Pick of the Year 2023 - part three

Otters 

In this last post of 2023, I would like to share some of the most amazing moments I had all year, close up views of wild otters. I had several super encounters with these amazing animals in the west Highlands and Islands of Scotland. I watched them fishing for butterfish, crabs and plaice. What a menu. I watched them from clifftops, following their sleek twists and turns underwater. I watched them exploring rivers, popping in and out of their holts, families rolling about together and those shown here, a teenage cub that had only recently left its family. She was fishing, and I reckon it was a female by the small size. Then she pulled out to sleep on the seaweed. The second sequence is of a courting pair whom I watched cruising along the coast. I crept onto a tideline rock and watched them swim past a few metres away then pull out to groom on a rock twenty metres away. 

The cub was in as deep a sleep as ottters ever seem to go, they fidget a lot. It stretched and yawned, and after about half an hour it was awakened by a few herring Gulls that swooped low to check if it had left any food scraps about. It lifted its sleepy head then dawdled down to the water, scambled over the rocks towards me and slipped in right next to me.

The pair swam right next to one another, twisting and swapping places. Then when they pulled out of the water they shook themselves like dogs, from nose to tail, scattering water droplets in a great wide spray. They seemed to know where they were going and quickly curled up, groomed, fidgeted a bit, groomed and curled up again for brief sleep. They too left after about twenty minutes. And to top it all, there was a porpoise cruising past as they swam away. 

A very special experience.

Pick of the year 2023 - part two 

The Western Isles

This the second of three summary posts of my trip to Scotland in 2023. As I mentioned in the previous post and repeat here, I had to do so much in the field that I seldom had time to upload posts to the Blog. So, now that it is the year's end, I have managed to organise and edit all the photographs I took during the year. This post, and the other two, illustrate some of the wildplaces I visited and wildlife I saw in Scotland in May and June. It was a wonderful trip and I covered so much ground, I can't cover everything here. 

Please browse through the pics below and join in my explorations. I haven't given away most of the locations, although I will share the one above which is of Heb Pods where I stayed for part of the trip, overlooking the Uig Sands on the Isle of Lewis. Lovely accomodation in a wonderful setting. 

Click on any of the photos to open them larger and follow the other photos as they link up.

  

Pick of the year 2023 - part one

The Scottish Highlands

2023 was a busy busy year. I had to do so much in the field that I seldom had time to upload posts to the Blog. So, now that it the year's end, I have managed to organise and edit all the photographs I took during the year. This post, and the next two, are all on wildlife and wildplaces I visited in Scotland in May and June. It was a wonderful trip and I covered so much ground, I can't cover everything here. So please browse through the pics below and join in my explorations. I haven't given most of the locations, I'd rather people discovered their own little spots and appreciate the wildness.

Click on any of the photos to open them larger and follow the other photos as they link up.

 

 Lyrebird nest - raided

While surveying singing lyrebirds in the forest on the Brindabella Range near Canberra, which included recording the displaying male described in the previous post, I also checked the progress of the lyrebird nest shown above. The nest was set on a small ledge about three metres up a small crag, which is about five metres high. The rock wall is not easy to climb up as it is slightly overhanging below the nest. As soon as I saw the nest I knew something was wrong. The top of the domed nest had been ripped off and lyrebird feathers, which the female uses to line the nest to keep the single egg warm, had been scattered across the ledge and below the crag. 

The damage can be clearly seen in this second photograph. The nest is typical, formed of a large ball of sticks, larger than a basketball. This is lined with moss and then feathers, the smoky grey body feathers, which the female plucks from her belly. All three components can be seen to have been ripped open and in the third photograph, below, the single egg can be seen lying in the depths of the nest cup which once had a warm sheltered dome over it. Lyrebirds typically lay only one egg, incubation takes seven weeks, and the chick remains in the nest for a further six weeks. 

This was clearly the work of a predator that had probably managed to climb or jump down from the top of the crag onto the top of the nest. The potential predators of lyrebird nests in the area include fox, wild dog or feral pig when a nest is on the ground, and suger glider, greater glider, possum or feral cat if the nest is off the ground. A fox could climb to some nests, but I don't think they could reach this one. Footage from a trail camera set at a lyrebird nest by Matthew Higgins has revealed that a sugar glider can take an egg from a lyrebird nest, so a greater glider or possum could likely take one too. This suggests that a native climbing predator would have taken the egg if it had opened this nest. But it would have taken considerable strength to rip the nest open and the egg was left behind. There was a tiny needle point hole in the egg, possibly made by a claw. A fox would have taken the egg. So, that leaves the likely suspect to be a feral cat, as a cat would be more likely to have been after a young or adult bird on the nest. As obligate carnivores, they prefer to eat meat. Fortunately, there was no evidence of the adult lyrebird having been killed, but this breeding attempt had failed. 

Feral cats have done so much damage to Australian wildlife.