Osprey...

Great views of an Osprey that flew over at tree height across the road between Monadh Mor turn off and Tore roundabout yesterday.

Year List Additions:
121. Osprey

Summer...

Well I have finally finished college, the work load got pretty intense towards the end but it's all done now and I can look forward to the Summer (if we ever get one) and planning for Finland at the end of August.

First of all an update on the situation in the garden. The Blue Tits that is wrote about HERE hung on for a couple weeks after and I saw adults coming and going but it was fairly irregular and finally I think they gave up as nextdoor's cat was too much for them. One morning I opened the curtains to the cat sat on top of the nextbox with it's paw in the hole. I would be lying if I said I didn't hate the damn things.

The small area of wildflower planting that I carried out a few weeks back is doing ok but again half of it is still looking pretty bare because the damn cat keeps shitting in it and digging it all up. Maybe I can persuade it somehow to go play nearer to the main road.

There have been plenty of young birds around and feeding in the garden including, Rooks, Starlings, Dunnocks, Robins, Blackbirds, Greenfinch, Sparrows, Great Tits and Chaffinch.

Young Starling

It's also nice to see up to 12 Swifts at a time over the house and Red Kites being mobbed by Common Gulls is a frequent sight now as they are protecting their chicks at the small breeding colony down near the Conon River.

With college finished for the year it was nice to have the time to go for a walk yesterday (18/06). The weather has been fairly miserable lately with the last couple weeks being very gloomy with lots of drizzle, definately nowhere near as much rain as parts of the South however.

I decided to take a walk down at Ferry Point and along the shoreline as it is a good couple months since I had been down there and as you can imagine quite a lot has changed. I decided to park at the small carpark as you come into Dingwall and walk down the path between two fields for a bit of a change.

As I walked down the path towards the shoreline I didn't really see much apart from plenty of Cow Parsley and a couple of Blue Tits. When I got to the bottom of the path there some clumps of Thrift or Sea Pink (Armeria maritima) at the top of the bank looking quite good in the sun.

Armeria maritima

I found a nice place to sit for a few minutes and scan out accross the water and the sandbanks as the tide was out. Quite a few Lapwings flying about and the usual Herring and Common Gulls. A large bird came flapping into view on the far side of the water. It landed whilst pushing a Herring Gull away from a fish that it had not long caught. It was an Osprey and it was now happily eating a free lunch but too far away for a picture. I made my way right along the top of the grass bank and I could hear plenty of Willow Warblers and spotted a few Greenfinch and Goldfinch in the Birch trees.

A bit further along there were 2 or 3 Sand Martins flying low over the water and back and forth to the steep bank where the earth has been eroded away and where they are nesting. I tried hard to get a decent picture but they were just too quick.

The best of a bad bunch.

Three swans then swam round the corner and into view, making their way towards the central sand bank. My first thought of course was Mute Swan but they didn't look right and a quick check through the bins revealed them to be 3 unseasonal Whooper Swans. One of them was was ringed with a metal ring on the left and a yellow darvic ring on the right but it was too far away to read it.

Whoopers

I carried on further round where the path heads away from the shore and round the back of small reed bed. Chaffinch, Song Thrush, Blackbird and Swallows were seen on the way with various Gulls and Carrion Crows. I walked behind the reed bed across a small bridge over a stream and round to the otherside. Whilst crossing the bridge which goes under and through some dense small trees I heard a bird calling loudly and repeatedly. As I looked around I managed to spot it, it was a Common Whitethroat and it was only a few feet away giving fantastic views. The call was very harsh and scolding and it jumped about from branch to branch calling continuously. It looked like a young bird to me.

Common Whitethroat.

There was also a family part of Wrens in the same tree giving good views but far too fast for a decent photo. I carried on further admiring the Bluebells and Lesser Stitchwort (can you tell I have been doing flower ID quite a lot recently?) and out into the open. I stopped for awhile to scan around and spotted a lone Oystercatcher. I noticed some pretty dark rain clouds in the distance so I decided to turn back. Just before I did I spotted a large bird coming towards me and I knew it was an Osprey. The bird flew right over my head and I managed to get a few record shots. One thing that surprised me was just how long the wings in relation to body size.

Osprey

Heading back round to the reed bed I could hear a Reed Bunting calling and after a couple minutes a male hopped out of the dense reeds to sit at the top of one giving great views but just out of range for my camera although I did try.

Male Reed Bunting

As I made my way back towards the turn back through the fields another scan of the firth produced a group of Canada Geese a first for the year and part of the group that regularly spend their summers around the Cromarty Firth whilst they go through their moult. I counted a total of 36 overall.

On the last stretch back to the car I noticed a small bird up ahead fly up and over into the ditch that runs alongside the path. When I got a little bit closer I could see it was a male Common Whitethroat with a beakful of insects but it flew off pretty quickly.

Overall it was a very nice walk and well spent could of hours. It was nice to see the changes since I last visited and some new arrivals in terms of birds. Let's just hope the decent weather continues for awhile at least.

Quick update..

Just a quick update whilst I take a short break from coursework. Heard my first Willow Warblers from my back doorstep in the middle of last week then a couple days I managed to spot one in the trees just outside my garden.

At the weekend I did a bit of bee friendly planting, replacing one the borders in the garden with a mix of British Wildflower seed. Not sure how successful they will be but fingers crossed. I obtained two free packets of seed from Friends of the Earth's Bee Cause website, in which they managed to hand out all 10,000 packets that were available. The good news is the Co-operative are now doing a similar thing for those who want some called Plan Bee.

Today (3rd) I was at Drummondreach Oak wood this morning for a college module. A really stunning woodland with plenty more Willow Warblers singing, 3 Swallows spotted on the way there at Alcaig and an Osprey was seen perched just offshore of the Urquhart Cemetery, my 6th Osprey in the space of two weeks, not bad considering I had only seen one before once at Loch Garten Osprey centre.

That's all from me back to work, such a shame that I have to miss all this lovely weather.

Small but it's a start.

Weekend away... Part.2

On Sunday (22nd) we decided to take a trip to the Falls of Shin which is located between Lairg and Bonar Bridge and is famous for it's falls and leaping salmon but also has a visitor centre and plenty of forest walks.

We took the long way round bypassing Lairg first with the intention of doing the full loop via Bonar Bridge on the way home. Upon arriving it was fairly quiet to start off. A quick toilet stop and then we headed down the steps to the falls. The river was in full flow and looked impressive as the sun came out. Grey Wagtails were seen again from the viewing platform and also a Dipper which landed not far from the platform with a beakful of invertebrates and then flew up into a clump of moss on the slippery rock which turned out to be it's nest!

Dipper at nest.

We then headed into Achany Wood just beside the visitor centre. The wood is very attractive with native Scots Pine and Birch with Larch and Douglas Fir scattered throughout. Plenty of Blue, Great, Coal Tit, Chaffinch were present as was a small group of Siskin and a Buzzard flew over. In a small clearing near the path two male Orange Tip butterflies were sunning themselves and returning to the car park a single Raven flew overhead and Pied Wagtails were foraging around the parked cars. To finish the visit we had a very tasty ice cream before heading on towards Bonar Bridge.

Achany Wood

 

Male Orange Tip

After Bonar Bridge the route took us through the small hamlet of Spinningdale. Driving along the road my girlfriend shouts for me to stop and pullover. I had no idea what was going til she directed me to a large Pine tree in a small group of trees in the middle of a field a couple hundred metres from the road. It was an Osprey nest with a pair of Osprey flying around it. I had seen an Osprey before but only at the Loch Garten Osprey centre two years ago. They gave fantastic views from the car and we watched for a few minutes before moving on as to not disturb them.

I couldn't believe my luck at seeing a pair of Ospreys and a nest as we carried on back to the A9. Not long after returning to the A9 my girlfriend spotted another nest with two more Ospreys but this time we couldn't stop but we still managed to see them both, literally 5 minutes after the last, fantastic. It is important to remember that these birds are a fully protected species and should never be disturbed (by law) and exact nesting locations never given out publicly.

As we neared the turn off for Dornoch I decided to instead carry on a little further North for the turn off to Loch Buidhe a site I had read about in Gordon Hamlett's book. We headed up the single track road into the surrounding hills for a few miles. On the way I spotted a Wheatear on a roadside patch of grass.

Female Wheatear

Heading up the road for a couple more miles and we finally came to Loch Buidhe. As well as the stunning views there was also a Common Sandpiper, my first of the year at loch side and Meadow Pipits along the fence line surrounding the forestry plantations.

Loch Buidhe

Common Sandpiper

As we turned round to head back down another Osprey flew over the loch, unbelievable, the only slight disappointment that it didn't crash down into the water to catch a fish! A Kestrel was also spotted on the way down and near the bottom of the valley I saw what I thought was a gull when on closer inspection it was a Fulmar, another first for the year and pulling over there was infact a small breeding colony on a natural inland cliff. Heading back round by the South shore of Loch Fleet the same lay by from the day before produced more Common Seals on the sandbanks. A great end to a great day.

Fulmar

Common Seals

On the final morning Monday (23rd) we had to vacate at 10am so we packed up and headed back to Dornoch for one last walk on the beach. Again plenty of larks and pipits in the dunes and Rooks, Jackdaws and Herring Gulls in the beachside car park. Around the golf course were groups of Linnet and Starling. We headed up the beach and I noticed a hirundine flying over the sand. At first I thought Swallow but it was actually a House Martin which turned out to be 1 of a group of 5, another year first. At that point it started pouring with rain so we headed back to the car but on the way I spotted a dead Puffin on the strand line that looked fairly fresh.

A quick coffee and a cake in Dornoch and we headed back down the A9 when my girlfriend spotted a Swallow flying over the road near to Tain, yet another first of the year and a nice end to the trip which takes me to over 100 species for the year.