Turnstones (Arenaria interpres) and Dunlin (Calidris alpina)

One should never dally on Islay - it was the most glorious morning here with a startlingly blue sky, a bright yellow sun and little fluffy clouds, but we stupidly did a few chores before climbing on the bikes and pedalling up the loch to the Strand, by which time it had all gone pear-shaped.  Never mind, there is always something to see - here a flock of Turnstones and Dunlin are flying along the shoreline with Bruichladdich pier and Loch Indaal lighthouse in the background.

We were stalked all the way up by a big black cloud, which duly dumped its load of snow and sleet on us as we headed back towards Port Charlotte.

Here a Turnstone, in its relatively drab winter plumage, is crossing a bit of beach covered with frozen hailstones.
Carl

New Year Bird List, as per Tim Drew

Happy New Year everyone! I thought it was about time I made a reappearance, albeit in the guise of my brother who was here (in my house) with his partner for three days from 30th Dec to 2nd Jan, whilst I was on Eigg with my partner. We saw 36 species of birds (big cheer please) on Eigg and were quite pleased with ourselves until I got home and saw Tim had been kind enough to leave their bird list for me - standing at 84 species, it far exceeded ours! Thanks Tim!

Great Northern Diver, Red-throated Diver, Black-throated Diver (from ferry), Great Crested Grebe (2), Little Grebe, Slavonian Grebe, Guillemot, Razorbill, Black Guillemot, Mute Swan, Whooper Swan, Barnacle Goose, Brent Goose, Greenland White-fronted Goose, Greylag Goose, pink-footed Goose, Shelduck, Mallard, Wigeon, Common Scoter, Scaup, Eider, Goldeneye, Teal, Pintail, Long-tailed Duck, Shoveler, Red-breasted Merganser, Cormorant, Shag, Grey Heron, Oystercatcher, Greenshank (1), Redshank, Turnstone, Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit (1), Kestrel, Merlin (2, inc. one flying over house), Buzzard, Golden Eagle (1st Jan), Peregrine, Sparrowhawk (2), Pheasant, Woodcock (1), Jackdaw, Hoodie, Chough, Rook, Raven, Herring Gull, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Kittiwake, Starling, Blackbird, Mistle Thrush, Fieldfare, Song Thrush, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Dunnock, Robin, Wren, Greenfinch, Twite, Chaffinch, Stonechat, House Sparrow, Goldcrest, Collared Dove, Rock Dove, Wood Pigeon, Pied Wagtail, Rock Pipit, Meadow Pipit, Reed Bunting.

To rub salt into the wound, they also saw three otters - one near Bruichladdich, one at Claggain Bay and one near Ardbeg. Still, no Great-spotted Woodpecker there (as on Eigg) and whatever happened to Redwing?

Happy wildlife watching in 2011 everyone,

Becky

Full story - Daily Telegraph

Crescent Moon

The cold weather has returned.  Hard frost again last night.  This was taken a few minutes ago at the top of Loch Indaal where the merse has frozen.  Woodcock were flying in to feed and there were groups of Scaup close to the shore, but too dark to photograph.
Carl

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/

"What do seals eat? Seals poop, Scientists scoop!" - Lindsay Wilson writes....

The harbour seal is in decline around Scotland. Trying to understand why is a group of scientists from the University of St. Andrews Sea Mammal Research Unit.

What and how much do seals eat? This is what PhD student Lindsay Wilson is trying to work out. Travelling the coast of Scotland every 3 months, including visits to Islay, Jura and Gigha, Lindsay and her small team spend most days on the water looking for seals.




Lindsay and Ross Waddams plan their scooping strategy in Orkney where they used a helicopter to access the colonies

 Two species of seal can be found around Scotland’s coastline; the harbour (or common) seal and the grey seal. Harbour seals tend to haul-out on land in sheltered areas more accessible to man and are often therefore considered the ‘common’ seal. However, the larger Atlantic grey seal which can be found in more remote or exposed locations around Scotland’s coast is actually the most abundant species.
Over the last 10 years harbour seals have declined by one-third around Scotland (current estimate 20,000 animals) while the grey seal population has expanded dramatically (current estimate 180,000 animals). Lindsay has visited the islands twice in the last 6 months as part of a yearlong study to understand what role diet may play in the expansion or decline of Scotland’s seal populations.

Working mostly from a boat the team scans the coastline looking for seals. Once located seals are counted and identified to species before the team make their way ashore to collect seal scat (faeces). Samples are scooped into plastic bags, much like you would pick up after your dog and sent back to the lab to be analysed. Using the hard parts of prey which remain in the scat, the team can identify between different fish prey such as sandeel and cod using ear bones (otoliths) and between squid and octopus using their beaks.


Scooping action near Port Ellen


Through scat analysis Lindsay hopes to document the diet of Scotland’s harbour seals and answer a number of questions. Recent population estimates for the west coast showed no decline in seal number whereas seal counts in Orkney suggest the harbour seal population has declined by up to 65%, are the seals in these different areas eating different prey? By collecting scat over a 12 month period the team hope to understand, does diet change throughout the year? And, by understanding the diet similarities or differences between harbour and grey seals, is there competition between grey seals and harbour seals for prey?

Lindsay and her team continue to travel around Scotland collecting seal scat and will be back visiting Islay and Jura again soon to try and understand what and how much seals eat. You can follow their exploits on their web diary at

http://www.sealdietscotland.co.uk/



http://www.photo-natur.de/



Griffon vulture accused of spying for Israelis - BBC

Full story here

Severe weather Shooting ban lifted in Scotland

BASC website

Reading the Daily Mail is bad for my blood pressure

Daily Mail's 'Monster Cat-killing fox might attack babies next' story

Another Christmas Card

Here's another home-produced Christmas Card - this one is from Colin and Celia of Tyneside who are great Islay enthusiasts.  I call this one a bit ostentatious - its a bit like showing off - but hey - Colin used to be the Chair of the BBRC....  And they don't even mention Steller!!
More cheers
Carl

The Common Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) and Optimism

It is not a great day outside today - lots of sharp showers interspersed by mostly grey skies, and although the strong southerly wind of this morning is dropping, it has been a day for staying indoors and catching up on a few tasks.  I have ventured out a few times however, and thought it would be good to include a picture of snowdrops in the garden pushing their way upwards and heralding at least the start of the end of what seems to have been a very long winter already. 

Incidentally, being unaware of the scientific name of the snowdrop, I visited the always excellent Wikipedia and came across the following: 

"Some snowdrop species are threatened in their wild habitats, and in most countries it is now illegal to collect bulbs from the wild. Under CITES regulations, international trade in any quantity of Galanthus, whether bulbs, live plants or even dead ones, is illegal without a CITES permit. This applies to hybrids and named cultivars as well as species. CITES does, however, allow a limited trade in wild-collected bulbs of just three species (G. nivalis, G, elwesii and G. woronowii) from Turkey and Georgia."

I am aware that large quantities of snowdrops have been harvested (commercially) from the colossal colonies in Bridgend Woods for a number of years, which would seem to be at odds with the above.  Does anyone have any more information about this?

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is an international agreement between governments, drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The text of the convention was agreed upon in 1973, and CITES entered into force on 1 July 1975. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival and it accords varying degrees of protection to more than 33,000 species of animals and plants.

Top Christmas Card

I could not resist sharing this rather excellent image sent to me on a Christmas card from INHT members Carol and Andy from Bruichladdich.  Rather splendid.
Cheers!!   Carl

Stoat or Ermine

Some of the stoats on Islay go white in winter (qualifying for the name "ermine"), some partially, some completely, while others retain their normal plumage. Going white in Islay would normally increase the risk of predation one would have thought, but last winter and again last month, it could be seen to have been an advantage helping to conceal the stoat from its prey. Generally, most stoats in northern Britain, i.e. much of Scotland and northern England, go white in winter, wholly or partially, while in the southern half of England few if any do.
If anyone has seen a white stoat on Islay this winter or last, do please let us know at info@islaynaturalhistory.org. But beware confusion with the white form (actually creamy-yellow) of the introduced ferrets - which are anyway a good bit larger.
Malcolm

Photo: Dan Brown

Where are the Barnacles?

I cycled down to Portnahaven yesterday, and then around Loch Indaal this morning to Uiskentuie, pedalling along the Gruinart Flats, followed by a circumnavigation of Loch Gorm and back via Rockside.  There were the usual parties of Whitefronts, and small flocks of Greylags, but the big battalions of Barnacle geese which one would normally encounter regularly on such a ride were nowhere to be seen.  The biggest flock was about 200 at Rock Mountain.  My very unofficial impressions will need to be confirmed by the SNH goose counters, but things are certainly very different in Goose World at the moment. 

There were plenty of other birds about - including a good sized flock of Lapwings at Ballinaby and lots of Curlews and corvids feeding on the fields.  A Kestrel pretended to be a Merlin for a while at Carnduncan, and there were some Reed buntings cheering up the hedgerows around Gorm.
Carl

Crofts near Portnahaven

I walked up the hill behind Cladville Farm near Portnahaven today and looked down over the crofting land that dominates this most southern part of the Rhinns of Islay.  Much of this ground is not particularly productive from an agricultural standpoint, but it is extremely valuable for wildlife.  It was a rather grey day to start 2011, and is difficult to pick out the Stevenson-built lighthouse on Orsay Island. 
Carl

Happy New Year

Cheers Everybody!!
Carl

Father Lasher

This is one of the stranger names for this fish which my dog found on the beach today. It's rather dead but then that's probably what attracted him! My regular walks along the beach with him are rarely without interest! Other names for this fish are Short-spined Bullhead or Short-spined Sea-Scorpion. Its scientific name is Myoxocephalus scorpius which agrees well with those English names. There are a handful of past records for Islay, mainly live specimens seen or caught during marine surveys carried out in the early 1980s.
I've added a photo of what the fish would look like when a little less dead.
Malcolm

Identifying swans

Suppose you were confronted by a sight like the family of swans in the photograph. You could, of course, wait for them to surface and show their bills thus revealing whether they are Whooper Swans or Mute Swans. Or, you might be in too much of a hurry to wait, or only have the photograph to rely on, on maybe even want to impress someone with your identification skills!
Well, compare the family with the single bird and from now on you are in possession of the invaluable (?) knowledge that Whooper Swans have rounded tails and the Mute Swan have pointed tails, and thus you need never have a problem with swan identification again (except with the Bewick's Swan, of course - another rounded tail, though smaller!)
This may well come under the heading of "Not many people know that", not to mention being one of the top 50 facts about birds you didn't really need to know, but maybe one day it will come in useful. What about including it in a bird quiz, for example?
Of course, you have to take it on trust that I know what I am talking about :-))
Have a good Hogmanay!
Malcolm

Whooper Swans

Mute Swan

Seaweeds

Bladder Wrack (Fucus vesiculosus) on the left with pairs of bladders on the leaves and Spiral Wrack (Fucus spiralis) with the inflated pale green tips to the fronds. Not all seaweeds are as easy to identify!

Over the holiday, I've been working on a database of records of seaweed found around the shores of Islay, Jura and Colonsay by various surveys carried out since the 1970s. Most of Britain's coasts have been surveyed at least twice by teams from the former Nature Conservancy Council and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, looking at what is growing on the shores and diving to see what is further out. There are over 5,000 records of at least 250 different seaweed species in the database from over 100 different locations round the three islands. A little more work is needed to get the records into standard format, but when completed, this database will join others on the INHT website.
Malcolm

Ageing geese

No, not that they are getting older but the term used for discovering how many young birds there are in the flocks, something I do every autumn and early winter. Breeding success varies considerably from year to year, because of adverse weather on the breeding grounds at critical times, like the hatch, or because the birds fail to get into good enough condition in the spring.
The percentage of young birds is important information to gather, but in order to do so it is necessary to distinguish between adults and young. In the Whitefronts, that is comparatively easy as the young birds lack the black belly bars of the adults while the white forehead is absent or smaller. In Barnacles, the differences are more subtle, with the adults having clear black and white feather edgings on their wings, while on the young they are browner and more 'messy'. As in all geese and swans, the birds stay in family parties throughout the winter, which means one can gather information not just on the percentage of young, but also the average size of broods.
2010 was a very good breeding season for the Whitefronts, with just over 20% young, while the Barnacles did slightly better than average, with c.11%.
Malcolm

A Barnacle Goose family. The male parent spends more time looking for danger than the female, who is following him, while the young bird brings up the rear

A Whitefront family. Three young are on the left. The male parent is alert, the female feeds.