Speyside - a little further afield

Tulloch Moor is an open, heathy offshoot of Abernethy Forest, noted for its Black Grouse. We wandered around here on the Thursday, in search of dragonflies and what have you.

A dragon! This big beast clattered past us down the track, crashing to a sudden halt on a nearby clump of heather. It's a splendid male Common Hawker.

Another colourful little monster. This Green Tiger Beetle was hurrying purposefully along the track. We didn't detain him for very long.

Orchids aren't my strong point. My best guess for this one is Heath Fragrant - anyone got any more of a clue?

The moor was quiet for birds. I think I did glimpse a Black Grouse disappearing into cover. There was also an incongruous flock of Mistle Thrushes bombing around, and the ubiquitous Meadow Pipits, plus Coal Tits wherever there were trees.

One of my favourite moths. We saw lots of moths on this trip and I couldn't ID many of them, but this one's easy - Chimney Sweeper. Small, velvety black with neat white trim on the forewings.

We ended the visit to Tulloch Moor with a rather unsatisfactory view of a White-faced Darter. Then, in the afternoon, we had a general drive around and a walk along the banks of the Spey.

 The river, and a Rob surveying it. I was able to take this photo because Rob had pinched my 300mm prime lens and given me the 150-500mm Bigmos instead, allowing for a wider-angle shot.

Here, the Spey is a wide and shallow river with shingly shores interspersed with steep sandy banks. The latter hold nesting Sand Martins. Life at the colony was in full flow - many of the birds were collecting feathers to line their tunnel nests, while other more advanced breeders had mouthfuls of insects for their chicks.

A few Curlews and Oystercatchers joined Common Gulls on shingle spits and islands. A lone Dipper fled downriver, seen by Rob but only heard by me.

Common Sandpiper. Another one. This bird interestingly swam from this island to the next one - I was so surprised by this behaviour that I forgot to photograph it.

After our riverside walk, we drove down a minor road from Carrbridge just for a look. The weather was very volatile, resulting in this epic rainbow.

Further down the road, this gorgeous fledgling Meadow Pipit posed beautifully in a stray shaft of sun.

 One more baby - a fledgling Whinchat. This is actually from Monday morning but I wasn't sure where else to put it.

Speyside - Abernethy area

Since we were staying practically in Abernethy Forest, quite a lot of the wildlife-watching action took place there. I got up very early most days and went for a stroll, camera in hand, through this fragrant, lichen-draped, absolute wonderland of a pinewood.

My early starts were rewarded by great views of Roe Deer grazing in the birch-dominated outskirts of the forest. I actually had better views when out running - the deer seemed far less concerned by a running human than one creeping along with a camera, for some reason.

The woods were quiet. Every so often there'd be the rustle of a Red Squirrel up a tree, the dry calls of a crossbill party going overhead, or the squeaks and trills of tits feeding high in the canopy. Most of them were Coal Tits but I saw Cresties most days too, and soon learned their distinctive chittering call.

This one was collecting food. I guess it had fledglings to feed but I didn't manage to see them.

A bevy of Abernethy babies - Coal Tit, Goldcrest and Tree Pipit.

We went to the Osprey Centre on the Monday to say hello to EJ. I won't bore you with our very distant and obscured photos of her, but all seemed well there.

Bear with me, I have a reason for including this boring photo of feeders near the Osprey Centre. These two are the ones at which the winter webcam points, except the webcam shot doesn't show that massive drainpipe. I've spent much time watching this webcam, and have puzzled over why the nut levels go down in the left feeder and not the right. Now I know why.

Loch Garten itself, though very pretty (you'll have to take my word for that as we forgot to take any scenics of it), isn't exactly teeming with birdlife. One species you are guaranteed to see at this time of year, though, is Common Sandpiper.

At a small, marshy pond near Loch Garten, we enjoyed reasonable views of Northern Damselfly, one of the most range-restricted Odonata in the UK.

There were several Common Lizards basking in the thin sunshine by this lovely pond. This one looks comfy on his bed of sphagnum moss.

Another nice surprise at the pond - a Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, which refused to pose nicely in an open situation.

The same SPB Frit, showing its underside. We also saw a pair 'in cop', very tucked down among the marshy vegetation.

Speyside - the garden

We just had a week up in Speyside, Scotland. Home now, with good memories plus thousands of photos to sort through. I'm going to do several posts about it, beginning with a bit about where we stayed.

Our cottage, South Dell, is one of five (I think) in the Dell of Abernethy, down a lane that starts in Nethy Bridge village and ends on the doorstep of Abernethy Forest. Unsurprisingly, there was lots to see in the grounds, and I spent a fair bit of time pointing the camera out of the kitchen window.

The grounds were mostly lawned but there were a couple of apple trees. The one opposite us had a peanut feeder in it, which attracted an endless procession of birds. We had Blue and Great Tits, Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Siskins, plus the odd Goldfinch and House Sparrow.

The fun stopped, temporarily, for the little birds when a bigger bird showed up. This young Great Spotted Woodpecker (or maybe there were more than one, but we only saw one at a time) spent huge amounts of time battering away on the feeder. It wouldn't tolerate any other bird using the feeder at the same time...

... unless that other bird was Mum. When the feeder was in use by the peckers, the Chaffinches would gather on the grass below and pounce on nut fragments as they fell.

The woodies weren't top of the pecking order, though. This beautiful blonde-tailed Red Squirrel visited every day. A different, darker-tailed one also visited once, but was soon chased off by Blondie.

The first time I saw Blondie, I'd hoped for some 'away from the feeder' shots but he didn't oblige, skittering off very quickly down the garden when he was full of nuts. The second time he was more willing to pose, and paused for a moment on the stone wall that separated the garden from the driveway up to the cottage.

I started putting sunflower seeds on that wall, in the hope of some more posers. Along came a river-dancing Dunnock.

Fledglings were much in evidence. Here's a gorgeous young Blackbird.

And an equally lovely Robin youngster, already showing signs of an incipient red breast.

This young Chaffinch was capably feeding itself, but as soon as dad showed up it reverted to helpless-baby mode and begged with curious swaying head movements until it received a free meal.

I was keen to photograph the Siskins, as we don't have many pics of this species. Got lots of pics of them on the feeders, and a few of this beautiful male in the apple tree.

Besides everything shown/mentioned above, the garden was also visited by Jackdaws, Pied Wagtails and overflying Swallows and Oystercatchers. All in all, a perfect base for the wildlife nutter - and Abernethy Forest is two mins' walk away. If you fancy a stay at Dell of Abernethy, the cottages' website is here.

Thames path

On Saturday, Rob and I went to Goring to have a walk along the Thames there. Our goal was to see Club-tailed Dragonfly, aka Common Clubtail. I was worried we were already too late for this spring dragon, and so it proved (or else we were really unlucky, or in the wrong place). However, there was sunshine (at first, anyway), and other wildlife around to see.

This stretch of the Thames is quiet, lush and devastatingly pretty, and it winds along from expensive-looking village to even more expensive-looking village. We found a place to park past Goring station and found our way to the riverside in short order. We'd already seen Common Buzzard and Red Kite from the car window so were hopeful of photographic opportunities.

The path took us through flowery meadows, over which hawked House Martins. Here's a bad photo of one, in a cloudy moment. We kept pausing at the riverside to look for Odonata, and saw quite a few Red-eyed damsels on the lily pads, Banded Demoiselles showing off among the bankside vegetation, and one or two Common Blue and Blue-tailed Damsels resting quietly in the long grass. I'd expected more, but despite mostly sunny skies and little in the way of breeze, it was still rather chilly.

We settled down on the river bank by the railway bridge, supposedly the Club-tail hotspot (unless I misunderstood everything I'd read about it) and waited. From here we saw a few Red Kites.

This kite came over fast and low. Unfortunately for him he'd caught the attention of a Carrion Crow, which began a sustained aerial assault. I scrambled to my feet and began taking photos.

This was the last one I managed before the action got too close to fit in my 420mm lens. Quite a sight.

Back at the riverside, a female Banded Demoiselle was ovipositing from a mat of floating leafy stuff, her mate lurking nearby. Unlike most damsels, males of the Calopteryx species don't maintain their grip on their partners during this process, but they hang around in close attendance to see off any potential rivals.

The Thames here is very busy with boat traffic. Little motorboats, canoes, and bigger, grander things with balloons and waving, champagne glass-wielding passengers. Whenever one of the bigger boats went by, a few moments later its backwash would slap hard into the bank. This constant disturbance explains the paucity of emergent vegetation along this river, bad news for some Odonata though not, according to my dragonfly book, a problem for Club-tailed.

One species that has apparently suffered from reduced 'em veg' is the White-legged Damselfly. However, we did see a single individual of this species. Rob spotted her first, clinging to the stem of an unopened water-lily flower and laying eggs. Later she moved to a nearer lily pad for more of the same. Check out those tibias! I am very fond of this species, having spent hours watching them at one of my haunts back when I lived in Groombridge, and it was nice to meet again.

We walked a little further along the river. Rob pointed out this startlingly ginger young Rabbit in a horse paddock, of which I managed only this bad photo before it boinged away. I know some places have populations of black Rabbits, but orange ones?

On the other side of the river, a Common Buzzard was wheeling lazily about. It kept looking like it was coming closer, when actually it was drifting further away.

With the clouds getting thicker and the breeze stronger and chillier, it was clearly time to give up. We wandered back the way we'd came, with a brief pause to negotiate with a herd of cows that had blocked a narrow section of path.

Although the light had all but gone and it was beginning to spot with rain, I couldn't resist taking a few shots of this far-away Great Crested Grebe with its little fluffy passenger.

100th post!

I think it is anyway. Pity I don't have a mega-exciting day to report, but the weather was against us. Sue and I went to Thursley, looking for dragons. The weather was due to worsen as the morning went on and so it did - we had some sunny intervals/spells/periods at first and then the cloud closed in and it started to rain. Also it was windy, and got windier.

Around Moat Lake I saw a couple of emerald dragons. The only one that I got a good look at seemed to have as bright green a thorax as its eyes - could it have been a Brilliant? It was chased off when the local Mallards piled into the mini-bay where I was standing, I guess they were hoping for a handout of Mother's Pride or something..

There are maybe a dozen Mallards on this pretty, round lake, and two of the females had ducklings - one had two and the other five, but they all looked the same age and the broods kept getting mixed up. The two mothers did their best to maintain order by periodically attacking each other and the ducklings that weren't theirs.

Among the pine trees around the lake there was a family of Nuthatches, which seemed to be munching the ants that were climbing over the branches and twigs.

I watched a parent make several  feeding trips for this hungrily squeaking fledgling.

We walked out onto the boardwalk, keeping an eye open for dragons and damsels. There weren't many to see. The first was this handsome male Large Red Damselfly, unfortunately not one of the special species I'd hoped to find here.

The place was quiet birdwise too, but I could hear Woodlark singing in the distance, with the occasional chuckle from a Green Woodpecker.

We paused at a viewing platform where a few Four-spotted Chasers were cruising about over a small mire pond. This one was caught by a gust of wind and nearly blown into the voracious mouth of my rucksack. It began to rain a little, but the wind blew it over and a longish sunny period began as we went on to the bigger lake where the track swings right along a row of pines.

Here I saw a new dragon at last - male Keeled Skimmer. This small, pretty dragon is very common at Thursley, though it will be a couple of weeks before numbers really build up.

There were a lot of other dragonflies out over the water, but a look through my bins revealed that most were Four-spots, with one or two emeralds of indeterminate species. A Hobby appeared from nowhere, flying just over the surface, and caught one of the dragons in a neat aerobatic flourish before powering away to the denser pines over to the east.

I wandered a bit further around the boardwalk while Sue sat and relaxed. Parts of the boardwalk here have half fallen into the mire, making it an interesting experience. There were several Common Lizards sitting on the wood, trying to absorb a bit of sunshine. I spent some time with this particularly nicely patterned one.

Thicker cloud arrived, soon followed by some more purposeful rain. We hurried back to the car without further interesting sightings, and drove back to Pembury, where we released an Oak Tortrix moth that had hitched a lift with us. By the time we got there, the rain had cleared and it was a really rather sunny (though breezy) afternoon. I spent much of it photographing various baby birds in Sue's garden.

The young Great Tits are thriving, and happily eating fat-balls on their own.

They've been joined by a family of baby Blue Tits, possibly the ones from Sue's apple tree at the top of the garden. There were at least four different individuals, and they too were competently feeding themselves though they were ridiculously approachable. I almost had to lift them off the feeder in order to top up the fat-balls.

Here was a lovely surprise - a fledgling Coal Tit. I haven't seen Coal Tits here before that I recall. Wonder how far away they nested.

Further up the garden, a bunch of Wren fledglings were exploring the fence and making a lot of noise about it.

Later on, I sat in the lounge watching TV and photographing the birds through the open patio door. How decadent. Here are all three tit species together.

As evening wore on things got really busy, everyone grabbing a last mouthful of calories to see them through the night.

The other feeder, which is full of sunflower seeds, saw a lot less action, but one of its visitors was this lovely male Greenfinch. I've seen Greenfinches in the trees around here plenty of times, but this is the first one I've seen on the feeders.