Sad timing

A ptarmigan nest site on a high hillside - but look closely

It's a busy busy time of year for fieldwork in the Highlands at the moment and although the weather has improved, there have been some casualties from the previous week's storm. One such, which I have found, was this clutch-brood of ptarmigan.

The nest after the chicks had hatched and the hen had led away her surviving chick

I was up in the hills surveying and checking on the progress of a population of ptarmigan that I have been studying for many years now. Their numbers were low and as the birds were sparse, they were a bit difficult to find, but I did confirm that there were three pairs in the area. The males were all in one flock as they tend to leave their hens about the time when the chicks are due to hatch. And I found a nest where the hen had hatched her chicks.

Two unhatched eggs and a dead chick, which had never dried after hatching, were left in the nest.

I immediately saw that all was not well. There were two unhatched eggs in the nest along with a dead chick and another dead chick lay outside the nest. This was on the Wednesday and there had been a wild storm on the Monday - the day the chicks had hatched. The embryos in the two unhatched eggs had probably died during the cold wet weather that the hen had to sit through while incubating. I have seen eggs fail to hatch in similar circumstances before. Even ptarmigan, which can endure snow storms while incubating, cannot keep all their eggs warm throughout prolonged cold weather.

One chick which had dried after hatching was found dead about a metre downhill from the nest.
Left behind as it was too weak?

Such bad timing. If the chicks had only hatched the following day, the hen could have perhaps saved the two chicks which likely died from hypothermia during the storm. However, there were remains of three hatched eggs, so the hen seemed to have led one chick away safely, so all were not lost. And the good news is that two other hens were still sitting on eggs so their chicks should have a better start now that the weather is warmer. Although, it needs to warm up quickly as the vegetation, including the chicks' main food plants, blaeberry and small herbaceous species, have only now began to open their leaves, and there are still very few insects in the area to supplement their diet.

This ptarmigan was still incubating her eggs, hopefully they will hatch while the weather is warmer and drier.

Wild Pansies - a blue fest

Blue, white and yellow are a perfect mix for flower colour - to the human eye at least.
Have a look at Van Gogh's irises 

Yesterday was wild and windy, again, so not a day for the hills. Instead, I went out to Rattray Head in north-east Scotland, just to get out somewhere and have a look see, and as luck brings to those who do, the sun was shining on the headland. Sand dunes rise high at the head, hiding the lighthouse from view until seen through a gap or from the tops of the marram grass-covered dunes. And it was as I walked through the dunes that I noticed the ground change colour from pale yellow and green to bright blue. Wild pansies Viola tricolor had taken over a hollow.

The delicate flowers were bobbing at all angles in the wind

Wild pansies are also known by the popular name of heartsease, which gives a clue to their use in herbal remedies and their history in folklore. However, I have no knowledge of that so will stick to the their beauty and form. It is a grassland species and this stand was of about half an acre in the landward side of the sand dune system. There were numerous rabbits in the area, some even grazing in the open at mid-day, and they had cropped the grassland short. A soft sward had developed, allowing the pansies to form a mat, so it seems that the rabbits don't eat the plant's leaves. Herbal properties can be species specific.

Ranks and ranks of fresh faces with blue top petals 

I have never seen such an abundant spread of these flowers. Despite all the cool northerly winds, and the resultant retarded growth of so many plants this spring, it is good to see something thriving in these conditions. No matter the weather, it will be good for something, and this year, in the the north-east it has certainly been good for the pansies.

The short rabbit-clipped green grass made an excellent habitat for the flowers to show,
 in woodland grassland they are often crowded out by the grasses

Other animals in the area, which were benefiting from the rabbits' cropping, were meadow pipits, skylarks and a pair of stonechats, all catching insects on the short sward. And linnets were picking at seeds that were too small for me to see. The pipits were feeding large young in their nests and the female stonechat was incubating six eggs in her nest tucked into the dense base of a clump of marram.

A meadow pipit's view of the blue 

From a distance, the blue petals cast a gentle wash over the grassland, their intensity only became evident from within the hollow.

The pansies covered the floor of the hollow

And from a distance, the lighthouse shone white on blue.

The flowers even crept up to the top edge of the dunes,

 looking out over the lighthouse 

Confident Ptarmigan

A hen ptarmigan sits on her nest, quite relaxed - confident but watchful

I have been surveying rock ptarmigan on the hilltops in the far north-west of the Scottish Highlands over the past few weeks and they are now incubating their eggs. The eggs will take about three weeks to hatch, so the birds have to select their nest sites carefully if they are to gain shelter from the type of wild wind and rain they have had to endure recently.

I found this hen ptarmigan soon after finding her mate, who was about a hundred metres uphill watching over her. As I approached him, he flew off then landed about two hundred metres away, giving a brief croaking alarm to the hen. I knew by his behaviour that he would have a hen on a nest somewhere nearby. Although there was a seemingly endless choice of places where she could have been hiding, with years of experience, I took a look over the area and checked what I considered the most likely place where she might be. It helps to think like a ptarmigan and reason why a bird would choose what features to nest near. And there she was, quietly sitting on her nest as I approached, relying on her camouflage to conceal her in the the short vegetation, which was only about seven centimetres tall.

She was nesting in the short Arctic-alpine heath on the summit plateau of a hill

Unlike red grouse, a closely related species which hide and nest in or under the taller heather on the lower moorland, ptarmigan live successfully on the short Arctic-alpine heath which is seldom tall enough for them to hide beneath. They rely heavily on boulders or exposed bedrock for shelter and concealment. Their plumage colouring matches both the heath plants and the lichen-covered rock. Rock ptarmigan are never far from rock of some kind, hence their name.

She had placed her nest close into the lee of a large boulder

I hadn't taken my main camera or lenses with me that day as I had to walk over twenty kilometres of wet heath and bog, climb the hill, and walk into a strong wind. So I only took the binoculars and telescope, and my mobile phone, which was all I had to photograph the ptarmigan with. No problem though, as I always talk to any ptarmigan I approach, for what predator talks to their prey before pouncing on them? I sat down slowly and gently a few metres from her and began to chat. Initially, she had been holding her head low and I could see her breathing deeply. Then, after a minute or so, she had accepted me, lifted her head and began breathing more slowly. I inched towards her and took a few shots, explaining what I was doing all the time and telling her how much I appreciated her life on the high tops. I don't think she understood a word I said, but there was some form of understanding between us and I am sure that she was confident all the while that if I approached too close, she could jump off and fly away unharmed. If any animal uses camouflage for concealment, it needs to be confident in its effectiveness, and evolution needs to have honed the animal's cryptic colouring to perfection. I think this applied to that ptarmigan as a few hundred metres away there was a large cliff and half-way down that cliff there was a pair of golden eagles with a hungry chick. I left the ptarmigan and wished her luck.

From an eagle's eye-view,she was well concealed, as her cryptic plumage matched the colours of the heath

Dryas octopetala and a crafty spider

Freshly opened flowers of Dryas octopetala on a cliff top 

There are outcrops of limestone in the Durness area of north-west Scotland and the resulting soil offers suitable growing habitat for base-loving plants such as the Mountain Aven Dryas octopetala. These Arctic-alpine plants seem to almost grow on the bare rock in places, the soil is so thin, and they can also grow on the sea-cliff tops where there is more than a little shell sand blown in by the Atlantic winds. In places, there are large creeping carpets of the plant's glossy green leaves, and now the flowers are opening, showing their distinctive eight petals from which they are named. Although not all the flowers have eight petals.

As their name suggests, eight petals are the norm

I was creeping about on a rock face, balancing the camera as I tried to photograph the flowers and the plants in their habitat, when I noticed a crab spider lying in wait on one of the flowers. Patiently waiting for an insect to land on the flower for a sip of nectar, when it would pounce and grab it.

A crab spider waits in ambush, forelegs held aloft ready to strike

These spiders don't spin webs, they rely on ambush to catch their meal. The front two pairs of legs of a crab spider are adapted to catch their prey, and they are held up high and open while the spider waits. While it waits, the spider lies facing the centre of the flower, ever ready to jump at an insect as it lands on the nectar-baring flower parts.

The two pairs of fore legs are for catching, the hind two pairs for standing, then jumping

However, after numerous attempts to find an on-line guide to what species I found, I am non the wiser. So, if anyone can help identify this spider please do add a comment below.

But - what is the species?

Surfin' Gadwall

A pair of gadwall Anas strepera dabble in a stream outflow on the estuary

It has been a wild and windy Spring in the far north-west of Scotland, but the birds seem to be just getting on with life and take the weather as it comes. I couldn't venture into the hills the other day as it was too stormy, so I went along the shore of the Kyle of Durness to see what was about. There was a small flock of dunlin with a sanderling, ringed plovers and a few whimbrel, all waiting for the wind to change so they cold fly north to Iceland. And in amongst a flock of black-headed gulls bathing in the fresh water of a steam entering the sea water, there were a pair of gadwall. They were dabbling for food in the fresh water, as they normally do, but as the sea rose, they had to take to the sea and swim. That wasn't easy for them as the waves were rolling into  the bay. They had to paddle into the wave crests to reach calmer water beyond, then they drifted along to a bit of sheltered water behind some rocks. I hadn't seen a dabbling duck ride the surf before. Although I had watched red-breasted mergansers in big surf on a wide beach a few days previously and they, as expert diving ducks, simply dipped into the approaching waves and popped up behind them. Quite a contrast with the gadwall - they ought to stick to the fresh water.

The duck led the way into the waves

As they are dabbling ducks they didn't like to dip their heads into the waves, but kept their heads up like novice surfers

True to fashion, the water ran off their backs and off they went