Hebridean Reflections

Hebridean Marsh Orchid Dactylorhiza ebudensis

Butt of Lewis Lighthouse - the northern tip of the main Western Isles chain.

This is a set of photographs taken during a couple of weeks I took out in the Western Isles last summer. I have only now had time to go through the shots as I have been in the field non-stop since. Now that I am back in Canberra I am busy monitoring the Tawny Frogmouths in my study area. It is ironic that I seem to upload fewer posts when I am busy out studying wildlife.

The cobble beach at Dalbeg.

This is on the Atlantic shore of Lewis, the wild side, with big waves and a rough coastline.

Ruins of an old blackhouse at Dalbeg.

Dry stone walls, over a metre thick were infilled with turf to isolate the inhabitants from the wild Atlantic wind.

Marsh Marigolds growing by a stream - simple clean habitat for a wealth of wildlife.

The islands are still clean and rich in wildlife, such a pleasant refuge from so much worldwide human filth and destruction.

Sunset through the marram grass at Dalmor.

The only sounds were the soft sis of the wind through the grass and the distant sis of the waves rolling sand up and down the beach below.

Dun Carloway

What a site the iron age builders chose for this magnificent stronghold. Location, location, location.

The stone circle at Callanish.

Even older than Dun Carloway, these stones were erected in the Bronze Age. The site they stand on in the quiet western moors of Lewis is so atmospheric with views for miles and miles -  the more famous Stonehenge is surrounded by busy cross-country roads. Location, location.

Husinish beach at about 2300hr in summer.

This was once one the quietest beaches in Harris, but now it is covered by footprints. I went there late in the evening to avoid the heavy traffic out to the end of the twisting single track road during the day.

Loch Mharaig, north Harris.

A quite sheltered inlet of the larger Loch Seaforth. Who once lived in that cottage, was anyone ever born there? Island life has changed, has always changed and will always change.

Luskentyre - the most beautiful beach in the world?

I have been to this spot many a time and seen it in all types of weather; snow, wind, rain and sunshine, but even I had to stop and take one more photograph this day. The light was so stunning.

Sheep - on either side of a sheep gate.

Sheep are a vital part of life in the Western Isles, their wool is made into Harris Tweed. And the sheep gates are part of island life too. I will upload a set of photographs of the variety of sheep gates on my ByMyEy blog site soon.

Crossing the Sound of Harris on the wee ferry.

There are scores of islands in the Western Isles archipelago, so boats and ferries are a necessary part of island life. And a great way to see wildlife.

The islands in the sound are mostly low-lying.

Many of the islands are mere skerries, and a multitude of rocks hide below the surface. So, the ferry takes a long meandering course through the maze, providing me with great views of terns, gannets and guillemots fishing, seals lying up on the rocks and an otter scampering over a skerry.

The Harris hills from Berneray.

Open skies, seascapes and miles of open hill to roam over. A true wild place.

And the view south from the same spot - over the hills of the Uists.

These hills, moors and lochs provide habitat for thriving populations of golden eagles, white-tailed sea-eagles, hen harriers, short-eared owls, red-throated divers and otters.

Old cemetery on Berneray.

Generations of islanders' remains lie beneath these rows of lichen-clad headstones. A high wall surrounds the ground to keep the sheep out and the grassy sward is speckled with wild flowers. Skylarks fill the air.

The east beach on Berneray.

The beaches on the eastern, sheltered side, of the islands are calm, shallow-pitched and they form good habitat for waders, such as ringed plover, which nest up between the spring tide-line and the soft machair, the rich sand-based grasslands of the islands.

The folly at Scolpaig in north-west North Uist.

There were hooded crows nesting on the ramparts; lapwing, redshank, ringed plover, curlew and oystercatcher all had chicks hiding in the grasses and sedges, and a corncrake was calling from the iris beds.

Finally, the view from Al and Jo's garden.

Grey and common seals swim here and lie up on the rocks at low tide. Otters swim by too.

The trill of oystercatchers is the morning chorus.

Thank you Al and Jo for your wonderful hospitality.

Last days in the Highlands - 2019

                                       

Two images of Coire an t-Sneachda in the Cairngorms. The shot on the left above was taken in the first week of May this year when I first arrived in Scotland. The second was taken in the first week of July, just before I left. I spent the last few days of my trip counting broods of ptarmigan in various hills in the area, as part of a long-term study of ptarmigan breeding numbers.

Most of the ptarmigan chicks were about three weeks old, like the one above. It looks well feathered, although there is still a lot of downy feathers beneath the newly grown body and flight feathers. They grow a set of juvenile wing feathers in their first week, which enables them to fly short distances away from predators, even at such a young age. The feathers on their back help to keep them waterproof; hence warm and dry.

This adult female was watching over her brood as I approached. Three of the chicks flew about 100m around the hillside, three remained hiding in the herbage. Different adoption of tactics, which in itself is a good strategy for at least some of a brood to escape a predator. Once I moved on, she began calling them up and the whole brood were soon gathered together again and carried on feeding.

This was one of the chicks that stayed in hiding. It was only two metres from me, and so were the other two. They were very difficult to pick out as they lay motionless, watching me all the time, ready to fly if they had to.

Watching, relying on camouflage, seemingly casual, but underneath its legs would have been ready to jump and its wings ready to burst into rapid flight.

So I left them all to carry on as they were. They seldom wander more than a few metres from rocks. Such is their well-adapted lifestyle. By sitting close to rocks they blend in so well, looking like just another moss-covered rock.

And there are lots of moss-covered rocks in the hills.

Like those in this high spring above a corrie. The mosses drape down the waterline for over 100m, creating a rich wet flush of plant growth. This is a good feeding habitat for ptarmigan chicks which eat the moss capsules, the flower and leaf buds of waterside herbs and insects that live in the rich ground and water cover. There are two dominant colours in this spring, green and red.

The lush green cushions are of Philonotis fontana, the well-named Apple Fountain Moss.

The bright green of this moss stands out bright on the hillsides, always attracting my eye. Yet when looked at more closely, the details of the moss leaves and capules are even more enchanting.

And its partner, the red liverwort, Scapania undulata, Water Earwort. Such a wonderful name. Those folds of lobes are full of water and the whole, both the green and red cushions, are very spongy.

There were lots of cranefly, Tipula monata, walking over the mosses and liverworts; excellent food for young ptarmigan.

A wonderful little piece of specialist habitat in a special place, the Cairngorms.

Miscellaneous Finnmark wildlife

Following on from the previous post, here is a selection of other wildlife bits and pieces that I photographed while wandering about Finnmark. This opening shot is a general one of the landscape. There is a mosaic of large and small lakes nestled in glaciated hollows. These lakes are fringed with various types of mire, or the basins can be entirely filled by mire. The lakes are used by diving ducks such as Tufted Duck and Goldeneye and the mires are used by breeding waders such as Wood Sandpiper, Reeve and Broad-billed Sandpiper. The hills and ridges are clothed with Birch woods and are typically used by breeding Willow Warblers, Red-spotted Bluethroats and Willow Grouse.

The Birches, Mountain Birch Betula pubescens ssp. tortuosa, are twisted and grow as if coppiced at the base. They are well spaced with dwarf birch and willow, and lichen-rich heath between.

Some of the birches have grown into marvellous shapes, and they must be very old. Perhaps it is hundreds of years since the seeds germinated.

There were lots of these Cranberry Fritillary Bolaria aquilonaris butterflies sunning themselves on the lichen covered gaps between the trees. Or I think that is what they are, if anyone knows better, please advise.

The butterfly's body was covered with long hairs, an adaptation to life in high northern forests, where it can be cold at any time of year.

Another butterfly that was flying at the same time was this Arctic Ringlet Erebia disa. Several of these were flitting over and landing on the mires, the type which was dominated by a carpet of sphagnum moss with abundant stems of Hare's Tail Cotton Grass Eriphorum vaginatum, a food plant for the larvae.

Another plant that grows in the woodland is Juniper Juniperus communis. These small trees are probably as old as the birches if not older, but not all those grey stems are juniper, there is a Greenshank Tringa nebularia sitting on its nest at the base of this one.

Down in the valleys there are hay meadows, and most have a rich yellow cast of buttercups. And some also have stands of Globeflower Trollus europaeus. They like the rich wet soils on the flat open fields.

And next to one field rich with Globeflower, I found a large stand of Tall Jacob's Ladder Polemonium acutiflorum, a stunning plant of wet rich soil, and typically found in old hay meadows in northen Scandinavia. It reminded me of Himalayan Blue Poppy.

Simple beauty.

Finnmark birds

A Common Crane strides with ease through dwarf birch and willow scrub on the edge of a mire in  Finnmark, arctic Norway.

I was there to continue helping with surveys and monitoring of birds. For more information, follow this link to the main part of the project, Broad-billed Sandpiper study. The study is still ongoing, as we have deployed geolocator tags on the sandpipers and aim the retrieve them next summer when the birds return from their wintering grounds. So, this post gives only a brief sample of some of the other birds I saw while in the area.

Whimbrel are one of the larger waders that breed in the tundra, especially on lichen-rich heaths or as in this case, cloudberry-crowberry dominated peaty heath next to a mire.

There were a few rainy days when all was quiet. This Ringed Plover was sitting tight on its nest next to a road. The birds colouring fitted well with the lichen-crusted ground.

Out on the mires, there were numerous Red-necked Phalaropes on the open water of tiny pools in the extensive swards of sedges and mosses.

These are great birds, my friends, as they eat hundreds and thousands of mosquitoes, picking them off the water surface or the leaves of waterside vegetation. The mosquitoes make working in the mires extremely difficult due to their incessant biting and swarming around face and hands.

This female Lapland Bunting was feeding on insects, hopefully mosquitoes, in a patch of peat hummocks covered with Labrador tea, cloudberry, crowberry and bilberry.

Her mate was close beside her all the time she was out in the open. The patterns of their markings are similar, but that of the male is much bolder. The flower beside him is Labrador tea.

Down in the valleys, where there are taller trees, woodland passerines are more common, like this female Common Redstart in a Scots pine wood.

Her partner might be more brightly coloured, but he still blended in well with the reds and greys of the pine bark.

It might seem that there is not much to see in the vast landscape of apparently endless mires and woods of Finnmark, but there are plenty, lots, of birds nesting and rearing their young there every summer. Just look a little more closely.

Otters in the Western Isles

Luskentyre beach in South Harris, one of the finest beaches in the world, backed by rugged mountains and edged with weedy rocks which are rich feeding grounds for otters.

I recently spent a week on the islands either side of the sound of Harris. Golden Eagles and White-tailed Sea-eagles aplenty, and there were Red-throated Divers, Corncrake and other rare birds famously found in the islands. Although I like to see and hear the abundance of the more common species, Oystercatcher, Redshank and Snipe. And I spent hours watching otters. They are so adept at hunting, agile, quick, such well adapted animals, I could only sit back and admire them. The one in the photograph above is lying asleep on the seaweed in the background. They are so easiliy overlooked when lying quietly on land.

One clue to their presence can be the behaviour of the birds, like this Herring Gull that had spotted an otter eating a fish. They are probably easier to see from the air. The gull hung around from any scraps, but there were none.

Otters are not much easier to see when swimming at sea either. Look for a head, slimmer and more pointed than a seal's. Seals abound in these seas and every one has to be checked not to be an otter.

Another clue to spot an otter at sea is the flick of a tail. Like the one above, as the otter bobbed in the waves keeping in balance as it munched on a Butterfish.

This one was diving to hunt through the fronds of seaweed fringing the tide zone in a bay. It brought some items onshore to eat, others it persisted in eating while treading water. However, their forepaws are not adapted to gripping and Butterfish are incredibly slippery, hence their name.

But when you have strong jaws and very sharp teeth, you can do it.