Ray Collier Country Diary - Tarbetness

Tarbetness- 30th September 2007

Tarbetness is at the end of a dramatic peninsular jutting out into the Dornoch Firth and the North Sea. The area is dominated by the tall red and white column of the lighthouse. The peninsula is not high and, in gales, the sea spray can cover it, despite the low, steep cliffs. The small northern part of the peninsula around the lighthouse is a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of the maritime heath that is unique in the area and plants that can tolerate salt spray. This is dominated by heather and crowberry that grow quite low because it is such an exposed and windy place. Other plants that can tolerate the salt spray includes sea pinks, bird’s foot trefoil and lichens. At the most northerly point, there is a swarm of heath spotted orchids only two inches tall, again because of the exposure. One feature of the end of the peninsula in the Autumn is the presence of small tortoiseshell and red admiral and occasionally painted lady butterflies. These are often not feeding but just flying around in large circles. This is called "hill topping" where butterflies are using hill tops and other conspicuous features to find their way as they move south. Some of the most important features of Tarbetness are the dense stands of gorse that grow to seven feet high plus the scattered small blocks of woodland. This means that when there are strong easterly winds, at the right time of the year, any migrant birds from Scandinavia and beyond may find the area as their first important landfall - a welcome sight as they are often very tired. This can happen at any time in the next few weeks. This is also a superb area at this time of the year for a sea watch for birds moving south or to and from their feeding grounds. There is often a good stream of auks such as puffins, razorbills and guillemots and sometimes terns. These birds are often harassed by piratical great skuas. The skuas will not only make the seabirds drop any fish they may catch but increasingly they seem to be tackling the adult birds successfully hitting them in flight and then killing them when they drop to the sea below. One bird, the fulmar, is found on their nest sites on the low cliffs almost at any time of the year and these are masters at controlling the upward currents of air from the cliffs. Just south of the gate to the lighthouse, there is a small road running down to the pier next to the old salmon fishers’ bothie. The fishermen are long gone and the building has been taken over by swallows that nest there every summer. To the south of this short road are, at low water, a series of rock pools well worth looking into for shells of various types. Anemones, starfish, shrimps and small fish make these pools fascinating to search against the background of piping oystercatchers, curlews and redshanks. The grassland behind the marram on the dunes is a good place to see brown hares if you get here before anyone else! The access road to Tarbetness runs through farmland that, at one time before it became so intensified, supported large numbers of corn buntings that seemed to be calling, with notes that sound like keys jangling, from every field. In the last decade or even more, the numbers gradually decreased and it now seems, unfortunately, they no longer inhabit the area.

Ray Collier Country Diary - Reed

Reed - 24th September 2007

Reed is the tallest member of the grass family as it grows up to 8ft high with its creeping rootstock often forming very extensive reed beds. The leaves are flat, smooth, up to an inch broad and greyish below and they are shed in the Autumn. The stiff, stout stems persist through the winter and resemble hard canes. The flower heads also persist and they are large, up to ten inches long, dense and spreading with numerous flowered purplish spikelets that fade to pale brown in the winter. Early in the year the flower heads are upright but when the many seeds develop they often droop. Each floret has a dense fringe of silky white hairs which catches the wind and takes the seed with it. The tough rooting stems form tangled networks over mud and they are often so long they can stretch right across a waterway. Reed grows in a wide variety of places which is partly the reason for its success. These include lochs and lochans, brackish water sites and even in freshwater seepages on sheltered sea cliffs. It is widespread in the Highlands and the Western and Northern Isles although there are some gaps in parts of Sutherland and Caithness.
Reed beds play host to a wide variety of birds both for shelter, food, nesting and roosts. Coot, little grebe and moorhens will build their semi-floating nests just inside the outer edge whilst reed buntings and sedge warblers are slightly higher. Sand martins and swallows will form large roosts in reed beds just before taking off for their winter quarters in Africa. Perhaps the most impressive roosts are very large numbers of starlings starting off in the open countryside where many small groups join each other and then make the final flight to the roost site picking up more birds on the way. The mass of starlings do not go straight into the reed bed but fly round and round before descending for the first time. The birds are very noisy as they jostle for position and then off again to fly round once more. This happens a few times before the flock finally settles and during these flights birds of prey such as sparrow hawk, short eared owl and hen harrier have learnt to hunt them. Otters are attracted to reed beds because of the fish feeding there.
With such a tall and robust plant it is little wonder that in many parts of Britain it has been widely used as thatch for many centuries with plants growing in brackish water producing the best, most durable stems. The cutting for thatch takes place between Christmas and early April as cutting any later destroys new shoots. In the Highlands reed has never been very popular for thatching perhaps because of the difficulty in cutting and transportation. Heather was widely used and then straw but there have been many other materials depending on what was to hand. That is why the St. Kildans used the broad leaves of wild iris as the beds grew around their village on the island of Hirta. Whilst in the main reeds are valuable for wildlife they can be a nuisance in blocking waterways in which case they are cut in July and again before mid-August to prevent the plant building up stores of food for next year’s growth. Locally around Inverness there are reed beds at Munlochy, Loch Bunachton, a brackish site near Dingwall and Loch Eye. Reed is the plant badge of the Clan Mackay although it is not clear what part of the plant would have been worn.

Ray Collier Country Diary - Long-tailed Tits

Long-Tailed tits - September 24th

Long-tailed tits are tiny rounded birds with long narrow tails, short rounded wings and stubby beaks. They are pinkish brown above, pinkish white below, with dark marks on the side of their heads and white crowns. The wings are almost black with pale lines formed by pale edges top the main flight feathers. The Scandinavian form have all white heads and are very rare visitors to the Highlands. The length of the bird is 14 cm of which the tail is 9cm and the weight of the bird is only around 8 gms equivalent to .28 oz The flight looks weak and undulating with the long tail quite conspicuous. .At this time of the year the birds are either in family parties or larger groups made up of families from the previous breeding season plus additional "helpers". They sometimes mix with other birds such as blue and great tits and goldcrests forming large groups that will benefit by having a greater chance of finding food than one or two birds. They frequent woodland margins and hedgerows where they seem to be forever active in search of insects. The birds are mainly sedentary but some make local movements after nesting
Historically long tailed tits bred over much of Britain, including the Highlands, around 100 years ago but numbers suffered in a series of bad winters. Such small birds have a high surface area in relation to their volume and as a result they lose heat rapidly. This means they have difficulty in keeping warm in low temperatures in winter when insect food is scarce. One method of trying to keep warm is for several birds to huddle close together and touching. The recent trend to milder winters has favoured the birds and there has been a slow spread northwards in the Highlands. There are some sporadic records for the Western Isles. These are the master builders of the bird world as they construct an intricate oval shaped nest, consisting mainly of moss bound together with cobwebs and hair and lined with feathers. More than 2,000 feathers have been counted in a single nest. Despite the nest being camouflaged on the outside by lichens they are often predated and only half of them are successful. If the nest is lost the adults do not try again but do something that is quite fascinating. Each of the pair teams up with a related male bird and his partner and help to feed their nestlings which gives the young birds a much better chance of survival.

The future of these tiny birds will depend on the forthcoming winters but this dependence may have been affected by their change in habits in the last few years. They, like other birds such as the siskin, goldfinch and even tree creepers, have taken to peanuts put out in gardens. They also love suet, especially half coconut shells filled with a mixture of suet and various seeds. Four or five birds may cling to shells with some birds feeding upside down and looking almost comical. There is evidence that such feeding parties may visit gardens at quite regular times of the day. For a bird that was considered insectivorous it will be interesting to see how far taking peanuts and suet will develop in the future. Long-tailed tits may be seen virtually anywhere around the Great Glen, and beyond, where there are trees or bushes. Their common calls are a thin high pitched series of notes that often draw attention to the wandering bands as they are continually on the move. Scots names include bell ringer, bottle tit, feather poke and oven bird.

Ray Collier Country Diary - Loch Farr

Loch Farr - Sept 12th 2007

It would be easy to miss Loch Farr as the waters that almost lap the side of the unclassified road from Farr to Garbole are hidden by a dense swathe of Rhododendrons. The rest of the loch is surrounded by commercial forestry with a number of types of conifers such as Sitka spruce, Scots pine and lodge pole pine but near the outlet of the loch there is a group of old Scots pine. The loch lies nine miles due south of Inverness and on the southern edge of the village of Farr. North to south it is about half a mile and a quarter of a mile east to west. The surrounding woodland is dense but at the southern end there are open areas including sedge beds. The water depth is shallow enough for an almost continual cover of aquatic plants in mid to late summer. These include white water lilies scattered around the margins although at the south end these lily beds are some distance from the shore. In summer the golden yellow flowers of bladderwort break the surface looking very attractive at close quarters. These are uncommon, free floating plants that are insectivorous. The small underwater leaves bear tiny bladders that are oval and translucent and have a series of small hairs at one end. The bladders contain air and when an insect such as a water flea touches the hairs the bladder opens and the insect is drawn in to meet its fate. The inlet burn is at the south end and the water levels are controlled by a dam at the north end.
There are three main rides into the woodland but the most easterly one is the most attractive and at the locked gate there is a small, informal parking area. There is a walkway from the boathouse along the edge of the water and road almost to the dam. The view from the dam is particularly good and one of the best places to watch for ospreys feeding. There are many small brown trout in the loch which attracts the ospreys although they do not nest nearby. Birds in general tend to haunt the southern, less disturbed, end of the loch and at this time of the year can include mallard, tufted duck and goldeneye. In the past Slavonian grebes have nested in the sedge beds and herons frequently fish in the shallows nearby. Despite the non native commercial conifers, as with many other such forests, the trees are old enough to have established cones that provide food and breeding sites for crossbills, crested tits, lesser redpolls and siskins. Crossbills are early breeders and with such a good crop of cones last year they may now have family parties around. The best place for the crossbills are the few old Scots pine and this is where the red squirrels are likely to be seen. Cones under the trees with their scales torn off to the central part is the work of the squirrels. Otters frequent the loch and badgers forage in the woodland from their main setts just under a mile away. Perhaps the most outstanding feature of Loch Farr is the number of common toads that breed there. It is probably the largest breeding colony in the Highlands, possibly even Scotland, and the aquatic plants are the reason. Unlike frogs that just lay their batches of eggs on the surface, the strings of toad eggs are wrapped around submerged aquatic plants. In the right calm conditions toads can be seen or heard calling over almost all of the loch.

Ray Collier Country Diary - Chanterelles

Chanterelles- 27th July 2007


his Autumn will see many people in the Highlands collecting a variety of food from the countryside such as brambles, sloe, juniper and elder berries, hazel nuts and rowan berries. Comments from various areas suggest that some of these have bumper crops but one or two seem to be variable depending on where you look. Juniper berries have been scarce and sloe berries, the fruit of the blackthorn bush, have been very variable. Some bushes of the blackthorn have been heavy with the small, round, very dark blue berries covered with a paler bloom whilst on other bushes it has not been worth trying to collect them. Beech mast is the name given to the prickly husk that protects the small brown three sided nuts and these are notoriously variable as the trees are reputed to only bear fruits every three or four years. The rule is that if some trees bear little mast then try trees elsewhere.
Our attitude to food from the wild, immortalised by the phrase "Food for Free" which was the title of the famous book by Richard Mabey first published in 1972, has varied over the years. Also if you look at cookery books at the end of the second World War there is an astonishing range of food we ate that would be almost unheard of these days. Fish included roach and minnows, birds such as blackbirds and moorhens and there were always frogs legs and limpets. Many people turned to the countryside for fruits and berries but as shops were stocked again this practice slowly waned. Perhaps the only wild harvest that never faded was the picking of brambles (blackberries) and in a sense that never stopped. Richard Mabey’s book changed all that and for some years the wild harvest gathered pace. The advent of the modern supermarkets took their toll with so many convenient foods. In the last few years there has been a revival in the interest of food from the countryside and one aspect came as a surprise.
Fungi, mushrooms and toadstools, have had a mixed reaction to people over the years mainly because of the identification problems. Although they have received a great deal of publicity through books it was perhaps their increasing sales in supermarkets that caught peoples attention. Now you can see people emerging from woodland in the Highlands with various fungi for eating. Some people take just enough for themselves whilst others can be seen literally carrying large bags full for commercial purposes. The debate about the affect of commercial collecting from such woodland is still ongoing. Many of the fungi in the Highlands are edible to varying degrees. Field mushrooms are the target for many people but it is increasingly difficult to find the quantities in fields that there used to be because of changes in farming practices. This year around Inverness some of the best places to find them are on roadside verges. Chanterelles are the next favourite for people and parasol mushrooms are another on people’s lists. The problem lies with the poisonous ones although some, such as the fly agaric, actually looks poisonous with its large red and white caps. If in doubt about a fungi just leave it alone. The important rule of picking fungi is to twist the stem until it breaks free. What you are doing is taking the part above ground leaving the root of the fungi still underground. Give fungi the respect they deserve and they will be there for the future.