Ray Collier Country Diary- Woodpigeons

Woodpigeons - 17th November 2008

Woodpigeons that breed in the Highlands and nest in woodlands, gardens and parks are sedentary and just stay in the same area for summer and winter. So the recently seen large flocks in arable areas such as Tarradale, Evanton and Leys Castle on the southern edge of Inverness are immigrants. Flying in from Scandinavia as the weather turned colder they could be seen in numbers along the east coast before breaking into smaller groups. Two thousand were counted along the east coast in Easter Ross and similar numbers were seen east of Inverness, again along the coast. Within a few days the birds had formed small groups of around 300 in the arable fields such as at Leys Castle where they shared the feeding and resting areas with up to 150 greylag geese and they are still there at the time of writing. There are advantages to being in such large groups as there are more birds to find food and more birds to see predators.
To many, the cooing of woodpigeons in spring is a sign of the warmer weather whereas to the shooting man it is a legitimate quarry not only because it damages farmers crops but also because they are difficult to shoot and make delicious eating. The winter flocks also play a major part in the success of over wintering birds of prey such as sparrowhawks, peregrines and the rare goshawks. The woodpigeon is a bulky bird being between 15 and 16 inches long and quite chubby. For some reason they also have a much larger number of feathers than most birds of similar size and young birds of prey can find this off-putting and they normally only take the breasts and leave the rest. For the same reason some gundogs find woodpigeons difficult to handle and they feel a mouthful of feathers hard to cope with and sometimes the birds are just not retrieved.
These bulky bird causes problems with the smaller birds of prey such a the sparrowhawk where the female is much larger than the male. Males can successfully handle birds up to and including blackbird size but only the female can tackle birds to the size of an adult woodpigeon. With the male and female peregrine falcon, whilst the female is noticeably larger than the male, both can take the woodpigeon. They either out fly them on level flight or fly up rapidly from below and surprise them. A more spectacular way is when they climb to a height some way away from their prey and then stoop down, as the flight is called, folding the wings to the body to increase the momentum. Peregrines that breed in the Highlands often spend their winter months along the coast feeding on sea birds. In Easter Ross along the coast there are also arable fields where the peregrine can take woodpigeons to make a change from waders and ducks.
The other bird of prey that benefits from the winter influx is the rare goshawk where both male and female are larger than the peregrine. The female is again the larger of the two and is almost the size of a buzzard. Although being a woodland bird means goshawks will try and surprise their prey they will also stoop like a peregrine although not in quite a spectacular fashion. All these birds of prey have problems with flocks of birds such as the woodpigeon as once the flock is in the air they can be confusing as to how to sort out a single bird from such a mass. This is another benefit from birds being in a flock as it can confuse a predator especially with younger more inexperienced birds.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Badgers

Badgers - 10th November 2008

This is a dangerous time of the year for badgers as in the many setts scattered throughout the Highlands young cubs are facing up to their first winter and possible food shortages. The adult badgers mating and fertilisation could have taken place at any time of the year but the implantation of the fertilised egg is delayed until December and the cubs are born in March. Further south the births may take place as early as mid January but what evidence there is of Highland badgers suggest early to mid March. When they are born the cubs have a pink skin and are covered with a silky, greyish white fur and are blind until they are about five weeks old. Weaning starts at 12 weeks old but as the cub may venture out of the sett at 8 weeks they do not venture far as they are tied to the sow for all their food. By the time the cub has emerged its hair and colour are similar to the adults. The back is greyish and the legs dark brown to black and the tail is pale. This camouflages well in the dark but the head markings are conspicuous. There are three white stripes on the head with the two side ones extending back onto the neck and the ears are small and have white tips. The cub in the photograph is about nine weeks old and was taken at a sett on the southern edge of Inverness in broad-leaved woodland.
Adults badgers in the Highlands would appear to have no natural enemies apart from humans. They are seldom killed by other animals although there have been cases involving foxes and occasionally badgers have been killed by hounds if found above ground. Even then it may be because the badger was injured in some way as a fit, adult badger is extremely strong. Hugh Miller wrote about badger pits in some public houses in Scotland where the badger was deliberately injured in some way so that the dogs let loose in the pit for sport had a better chance. Such is the strength of an adult badger. The cubs are a different matter and because of their size they are more vulnerable. During the first few weeks of their life they are left on their own for long periods and dogs such as terriers may enter the setts and kill them. Vixens and boar badgers have been known to kill them and if the sow is disturbed just after the birth of the cubs she may kill and eat them. Just occasionally small dead cubs can be found on the spoil of earth outside the sett as if the dead cub has been cleared out, sometimes with old bedding. Badger cubs have been recorded in golden eagle nests but it is likely that they had been taken as carrion but there is evidence that eagles and buzzards have taken small cubs in the late evening. Starvation just after weaning has been recorded especially if there is a dry spell when food, such as earthworms, is difficult to find and the cubs may be inexperienced in finding food if it is short.
Despite all these problems and the even greater ones affecting the adults it would appear that badgers are thriving in the Highlands and despite the horrific number of road casualties many of the clans of badgers around Inverness seem to be increasing in numbers. Some setts have been badly affected by the sprawl of urban development particularly between Inverness and Nairn and it appears that this will only get worse in the foreseeable future.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Wildlife in the winter in the Highlands

Wildlife in the winter in the Highlands - 3 November 2008

The ways that wildlife in the Highlands copes with the winter months depends on how bad the weather becomes. The dipper is a good example as these small, rotund water birds build their domed, bulky nests under bridges over rivers and wide burns. The pair that nest under one river bridge each year sometimes use one of the artificial nest boxes installed there. Intriguingly they sometimes ignore the boxes and built their own nest. Dippers feed mainly on insects and small fish so the food is there all the year round. Therefore they not only spend the winter along rivers and burns but also defend territories by singing between October and July. It is quite a melodious song and it seems strange to hear it during the winter when other birds are silent. If the river or burn partly freezes the dippers survive but if lengths get frozen over then the birds just move to the coast until the weather improves. In contrast there are two mammals and one bird that turns white so they blend in with the snow. Two, the ptarmigan and mountain hare, are found on higher ground and form part of the prey of golden eagles. The other mammal is the stoat and these can be found on the lower ground although they will hunt on higher ground on occasions. Not all the stoats in the Highlands turn white and at one time this was thought to be because the cold temperatures brought the change on. The cold does play a part but in the main it is hereditary so some stoats change to white whilst others stay brown. From tracking in the snow it has been shown that brown hares spend the day in the shelter of woodland and come out to graze at night. If the weather is severe the hares just stay in the woodland where they can dig for roots and debark trees. To a certain extent roe deer and sika deer do the same. Red deer have for a very long time been deer of open moorland but if the snow lies for a long time they will come to lower ground. All the other mammals in the strath are active throughout the winter apart from bats and hedgehogs. Even the hedgehogs will emerge if there is a mild spell any time in the winter and this can cause them problems. To wake up from hibernation takes a lot of energy and to replace it before the hedgehog goes back into hibernation is difficult. Most mammals in the Highlands such as badgers, foxes, red squirrels and pine martens store enough food to lie up and stop hunting for short periods if the weather is really bad. Even in winter most of these mammals prefer to move around at night so are difficult to see. Tracking in the snow reveals many of their secrets but conditions must be just right. The precise conditions may only occur two or three times each winter, sometimes not at all. Ideally the snow should fall just before it gets dark and form a two inch deep layer for the rest of the night with no more snow. This means that any mammals that venture forth and go on the ground are going to leave tracks. Probably the best book for identifying such tracks is "Animal Tracks and Signs" by Preben Bang and Preben Dahlstrom and Published in 2001 by Oxford University Press. Why not try tracking as you can find out so much more about the mammals in the Highlands?

Ray Collier Country Diary- Marking Birds

Marking Birds - 20th October 2008

Marking birds can take many forms from tiny leg rings to sophisticated miniature transmitters whereby you can follow individual birds by various means. There are other means of marking such as wing tags and these have been extensively used on birds of prey in the re-introduction programmes of the red kites and sea eagle. Tags have large letters or numbers that can be read in the field by using binoculars and telescopes. The movements of many bird in these programmes have been followed and used to work out their whereabouts. Tiny transmitters have been extensively used in the red kite programme but these have also lead to unexpected results. Tracking such individual birds means that if the bird literally stops moving there is something wrong. The high percentage of poisoned and shot red kites, particularly in the north of Scotland, including the Highlands, has been revealed by such transmitter programmes.
As regards small birds the only way in which a bird can be identified is if the bird is caught again or dies and then the age of the bird, its origin and other aspects can be determined. With larger birds such as swans and geese neck rings and leg rings can be so large, still minute for the bird, that the letters or numbers can be read in the field with binoculars and telescopes. In the Highlands this has particularly been the case with whoopers swans that breed in Iceland and come south for the winter. Such flocks, known as herds, frequent the field around the Tain area and people with telescopes often search the birds for the leg and neck rings. The birds seem to use that part of the Highlands but sometimes using it as a stopping point before going on to Ireland. Some of these birds are ringed in Iceland where for a while the adults and juveniles are flightless and are caught up.
One method of identifying individual birds started at Slimbridge in south west England in the 1960s when Peter Scott realised that he could identify individual Berwick’s swans by their yellow markings on the beak. This research and other studies came to the remarkable conclusion that some birds pair for life. At first this was thought to be the case with only the larger, long lived birds but now it is thought that very many birds do, even the small familiar ones in gardens such as blue tits and great tits. In large seabird colonies this may seem even more remarkable that one bird can identify its mate. Perhaps even more so with night birds such as petrels and shearwaters when they come to the colony under the hours of darkness.
What seems even more remarkable is what happens if a bird cannot fly. Sometimes large birds such as geese and swans fly into overhead cables or are hit by shotgun pellets. It sometimes means they cannot fly and therefore cannot join the rest of the birds when they fly north to their breeding grounds. Their mate will often choose to stay with them for the summer. Such was the case with a pair of whooper swans in South Uist a few years ago and a nest was built and the female actually laid eggs. A pair of greylag geese did the same thing at Loch Flemington a few years ago. More recently just after the New Year a mute swan hit overhead cables in Strathnairn. The bird broke its neck and for a few days its mate flew up and down the strath trying to find it.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Larch

Larch - 27th October 2008

At this time of the year the larch trees with their golden yellow needles brighten up many areas of woodland in the straths, glens and hillsides but unlike other conifers all the needles will be shed for the winter. The next colour on the trees will be in the spring but you have to look close because it is the loganberry red of the female flowers and the yellow of the male flowers. The cones grow all around the twigs and are egg shaped with tight scales and are unusual in staying on the trees years after the seed has fallen. There seems to be a mystery as to when they were introduced to Scotland as although there are records going back to the 17th century it was not taken seriously until much later. It is, arguably, the one introduced tree that transformed the landscape and as regards its value in timber terms it produces a much better quality timber than Scots pine and grows much faster. Unusually, it was widely planted before the Forestry Commission was formed in 1919 and the most famous example is on the Atholl estates in Perthshire where, from 1740 to 1830, 14 million larches were planted. Larch trees support a variety of wildlife and are particularly important for crossbills as the seeds from the cones are ready in August whereas the seeds of the Scots pine, that are their staple diet, are not ready until later. Various small birds take advantage of caterpillars on larches and the small birds that nest in them include lesser redpolls and siskins. Larger birds, such as buzzard, sometimes build their nests in the older trees. As these trees let in more light than other conifers they also allow a herb layer to form such as bugle, bluebell, wood sorrel and grasses and this in turn attracts a wide range of insects including butterflies. Part of the trees success is its timber that is as hard and strong as Douglas fir. Its great strength in big timbers made it the tree for the heavy beams needed in trawlers and as it is highly durable in the ground or the air it is the traditional timber for fencing posts on the farm or croft. The use of larch in building ships is legendary with, in the early nineteenth century, a brig being constructed of larch timber. The first British warship to be built entirely of larch was a frigate of 28 guns built between 1816 and 1820. Unlike oak, larch does not corrode iron bolts and fittings and it is less prone to shrinking. For warships in battle the fact that larch is not prone to splintering meant fewer lives were lost. We may just accept the larch in the straths, glens and hillsides but along with a few other trees such as Sitka spruce it changed the landscape of the Highlands and will do for some years to come.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Geese

Geese - 13th october 2008

The wild geese around Inverness such as the greylag and pink-footed geese are commonly seen in large flocks, called skeins, flighting to and from their feeding and roosting grounds. Skeins at this time of the year tend to fly low but in late Autumn some of them are very high with some descending whilst others flew further south. These could well have been birds that had flown direct from their breeding grounds in Iceland in one non stop flight, such is their strength. Other geese are much smaller and the brent goose is a good example as it is only the size of a mallard drake although the neck is longer. These geese are plump with rather short black legs and small black beaks. The head, neck and upperparts are dark looking, black from a distance, and contrasting with the white under tail feathers. The underparts are either mottled grey or brown. The adults have a white collar of feathers on the sides of the neck that is absent in young birds. They are a bird of the sea coast and estuaries where their favourite food is eel-grass but they will eat saltmarsh plants such as glasswort, sea aster and grasses.
Historically the brent goose in the Highlands poses a mystery as at one time it was reputed to be by far the commonest goose. Old records for Sutherland and Ross and Cromarty indicate that they outnumbered other geese by 100 to 1. There are old records with, unfortunately, no date of up to 4,000 being seen in the Cromarty Firth whereas these days a flock of over ten birds, anywhere in the Highlands, would be noteworthy. It is not as if large numbers no longer come to Britain as each winter England and Ireland support over 130,000 that represents nearly half of the world population. Why there are so few in the Highlands these days may be tied in with the food as perhaps there has been a dramatic change in the amount of eel-grass available.
The reason for the increase in the south is put down to legislation against shooting, and their move onto agricultural land. There are still some causes for concern such as habitat loss, disturbance and the lobby that seeks to put the goose back on the quarry list so they can be shot for sport.
The brent goose is one of the more remarkable of the geese as it breeds further north than any other goose. The dark bellied race breeds in Siberia and in northern Russia
and they winter mainly in England and France. The pale bellied race from Canada and Greenland winters in Ireland. In these Arctic areas the weather suitable for breeding last only around 100 days so even slight variations in conditions can affect the success of gosling survival. Families migrate together and remain together until the following breeding season. Some of them can survive 28 years or more.
The best places to look for brent geese around Inverness include Nigg Bay, Tarbetness, Udale Bay, Clachnaharry and Alturlie Point. The latest Highland Bird report states that the brent goose is a "Scarce (but increasing) migrant and winter visitor" so we can put hope that the numbers will return again in the future. The photograph was taken of a bird caught for ringing along with some pink-footed geese on the east coast. The Scots names for the brent goose include ware goose, clatter goose and routhurrock. The Gaelic name is Geadha-got meaning brent goose. The main problem for the future would seem to be whether the bird is on the quarry list or not.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Berries

Berries - 6th October 2008

This Autumn has seen a marked decrease in some areas of the amount of berries, fruits and seeds on trees and shrubs in and around Inverness and for that matter in other parts of the Highlands. Perhaps the most notable is the lack of rowan berries that so many birds rely on to boost their body weights for the winter months ahead. The lack of the bright red berries is particularly noticeable as in the last two years there have been such bumper crops the branches were weighed down. The beech mast is also poor and although some birds such as wood pigeons can find alternative food smaller bird such as bramblings may find it difficult. Their problem is that they will have to join chaffinches foraging in open fields where modern farming techniques means there is little seed left behind.
In contrast there seems to be a bumper crop of apples both the crab and, in particular, the domestic apples. In the wild the distribution of both is confusing as they hybridise and the latest plant Atlas of 2000 combines all records as if they were all native. Records are scattered in and around Inverness with a few on the west coast but virtually none in Caithness and Sutherland. Some birds such as blackbirds will attack the apples when they are still on the trees although most birds wait until the apples fall or surplus apples are put out in gardens for the birds. Other birds will take them, especially other thrushes such as redwings and fieldfares, pheasants and some starlings will take them. The mystery over the starlings taking apples is that whilst some of them are enthusiastic over eating them others completely ignore them.
Some mammals will eat apples and one perhaps comes as a surprise, namely the badger. Whilst they have a reputation of feeding mainly on earthworms they in fact take a wide variety of food. Their diet may include mammals and birds but they will also take berries and apples as the opportunity arises. In one garden near Inverness at the beginning of November surplus apples were put out on a small lawn for the blackbirds with three or four feeding on them at any one time. The general idea was to put the apples out at dusk so that the birds could have a good feed at first light the next morning. One morning the remains of one apple indicated something else had been feeding on it and there next to it was the dropping of a pine marten. Based on studies in northern Scotland the food of the pine marten includes birds, mammals, often as carrion, and frogs and toads. Eleven percent of its diet is fruit and nuts so it is not surprising that apples are taken.
In the last two weeks an experiment was carried out in a garden just south of Inverness where red squirrels come in daily to peanuts and other nuts in containers. Small apples were put out in a variety of situations including on the ground and wedged in the fork of branches which the squirrels frequented. For three days whilst apples were attacked by blackbirds the red squirrels seemed to ignore them. Then one morning a red squirrel was seen scurrying along the branch of a tree with one of the apples, whole, in its mouth. We tend to think of red squirrels taking seeds out of cones or biting into a hazel nut and splitting them into two. A recent innovation has been red squirrels raiding bird feeders in gardens and this now seems to have extended to apples.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Herring Gulls

29th September 2008 - Herring Gulls

One of the commonest birds in and around Inverness is the herring gull and they can be seen in the various firths, parks, gardens, car parks, bus stations, rivers and lochs, in fact virtually anywhere. Because of its size and numbers it has been the subject of many studies over the years but there are still two mysteries about them. One of these is regarding its methods of feeding and the other over its name. As for food, this gull is truly omnivorous, in other words they will eat any type of food indiscriminately. One method of feeding is along the shoreline to get into shell fish that are too hard for the bird’s beak to break open. The birds tear them off the rocks and then fly up and drop them onto a hard surface. It may take several attempts to do this but the method has its problems.
Some birds, such as other gulls and crows, have learnt to wait until the shell hits the ground and then they rush forward. The point is that by the time the gull that took the shell up into the air has flown down again the food has gone. One gull at Cromarty overcame this problem as when it flew up into the air at the last moment instead of just dropping the shell it jerked its head violently and threw the shell several feet higher. This meant that by the time the shell smashed on the ground the gull was well on its way to grab the spoils. Whilst this approach may seem to be innovative so is the mysterious way it feeds when on short grassland. Any roadside grassy verge will do, even roundabouts and, of course, fields and parks. You can see them doing this right close to roads so these days they can often be seen in and around Inverness. The bird stands on one spot and patters with its feet almost as though it is dancing. This encourages worms to come to the surface and the gull quickly grabs them. The mystery is whether the pattering feels like rain to the worms or does the vibration sound to the worm like a mole it has to escape from? For the first part of their lives the chicks and juvenile birds are fed by the adults who regurgitate their food. The way the young birds stimulates the adults to bring up their food is to peck at the red spot on the lower part of the beak. This vivid red spot can be seen on the photograph that was taken on the sea wall at Nairn.
As for the name "herring" gulls it seems to be a mystery as to why they were given this name as whilst they will take this fish they also take a wide variety of others. It has been called a herring gull since the 17th century so the origin seems to have been lost in time. Herring means " army" in Old Norse so perhaps it came from the sheer numbers of the birds, like a host or army. Apart from its main call notes that have been described as similar to laughter they also have a plaintive mewing cry that in the Highlands has given it the Scots name of cat gull. Others include silvery gull, white maa and greyback. The Gaelic name is Faoileag-an-sgadain meaning seagull of the herring. One of the myths about the herring gull is about weather as the old Scottish rhyme goes
"Sea-gull, sea-gull, sit on the sand;
It’s never good weather when you’re on the land"

Ray Collier Country Diary- Bats

Bats - 22nd September 2009

There are 16 resident species of bats in Britain although only four of these are found in the Highlands and one of these is very restricted in its distribution. The Natterer’s bat is not found north of a line roughly from Tain to Kyle of Lochalsh. Perhaps the reason for this is that it is a bat that favours a wide range of broadleaved woodland, large gardens and open parkland and there is not much of any of these north of that line. The Daubenton’s bat is found over almost all of the mainland but absent from either the Northern or Western Isles. It feeds low over water of lochs, rivers and burns and forages almost exclusively in the one metre airspace above the water. Insects are taken on the wing by the large feet or tail membrane and quickly transferred to the mouth whilst it continues its flight. The insects are taken both in the air and from the surface of the water and some of these bats have been seen taking as much as 40% of their prey from the water surface. The brown long eared bat with, as the name suggests, large ears, is more widespread in that it also occurs on the Northern Isles as well as the mainland. It prefers open woodland and parkland and is found in urban areas with large gardens and trees. The pipistrelle bat is the most widespread and commonest of the four in the Highlands and it occurs on the mainland and Northern Isles. Recent distribution maps show no records for the Western Isles but there have been a few roosts found in Stornoway although, as yet, none in the Uists Its abundance must be due in part to their adaptability as they feed wherever there are enough plants to support an adequate number of insects. Pipistrelles also come out earlier than the other bats and are often seen flying in the daylight before the light fades.
Just in the same way as bird boxes can help birds so bat boxes can help the four bats found in the Highlands as all of them will frequent such boxes at varying times of the year. Pipistrelles are unusual in that they more frequently use the boxes as mating roosts in the autumn. The boxes are meant to compensate for the lack of suitable holes in old trees, old buildings being renovated and new ones designed so that birds or bats cannot find a niche there. There are many thousands of bat boxes in Britain and one of the very first efforts was a large number of such boxes erected in Ardross Forest by the Forestry Commission. The bat box schemes vary from a few put up by individuals or large schemes involving hundreds of boxes put up by various organisations including bat groups. The success rate varies considerably with some only having 10% occupation and others even 100% although occupied boxes may only be used for a few weeks in the year. Daubenton’s, Natterer’s and brown long-eared bats will use the boxes as nursery roosts. The boxes vary from a simple design with a slit in the bottom and grooves cut to enable the bat to crawl up inside the box to other designs that have been used with success such as one with a variable number of narrow chambers stacked together, each just wide enough for a bat. Bats could well be the most successful mammals ever to have evolved and it is an interesting thought that in Britain one in three of the native land mammals is a bat.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Hazel

Hazel - 15th September 2009

Although hazel is often classed as a shrub rather than a tree it can grow to 30 feet. Very few reach this height because they have been traditionally cut and the many stems rising from the "stool" form coppiced hazel. These very pliant hazel rods have been used in a wide variety of ways from building primitive boats to hurdles to pen sheep. At this time of the year the tree is in full leaf each leaf growing to four inches long and broad with a variable outline. The leaves are alternate, with saw-toothed edges, a drawn out tip and hairy surfaces. The nuts grow in clusters of up to four with each partly enclosed in leafy, overlapping bracts. The characteristics of the leaves and nuts can be seen in the photograph that was taken on a roadside in September at Strathnairn just south of Inverness. The trees widespread throughout the Highlands and occurs on the Western and Northern Isles. It grows under larger trees in woodland but is equally at home on roadsides, hedgerows and cliffs.
Hazel was one of the first colonisers, after birch, once the ice age had retreated and at one time it would have been the most abundant shrub. The new shoots have always been used by man and there is evidence that deliberate coppicing may have started some 4,000 years ago. The hazel rods can be split lengthways and twisted and bent at sharp angles without them breaking. This enabled them to be woven, bent back on themselves and even tied into knots. It is still used to peg down thatch in which pieces of hazel have to be bent through 180 degrees. The cutting of hazel, usually over a cycle of about seven years, was of considerable benefit to insects such as various species of butterflies. This coppicing cycle meant light came into the woodland in the form of glades that not only gave calm and sunny conditions but also a wealth of wild flowers that the butterflies used as a nectar source.
The myth and folk lore surrounding the hazel manifests itself in a variety of ways. It was considered to be a protective tree much in the same way as the rowan. Carrying a twig or a cluster of nuts, particularly a cluster of three, was supposed to guard against all evils. Twigs could protect horses from enchantment from fairies by tying hazel twigs into their manes. The nuts ripen from mid-August to October and it is said to take nine years for a tree to produce its first full crop of nuts. Nine is a sacred number and this is one of the reasons the hazel is anciently revered. The ancient Celts regarded the hazel as the Tree of Knowledge and all knowledge was contained in the hazelnut’s kernel, hence the saying "in a nutshell". The nuts have always been a food source for a variety of animals such as red squirrels and wood mice plus wood pigeons and pheasants.
One of the less known uses of hazel was for divining water. Forked hazel wands, traditionally best cut on Midsummer’s Eve, were gripped in each hand and pulled apart until a pressure pulled them together. The fork is supposed to turn back and turn as you pass underground water. This practise has also been used to search for mineral veins and even buried treasure. Hazel is the plant badge of Clan Colquhoun and was formally registered at the Lyon Court. Bearberry was also used but not registered. The Gaelic name for hazel is "calltainn" although the spellings vary and a local name is "nuttall".

Ray Collier Country Diary- Butterflies

Butterflies - 8th September 2009

Butterflies need two types of food, nectar or other liquids for the adults and food, mainly in the form of leaves, for the caterpillars. Nectars come from a range of flowers with some butterflies seeking only one or two species of flowers whilst others take a wider range. Most of the thistles found in the Highlands, including the white form of the marsh thistle in the photograph, provide a nectar source for a wide range of butterflies. Areas with thistles at this time of the year are well worth looking at when the sun is shining. One of the commonest garden butterflies, the green veined white, uses a wide range but is particularly attracted, for some unknown reason, to both white and pink flowers. In contrast the dingy skipper, which is rare around Inverness but found at Nairn dunes, mainly seeks nectar from common bird’s foot trefoil. We are all used to a range of butterflies such as red admiral, small tortoiseshell, peacock and painted lady using Buddleia but some butterflies will look elsewhere for substitutes.
A good example is red admirals that will freely go to any fallen apples as juices are available after they have rotted slightly or have been attacked by birds or insects. A more specialised source is obtained by such butterflies as the speckled wood that in recent years has spread to new areas of the Highlands. The adults will seek nectar from ragwort and other wild flowers but the main source of food comes from honeydew from aphids found on ash, birch and oak. The purple hairstreak, that has only recently been recorded in the Highlands, goes one further in that it drinks the honeydew from aphids only on oak trees. It is perhaps not surprising then that the food plants of the caterpillars of the purple hairstreak are the leaves of the oak. Sap oozing from trees is often visited by butterflies and some of the old collectors used to attract some butterflies such as the red admiral and purple emperor by putting out decaying meat, such as rabbit, along woodland rides. In periods of hot weather, certainly not like this summer in the Highlands, butterflies will often freely go to water, such as puddles, to drink.
One critical part of the butterflies life cycle is finding the correct food plant for the caterpillar stage and some butterflies accept a wide range of plants whilst others, as with the nectar source, are more specialised. One of the commonest butterflies in the Highland is the Scotch argus and the caterpillars feed on virtually any of the broader leaved grasses. They have even been seen laying their eggs as the adult female flies just above the vegetation such as a roadside verge. White butterflies such as the large white and small white will feed on a wide range of brassicas which is one of the reasons they are so successful. Six species of fritillary, including the two pearl bordered fritillaries, that occur in the Highlands all feed on various species of violets. In contrast 12 species of butterflies that occur in Britain are reliant upon single caterpillar food plants.
One aspect of the life cycle of butterflies is why some species have an association with ants. This is particularly the case with members of the "blue family", which in the Highlands includes the common blue, which is widespread. What happens is that the caterpillar emits sweet liquids from a gland that attracts ants day and night and they simply drink the liquid. The attendance of the ants helps the caterpillars chances of survival because the ants keep predators and parasites away.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Aspens

1st September - Aspens

Aspens are small poplar trees growing up to 20 metres tall and are relatively short lived, living to about 60 years of age. The young silvery-green bark becomes part covered with black diamond shaped markings as it gets older. The male catkins are brownish while the female catkins are greenish and borne on separate trees. Aspens very rarely set seed in this country but reproduce with great vigour by means of suckers, often resulting in the growth of a small wood around a single parent tree. They must set seed at some time, because they occur in isolated sites that could not have been colonised by any other means. Apart from their habit of suckering so freely, the most remarkable characteristic of the trees are their leaves. In the summer, they are a light, almost sparkling green that turns to a glorious amber yellow in the Autumn before dropping to the ground and fading to black. The leaves are hairless except when very young and are almost round. They have edges like large rounded teeth. Unusually they are waterproof with two minute resin-lined cups at the bottom of each leaf blade which catch and absorb the moisture. The very long leaf stalks that can be seen in the photograph are flat and grow at right angles to the blade of the leaf. This means they catch the slightest breeze and forever seem to be trembling - hence one of their Latin names "tremula". The length of the leaf stalks means the leaves rub together so that the whole tree will make a soft, rustling, whispering sound. The trees are to be found scattered throughout the Highlands and , perhaps surprisingly, in the Western and Northern Isles. They can be frequent in rocky or wet woodland, gorges, cliffs, waterside and on heaths. Sometimes the tree grows singly in the midst of other species in woods, sometimes in the open and occasionally in small copses with only aspen present. It can be rather awe inspiring to suddenly come across a single aspen with suckers miles from any other trees, especially when it is in its autumn colour of amber yellow with occasional clumps of red leaves. The autumn colouring is so outstanding that one can look at a wood or cliff from a distance and readily pick out the aspen by its colour. Some people believe that the aspen at Carbisdale Castle near Bonar Bridge is the largest in Britain but there are many other places where fine examples can be seen. The main track up towards Ben Wyvis from the west runs alongside a gorge with some superb aspens, whilst, in contrast, there is a small grove of them on the banks of Gask Burn near Balnafoich just south of Inverness. The distribution of aspen in the Highlands is now better known than ever before. This is largely due to the recent realisation they are very important for a wide range of insects that feed on them or are associated with them. Unfortunately, the tree suffers from overgrazing by rabbits, sheep, deer and wild goats. However, this fact has now been realised and some areas of aspens have now been fenced off. Before the beaver became extinct in Scotland in medieval times, the aspen must have provided the animal’s staple diet - as the American aspen still does for the beaver in Canada. With this is mind it will be interesting to see what happens if the beaver is reintroduced into the Highlands and what they do to the aspens.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Blackthorn

25th August - Blackthorn

From a distance, blackthorn bushes are not easy to identify. However, on closer inspection in the next few weeks the dark bark - darker than any other tree in the Highlands - and the berries, called sloes, give them away. The bushes lose their leaves in the winter and will grow to five metres so that from a distance they look like a small tree. The crown is rounded and often broader than tall and its spreads widely by suckers. However, the easiest way to find blackthorn bushes is to look for them much earlier in the year as they have vivid white flowers that blossom as early as April. This means that they stand out from some distance and in most areas they are the only bushes in flower at that time of the year. It is these white flowers that give it the other name of whitethorn. The crop of sloes varies considerably and in some years there is none, while in other years the twigs hang heavy with them. Last year was something of a mystery as some bushes had an excellent crop whilst others in the same area had none, with the only sloes being the old shrivelled ones from the previous year. The sloe crop is affected by the weather, so perhaps some of the bushes were in a frost pocket and others escaped. The best place in the Highlands to find blackthorn bushes is around Inverness, either in hedgerows, copses or along the margins of woodland. Autumn is the time of the year to collect the sloes for making the famous sloe gin and people can be seen with containers hanging around their necks and walking sticks being used to pull the upper branches down. Unlike brambles, which are often eaten when collecting, nobody eats the sloes as they are very bitter to taste, although they look attractive as they are deep blue with a thick waxy bloom. There are only a few places where there enough blackthorn bushes to collect lots of sloes, so most people keep the locations to themselves. It is fortunate for the sloe pickers that birds, apart from blackbirds, leave the fruits alone until late October or even November, when all the thrushes, including the migrants from Scandinavia, will take them. Nobody is sure why they are not taken before this, as they are certainly ripe but perhaps they need some frosts to soften them enough for the birds. Another possible explanation is that when the sloes are ripe, so are the hawthorn berries and these are preferred by most of the thrushes. Other birds that take them include robin, carrion/hooded crow and starling and in a good crop they will take them into January. While the dense leaves and spines of the blackthorn have been used as stock fencing, at the same time the bushes give good cover for breeding sites for birds. Around Inverness they are often used by sparrowhawks plus the occasional loose colonies of bullfinches and one year a redwing nested in a line of bushes near Inverness. In company with May, the blackthorn has long been regarded as a plant that should never be brought indoors when it is in flower and the bush has long been associated with evil. However, the traditional Irish clubs, the shillelaghs, were made from the shrub and the traditional rod used for knocking on the doors of Parliament at its opening, is made of blackthorn.

Ray Collier Country Diary- White Dead Nettle

18th August - White Dead Nettle

White dead-nettle has a characteristic ring of large white flowers that are, on close inspection, faintly suffused with green. The leaves are broad and up to 8 cms long with a serrated margin and a stalk up to 5 cm long. It is a tall plant, up to 100 cm with green four angled stems and it spreads by creeping underground runners that form dense patches in some places. This may be the reason that despite being attractive and the leaves used in cooking it is not often grown in gardens. It grows in a variety of places from open grassland to woodland and generally on moist, fertile soils. There is a mystery over the distribution of this plant in the Highlands. It is reasonably common around Inverness but elsewhere it is very rare indeed with just a couple or records from the west coast, virtually none in Sutherland and Caithness or the rest of the mainland. It is absent from the Western and Northern Isles. This is despite the fact that in all these areas there are apparently suitable habitats for the plant to flourish.
The leaves are eaten by the caterpillars of one of our most attractive moths, the burnished brass. As the name suggests this moth has shiny brass like wings that are formed by light playing on the microscopic scales. Other moth caterpillars that eat the leaves are angle shades and garden tigers. Only certain insects such as bees can reach the nectar in their flowers but some insects attack the side of the flowers to bore in after the nectar. This nectar source is particularly valuable to insects early in the year before other blossoms have come into flower. From our point of view the young shoots and leaves are edible but are best picked before flowering and can be eaten in salads or mixed with other leaf vegetables and cooked like spinach. Young shoots, leaves and flower buds can also be added to soups, sauces and stews. At one time youngsters used to suck the bottom of the flowers to get the nectar to eat. Medicinally it has been used as a herbal medicine by making it into a tincture or powder for treating a variety of problems. At one time in the Highlands it was used as an ointment to treat bleeding cuts and for sore feet and toothache.
There is another mystery surrounding this plant as its origin in Britain, including the Highlands, is open to debate depending which book you consult. Some say it is native whilst others say it is an introduction or an escape from cultivation. There is the suspicion that it was anciently introduced, perhaps for food. It gets its name from the fact that before it flowers it very much resembles stinging nettle, an easy mistake to make in the spring. The flowers are quite different and the plants are not in any way related. Local names include bee nettle because it attracts bees, archangel, blind nettle and deaf nettle. The Gaelic name is Teanga Mhin meaning smooth tongue. The photograph of the plant was taken on a drystone wall just south of Inverness. At this time of the year such sites are a riot of colour with blossoms of harebell, lady’s bedstraw, ferns and birds foot trefoil. It is also one of the dominant plants in an adjoining field that has been planted with a mixed seed crop that will not be cut for two years. The resulting dense cover shelters and feeds pheasants that are released every year for sporting purposes.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Oak Trees

11th August - Oak Trees

The pedunculate oak is impressive by any standards as the large branches rise from a short trunk to form a massive crown rising up to 115 ft or more. The leaves are alternate and almost stalkless with four or five lobes on each side. Young bark is smooth and shiny but with age it becomes fissured forming narrow vertical grey areas. The male flowers hang in thin catkins on narrow branches with the small female flowers at the ends. The acorns sometimes occur in pairs with long stalks and the years they are abundant, known as "mast" years, only occur every six or seven years. The acorn crop is mainly determined by the weather conditions of the previous year at the time when the flower buds first form. In other years there are fewer acorns and in some years none at all. In the Highlands the pedunculate oak is common and widespread in the south and east but is less common in the west and north. It occurs in one place in the Western Isles and there are, apparently, none in the Northern Isles.
Of all the British trees, this oak supports the widest variety of insect life and is top of the "famous five" the others being birch, hawthorn, blackthorn and willow. More fungi are associated with oak than with any other native tree and many species seem to be restricted to them. The odd looking, but edible, beefsteak fungus occurs on old living oaks and dead oak stumps. Jays and squirrels will bury very many acorns to store them for future eating but, fortunately for the oaks, many acorns are not found again. It is difficult to over estimate the role that the oak has played in the history of Britain. Oak was, for centuries, the foundation of the Royal Navy and the dependence on oak beams for the construction of large buildings has been there since medieval times. What is often overlooked is the role of oak bark in the tanning industry. At one time 90,000 tons of oak bark was used each year for this industry which means about 500,000 tons of felled timber. In folklore the oak has been one of the most important elements of folklore throughout Europe since the earliest times. Druids in Celtic Britain held the tree most sacred and especially prized mistletoe growing on it which must have been quite rare. Oak was the sacred wood burnt by the Druids for their midsummer sacrifice and started by rubbing two oak sticks together. The acorns were widely used in medicine and also in culinary use. Acorn coffee was the national beverage during the rationing of the First World War and it is said to have antiseptic qualities. The acorns are roasted in a moderate oven until dark brown and then ground in a coffee grinder and prepare as with coffee. The leaves can make wine or tea.
The Gaelic name is Darach and it can sometimes be seen in place names such as Craigdarroch, although spelt slightly differently, meaning "rock of oak". The Latin name Quercus is said to be of Celtic origin, meaning "fine tree". Oak is the plant badge of eleven Clans including Wallace, Stewart and Shaw. It is the commonest of the oaks around Inverness, the others being the native sessile oak and introduced turkey oak. There is a particularly fine, large example of a pedunculate oak at Brahan and a fine roadside specimen near Farr, Inverness. With such a high value in terms of wildlife, building and scenic looks the future of this oak seems assured.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Horse Chestnuts

4th August 2008 - Horse Chestnuts

At this time of the year in the Highlands the horse chestnut trees add their own particular colour to the Autumn tints as the very large leaves turn yellow and gold. Each leaf has seven large, thick, stalkless leaflets with pronounced veins and a long, tapering base. The tree can reach 35 metres and the arching branches are usually turned up at the ends. The spiny fruit are green and contain one or more nuts that are a glossy, rich brown with a whitish round patch at the top. The trunk of the tree is in itself attractive as when old it is red-brown and scaly. The size, autumn colours and the large showy white flowers of spring are the reason for the tree’s popularity as it has been extensively planted as an ornamental tree.
Horse chestnut trees were introduced from the Balkans around 1614 and soon became popular and it was first recorded in the wild by 1870. It is widespread in the Highlands although there are some large gaps in parts such as the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland. It has been planted in parkland, large gardens and estates, churchyards, urban streets and village greens. There are many fine specimens in and around Inverness and the photograph of leaves and the nuts was taken on the banks of Loch Farr just south of Inverness. Considering how long it took for the tree to become widespread it has made a remarkable contribution to popular culture. For example the sticky buds, sometimes called "cackey monkeys", are put into vases in the spring. Then later the huge candelabra and white blossoms are the decorative flowers of May. There was even a 1930s dance craze based on the song "Underneath the spreading chestnut tree". Of all the contributions the tree makes perhaps it is the chestnuts or conkers that have been the most significant and widespread. These nuts have developed a folk lore of their own and apart from the commonest name, conkers, they are called conquerors, cheggies and obbly obbly onkers. The last name gave rise to the short rhyme "obbly obbly onker, my first conker".
Seeing children in and around Inverness these days collecting conkers by various means including throwing pieces of wood into the tree to dislodge them, it is difficult to imagine when it first began. Before conkers were used shells and hazel nuts were used and the first recorded game of conkers using horse chestnuts was on the Isle of Wight in 1848. The idea is to thread a conker on a length of string and hit someone else’s conker until one breaks when the owner gains a point and so on. It was, and still is , very much a children’s game but then things changed in 1965 when the first World Conker championship was set up at Ashton in Northamptonshire. In October last year were 256 players in the Men’s’ Competition and 64 in the Ladies’ Competition. Competitors come from all over the world and places have to be booked for each of these competitions but Juniors can turn up and play on the day.
Whatever level you play conkers there has always been the challenge of making your conker harder than any others and over the years various methods have been worked out. Some keep a conker for a year or more which makes them harder whilst others have soaked them or boiled them in vinegar. To solve all these factors in the World Conker Championship you are not allowed to take your own but have to play with those provided.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Oystercatchers

28th July 2008 - Oystercatchers

There are a number of wading birds that are associated with farmland and they can often be seen in fields or rough pasture just by driving around the straths and glens and using the car as a hide. As long as you do not get out of the vehicle the birds accept you and carry on with their business be it displaying, feeding or sleeping. At this time of the year some will still be looking after their chicks although others, such as the curlews, have already left for the coast and better feeding. The birds tend to behave in different ways and one of the most conspicuous is the curlew whose long somewhat mournful calls epitomise the rough grassland or moorland on which they breed. In contrast if you listen on an evening you may well hear the bleating notes of the common snipe. This really does sound like a lamb bleating and for a long time it was thought to be vocal but a closer look revealed that when the bird is diving through the sky two of its tail feathers are spread out and it is the wind rushing through these that makes the curious sound. During the day if the snipe are alarmed then will sit on fence posts and chack away. Lapwings are very colourful birds if you get close to them and not the black and white image they project as they carry out their acrobatic flights. The other conspicuous bird is the black and white oystercatcher whose plumage is set off by the long orange red beak and the reddish-pink legs. When they are on their breeding grounds in the straths and glens they will call throughout the day and night. They mostly nest on the ground but occasionally they nest in some surprising places. The flat tops of buildings such as schools are sometimes used and this is possible by the way they chicks are fed. For most waders the chicks start to feed themselves at a very early stage. With the oystercatcher the adults bring food to the young which is just as well as there is not much food to be found on the top of a building. They have also been known to nest on the top of an old tree stump and one pair near Inverness regularly nesting in the hollow at the top of a stout fence post. The bird on the nest in the photograph was so close to the road she was photographed out of a car window. One pair of oystercatchers nested so close to a road running alongside the River Findhorn that it was only about eighteen inches from the tarmac on the road surface. Another characteristic of oystercatchers is that they are comparatively long lived. One bird that hatched in 1976 was ringed in Inverness in 1978 then re-ringed at Alterlie Point a few miles east of Inverness in 1991. It was found injured at Farr a few miles south of Inverness in 2004. It had to be put down but had lived for 28 years. The record for an oystercatcher is 36 years. The oystercatchers breeding in the straths and glens move from the coast to the breeding sites in the spring and then move back to the coast once the young are free flying. Some stay on the coast for the winter whilst others move south to France, Spain and Portugal. The winter numbers are boosted by Iceland birds that visit the western parts of Britain whilst the Norwegian birds winter in the eastern parts of Britain.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Great Black backed Gulls

21st July 2008 - Great Black backed Gulls

When the tide was going out in the Beauly Firth one day last week there was an assortment of birds on a small mud and sand bank near South Kessock. There were about forty birds in all, mainly lapwings and redshank but there were a few oystercatchers and a single turnstone. Some of the oystercatchers were juveniles and they had probably been bred this year in the straths around Inverness although the numbers had been adversely affected by the poor weather. Of the fifteen redshank no juveniles could be seen so perhaps the weather had also affected these chicks. These waders are uncommon breeding birds in the Highlands although good numbers nest on the RSPB reserve at Insh Marshes near Kingussie. The odd bird out, the turnstone, does not nest in the Highlands so it could have been from Scandinavia or beyond. Many of the waders were looking for food on the edge of the receding water whilst others were asleep. Suddenly the redshank started calling and all the birds suddenly took flight and flew towards the Kessock bridge obviously in disarray.
One of the reasons for such frantic behaviour is often a peregrine falcon and some of these magnificent birds of prey will stay along the coast until next spring before retuning inland to breed. There are rich pickings for these birds and the prey depends on whether the bird is male or female. As with most falcons and hawks the female is considerably larger than the male so whilst the male may go for small waders such as dunlin or redshank the female will take ducks such as teal and even larger species. On this occasion the disturbance was not a peregrine but a single great black-backed gull that flew low over the water and mud obviously looking for food. Fear of this bird is readily apparent as it is the largest gull in the world and one of the most impressive of seabirds. The chest is deep and the massive head has a heavy hook tipped beak. The black wings have a spread of five feet
The last Highland Bird Report states that this gull is a "common breeder; uncommon far inland". They nest on rocky outcrops, sometimes on moorland and even buildings and they are commonly seem around Inverness and will wander a short way inland to feed on carrion such as fish and dead lambs and sheep. In the last few years they have suffered in the same way as other seabirds because of the shortage of fish and offal from fishing boats. This has led to some local colonies not bringing off any chicks but there is another serious side. Lack of fish had forced these large gulls to seek other food and the colonies of sea birds such as on the North Sutor near Cromarty have been targeted. In some years the gulls have killed large numbers of shags, guillemots and kittiwakes and with some species both adults and chicks being taken. What is surprising about the current success of this gull is that it almost became extinct in the latter part of the 19th century. Victorians shot them and mounted them on walls as trophies but the biggest losses came from farmers who shot, trapped and poisoned them because of their liking for lambs and injured or cornered sheep.
Local names for great black backed gulls include goose gull, carrion gull and greater saddleback whilst the Scots names include baukie, gull maw and swarbie. One of the three Gaelic names is Faoil-mhor which means great seagull.

Ray Collier Country Diary- Dragonflies

14th July 2008 - Dragonflies

Lochs, lochans and other water bodies are the key to dragonflies as they can spend as much as 95% of their life cycle under water. The females lay their eggs in or near water and they usually hatch after a few weeks although the eggs of some species lie dormant over winter. The life history of the dragonfly in the photograph is a good example. This is a close up of the golden ringed dragonfly and they are, as the name suggests, black and gold all over except for the green eyes. They are the longest, eight centimetres, of the dragonflies in Britain with a wing span of nine centimetres and if they buzz around you after insects they can be intimidating. They are common around Inverness and are one of the very small numbers of dragonfly that spend their lives in or over flowing water such as burns or rivers. The adults are on the wing, sometimes far from water, from between early June to mid-September which may seem a long time but they have already spent up to five years under water as nymphs.
Underwater it is like a battle field as the nymphs prey on other small water animals whilst they in turn are predated by fish, large water beetles, birds, etc. The nymphs must have cover during the day to avoid some predators but there must be aquatic, floating and emergent plants to support a rich supply of insects. Then when the time has come to emerge it helps to have shallow water which heats up in the sun and emergent plants for the nymph to crawl up and finally emerge as an adult.
There are a number of excellent sites for dragonflies and damselflies round Inverness and elsewhere in the Highlands. We tend to think that all of the best sites have only been "discovered" in recent times but this is not always the case. In the book "British Dragonflies" by W.J.Lucas published in 1900 there are dragonfly records for Aviemore, Insh, Strathglass and Loch-an-Eilan which would have been made long before the book was published. A few years ago the finding of the attractive dragonfly called the brilliant emerald in Strathglass was hailed as a new and important record until it was realised that a Dr Buchanan White found it there in 1869! Other good sites include Loch Bran, Beinn Eighe and Glen Affric.