04-Nov-2020
The hand of Man.
I was fortunate enough to have the chance to spend a day at a grey seal colony during the busiest event in their year, breeding/pupping time. my initial thought when coming across the pup with it's head in the traffic cone took me to
Harry Potter and the allotting of which school house it would belong.
Then the sad realisation that only hours old and it's first contact with the impact that will follow it for the rest of it's life amongst human debris/ pollution.
Will it escape future entanglement in discarded fishing gear, ingesting plastic fragments etc, in only five weeks time it will be left on it's own to fend for itself without the benefit of education as to the pitfalls we lay in it's path, wish it well.
16-May-2020
Quite a task
When I returned home after photographing this female goosander and her brood of 24 ducklings I got around to thinking of the 'logistics' involved in such a large brood size.
Reference's suggest a maximum clutch of 13 at the top end so it's presumed a second female has to have laid eggs in the nest as well, with incubation taking between 30-32 days and only starting proper when the clutch is complete there is ample time for the interloper to perform the act of laying when the resident female is off feeding. Then I got around to thinking of body mass and the area the eggs must have taken up for the female to keep them viable and after witnessing two female Eider ducks last summer incubating almost on top of one another reckoned it feasible that this may have been the case again, against that theory though is the fact only one female is in attendance, so has her maternal instincts been so strong that she has 'mugged' another female and stolen her brood and does this increase the chances of her own progeny surviving? against that theory is that the ducklings are all obviously the same age.
With Grey heron and Mink in the vicinity the odds are stacked against the bulk of this brood surviving, witnessed by an earlier brood of four reduced to two in a matter of days and none seen since.
Comments as always are welcomed on this theory.
04-Jun-2019
Late arrival.
I was just coming to accept that the local House Martin population had taken a hit somewhere when today saw an unprecedented late arrival of many of them here and at East Wemyss as well, clearly a month later than usual, there was frantic gathering of mud from the roadside puddles this morning when they would normally be just as busy gathering food for their chicks.
Normally double brooded it will take exceptional circumstances late summer for that to happen this year.
23-JAN-2019
New resident, (hopefully).
I was able to start this blog last year with a new "tick" for my patch of an Iceland gull, well at the start of this year on the edge of the same. A minimum of two nuthatches have taken up residence in Ravenscraig park, Dysart/Kirkcaldy.
It has been a slow spread of this mainly arboreal bird into Fife, Breeding populations have been well established across the forth in Lothian region for many years.
Nuthatches are unusual in that they are as adept at crawling facing forwards going down tree trunks as they are at going up (as image shows) and if this bird is anything to go by more likely to be located by a very loud and high pitched call, easily picked out from our more usual "tit" and finch species.
22-OCT-2018
One last event..
Just as the Summer's juvenile birds are striking out on their own another crop of youngsters are making their appearance, Grey seal pup's. On the two largest of the forth's islands, The May and Inchkeith Hundreds of seals take over the islands to give birth, Amazingly in the short space of five weeks or so their pup's will be abandoned to look after themselves, the cows then come into season again, becoming the focus for the large bull seals which dominate their beach space.
By the years end all this frenetic activity will have come to a halt when once again the Islands will be home to roosting gulls and lesser numbers of seals.
05-OCT-2018
Unfortunate encounter.
There is a reason why small birds have large broods and large birds have a longer life span. Today's encounter with this juvenile gannet sitting on the beach illustrated the topic of this species juvenile mortality and how little time they have to perfect the art of diving successfully for their own food. Tragically this individual like so many others won't be making it's way out to the Atlantic ocean to winter of Africa's coast. A phone call to the SSPCA to come and collect it to save it a lingering death turned out to be it's fate, It's injuries were horrific and I admit to a bit of image manipulation to spare you the detail. I can only imaging the entry into the water was abysmally wrong or it was close to shore and hit something under the surface. Such a shame.
01-AUG-2018
Quiet invasion.
Every now and then occurrences come along that you just have to witness and enjoy, all the better when it happens on your own "patch". For whatever reason Mediterranean gull's have decided the beach at East Wemyss is the place to be. They have been coming in smaller numbers for a few years now, ten being my best previous count. That was until tonight when there was probably a new Scottish record of fifty four. Ring recoveries show individuals coming from Poland, East and West Germany, Belgium and Holland. The young bird pictured was rung in Leipzig, East Germany on 8th June, was last seen there on the 27th June and was observed at Newbiggin, Northumberland by the 22 July and last seen on the 25th, turning up here on the 1st August until the 4th then three days later was back at Newbiggin. No Brexit fears for them!!.
14-JUL-2018
Awesome
I have recently had the good fortune to witness two instances that define the word "spectacle", happening just now in the natural world not in far away places but on our doorstep, a combined total of hundreds of thousands of birds are in residence on the Isle of May and Bass rock at the mouth of the Firth of Forth. On my first visit to the "May" it felt like every one of the tens of thousands of puffins were reluctant to leave to go fishing. A virtual carousel of swirling avian beings. Awesome spectacle one.
Awesome spectacle two relates to the Bass Rock (pictured), It's hard to describe the impact on one's brain of being in the presence of seventy five thousand pair's of Gannets, the largest of the Northern hemisphere's seabirds, just sitting within their midst taking in the noise and smell, dodging wing's as they come and go has left an impression that will long remain in the memory.
10-JUL-2018
Spare a thought
It's rare enough to come across Moles, dead as this one or even more rarely alive. So when I came across a second one yesterday evening my thoughts turned towards a reason, when the light bulb switched on I had come to the conclusion that their main food source, earthworms, will be so far underground at the moment due to this very long dry spell that they will literally be starved to death.
03-JUN-2018
Another statistic.
This morning I was out monitoring the progress of how some peregrines are faring, little did I suspect coming across a buzzard carcass, directly under a wind turbine. Is it fair to criticise the methods of how the electricity we all use is generated?. Model's are generated for bird strike predictions during the planning stage, to estimate the casualty rate. Earlier this year I was asked if I had ever come across just such an incident, no I hadn't. Since then I've had a report of a badly cut up buzzard at my local wind farm, now today's addition. I wonder if the "model" took in the time of year for the outcome of this poor individuals breeding outcome, if there's chicks in a nest somewhere their chances of survival have been severely diminished, the risk of predation and chilling is greatly increased as it's partner will have to be away from the nest for longer periods to hunt. If asked the question again what figure do I answer with now?..
30-APR-2018
The blight of tick's.
I spent a pleasant few hours checking through Tentsmuir forest this morning, ending up at Morton loch's where Red squirrels provide plenty of excellent photography opportunities.
The forest now has an unenviable reputation for it's tick population, I never go more than ten minutes without checking my clothing for these pests. notched up a new record when within the circumference of a two pence coin I counted 52 in their nymph form.
Whilst reviewing my images I noticed one or two tick's below this animals ear, on zooming in it then became apparent they were all over it's head, I managed 20+, how many does it take before this little beast begins to suffer a loss of condition?.
28-APR-2018
What are their chances of survival?.
Ravens, being early nesters have reached the stage where the broods are ready to fledge. I can't help thinking now that the growing Fife population is reaching the stage where it's hard to not notice them whilst we are out and about there will be call's for licences to control their numbers here. there is a huge controversial issue taking place just now at Strathbran in Perthshire where a licence has been issued to "control" 300 birds over five years, under the pretext of saving local waders. There has been a considerable number of young ravens fledged from Fife in the last few years but no one is reporting flocks of juveniles or non-breeders in the county and they don't recognise borders, given the numbers quoted from Perthshire is it feasible that they could include some of ours?.
More of the story at the Raptor persecution UK website.