide we set off into Abernethy Forest, stopping off at RSPB Loch Garten to see the resident osprey which duly obliged and perched on the nest. There were lots of other small birds, in particular siskin, mobbing the feeders around the visitor centre, but after the osprey we headed off into the forest on a dragon hunt.

We found a small pool in the forest but the weather was grey and cool so the dragons were still under cover, but a magnificent spider was hunting on the surface. There are tiny dents in the water at the end of its legs where the surface tension is being tested but is still holding firm and supporting the weight of the spider. My knowledge of arachnidis is miniscule so I sent this photograph to the British Arachnological Society in the hope that they could identify it, but they said without dissecting it they couldn’t unambiguously name it.

In the absence of dragons we decamped to another much bigger pool a couple of miles away, and as we arrived there the sun emerged and brought the dragons out. It got very warm very quickly and they appeared in their hundreds:

Four spot chaser – Libellula quadrimaculataNorthern damselfly – Coenagrion hastulatum

The four spotted chaser is common all over the UK and can be seen in my neck of the woods too, but the northern damsel is only found in a few small lochs – or ‘lochans‘ – in Scotland. Consequently I’d never seen this one before. It can be identified by the bottom half of the eye which is green, and segment 2 of the thorax has a black marking resembling the ace of spades.

And while squadrons of dragons patrolled the air, the suns warmth had also enticed out a modern day dinosaur who was patrolling the marsh around the edge of the lake:

Common lizard – Zootoca vivipara

And now the sun was out we headed back to the original pool with increased hopes of finding a white faced darter and lo and behold we found a newly emerged one:

A very newly emerged white faced darter – Leuchorrhinia dubia

This species is limited to just a few sites in England and Scotland, it has declined in recent decades due to habitat destruction, pollution, etc, etc – all the usual reasons why human activity is causing species loss. This was the only one we saw here and I couldn’t get into position to photograph its white face, but I was very pleased to see such a pristine example of a species I hadn’t seen before.

5 Comments

Posted in Abernethy Forest, Anisoptera, Arachnids, Cairngorms, Damselflies, Darter dragonflies, Dragonflies, Insects, Loch Garten, Reptiles, Scotland, UK wildlife, Zygoptera

Tagged Abernethy Forest, Cairngorms, common lizard, dragonflies, four spot chaser, Loch Garten, northern damselfly, Scotland, water spider, white faced darter

Loch Ruthven

Posted on October 11, 2014 | 8 comments

This year marked the occasion of the start of my 51st orbit around the sun, and to celebrate the event myself and my friend, who also reached the same milestone, took a trip in June to the Cairngorms in Scotland. It was a terrific excursion, the sun shone for most of the trip, and we spent the whole time out in the wilds. Before we went we convened in the pub several times to ‘plan‘ our campaign and one of our plans was to compile a short priority list of species we’d like to see. My list consisted of osprey, crested tit, crossbill and pine marten. And my friends list also included pine marten along with various dragonflies including white faced darter and northern damselfly – neither of which can be found in Cambridgeshire.

As we were intent on packing in as much Celtic wildlife watching as we could in three days it was a busy trip. So our first stop after arriving at Inverness and picking up a hire car was at Loch Ruthven. Truth be told, there wasn’t a huge amount going on here, but it was a lovely spot to burn an hour relaxing after the hassle of travel, flights etc.

Little grebe, or dabchick, (Tachybaptus ruficollis, Dansk: lille lappedykker)

Like other grebes, this one is a diver, reaching a depth of a metre to feed on molluscs, small fish and insects. Shakespeare referred to it as the ‘dive-dapper’ and according tho the British trust for ornithology it is the only bird to have the first three letters of the alphabet consecutively… and I bet you’re glad you know that!

The little grebe is a resident and migrant breeder in the UK as well as being a winter visitor and covers a large part of the globe across Eurasia as far east as New Guinea and sub-Saharan Africa.

A pair of teal (Anas crecca, Dansk: krikand)

Teal, like most ducks, are striking, handsome birds and their markings make them easily identifiable. They are passage and winter visitors here as well as being resident breeders. They frequent shallow water, and like the little grebe their conservation status in the UK is amber, with 2100 breeding pairs here.

So even though Loch Ruthven wasn’t bristling with rare and previously unseen wildlife (for myself, at least) it was a very pleasant start to our exploration of that corner of the UK. We speculated at the time that next time we visit we may need a passport and visa, but I’m pleased that our neighbours didn’t vote to secede from the UK in the September referendum!

8 Comments

Posted in Birds, Cairngorms, Ducks, Loch Ruthven, Scotland, UK wildlife, water birds

Tagged Anas cricca, Cairngorms, dabchick, Loch Ruthven, Scotland, Tachybaptus ruficollis, teal

Barn owls bounce back

Posted on February 17, 2012 | 6 comments

Every now and again there is a piece of good news regarding the survival of a particular species. Yesterday on the BBC news website was just such a story. It concerned the resurgence of barn owls (Tyto alba, Dansk: slørugle) in the Trossachs around Loch Lomond in Scotland.

Watching barn owls silently quartering fields on a warm summers evening is a rare treat and getting rarer, so it was good to hear that in this area the numbers of field voles (Microtus agrestis) have rocketed by up to ten fold, which has led to a concommitant increase in the breeding success of the local barn owls.

A barn owl quartering a wheat field

Paradoxically, the reason the vole population exploded was the long freezing winters we had last year and the year before, in which large numbers of barn owls perished, but the voles were able to avoid the worst of the cold and move around by tunnelling under the snow and thereby avoid detection by airborn predators.

It was also interesting to read that the owls were maximising the benefit of the vole surplus by storing slaughtered prey in owl boxes, with up to 15 dead rodents in a single box.

Hopefully vole numbers will continue to remain high and barn owl numbers can recover even further. If anyone has heard similar reports about barn owl numbers in other parts of the country please let me know.