Cottage Holidays throughout Scotland

At this time of the year everyone wants to see or hear the first bird migrants such as the swallow that will have crossed the Sahara desert or the cuckoo that will have wintered in central and southern Africa. The wheatears that will soon be perching on rocks on moorland have been in central Africa whilst the house martin, soon to building under eaves of buildings, has also been to Africa. The urgency of wanting to see the first migrants is reflected by the fact that in most County Bird Reports there is a section giving the first and last dates of these birds. One of the first is one of the larger birds namely the osprey which may be a reflection of the fact that it will readily find its food, mainly fish. Other early birds are much smaller such as the swallow and sand martin and in normal years some have arrived as early as the last week in March.
On arrival the smaller birds such as the swallow and sand martins have a problem as they need plenty of insects, their main food. In the Highlands insects are in short supply in the winter months which is one of the reasons why the birds go south in the Autumn. In April and early May there is still a shortage of insects although some places are better than others. Lochs with plenty of aquatic and marginal plants and surrounding scrub, woodland and grassland are good places and there are two near Inverness. One is Loch Flemington east of Inverness and the other are the lochs either side of the A82 at Dochfour. In the next two weeks both these should have large numbers of sand martins and swallows endlessly quartering the water picking off insects, sometimes even off the surface. Their communal roost is often in reed beds. Later they will break up with many of the adults going back to breed where they did last year, sometimes on exactly the same building. Birds that hatched last year are more likely to wander to new breeding areas and sites.
Warblers, such as willow warblers and chiffchaffs, have also spent the winter in Africa but when they arrive back in the Highlands they do not have the advantage of being able to cope with insects over water so they have to turn to another, seemingly less likely, source of food. Blossoms attract insects but at this time of the year there are very few blossoms in flower but one source is the two willows, the goat willow and the grey willow. Because so little else is in leaf or flower both these willows, with their yellow male catkins, were used to decorate churches at Eastertide as “palm”. These two willows, often called sallows or pussy willows, have male and female trees and it is the yellow male catkins that attract so many insects. These male catkins were also called “goslings” because their texture and colour were like newly hatched geese and this can be seen in the photograph. This is where the warblers will gather to feast on the insects and this is where you are likely to hear the first song of the willow warblers and chiffchaffs. They will later be joined by whitethroats, blackcaps and garden warblers all desperate for a good insect supply to build them up for the breeding season ahead. Fortunately these are two of the commonest and most widespread willows in the Highlands and for that matter in Britain.

There are many guided walks in the Highlands covering a wide range of subjects but one of the most innovative is the Inverarnie Esker Trail near the village of Farr just south of Inverness. A few years ago this area was covered with conifer plantations but the Forestry Commission carried out surveys and then brought in machinery to carve out rides and glades. This enabled visitors to see the size and extent of the eskers that are glacier deposited ridges of gravel and sand. The eskers are impressive enough as they trace the passage of the ice but so are the kettle hole lochans formed by melting ice. There are also large boulders called erratics that were originally carried along by the ice. There are three esker trails with the main red trail being 2.6 km, the blue trail is 1.1. km and the yellow trail is 1.4 km. and these are marked by posts appropriately colour coded. Each walk can be joined together and there is a range of interpretive boards along the routes.
There are rides, glades and large open areas plus the lochans and the area is maintained by the Forestry Commission to keep open the scalloped margins to the rides and glades. This leads to sunlit and sheltered areas so that the geologists, naturalists and the wildlife itself will benefit. The area is a Site of Scientific Interest. Access to the trails is off the B851 road just over a kilometre east of Inverarnie and there is a small parking area on the south side of the road. There is an interpretive panel just inside the gate with a map with the three trails clearly marked. A separate small sign indicates that the trails were opened by Farr Primary School in June 2004.
The main lochan, probably more likely to be a loch as it is over 2 acres in extent with a small island, is unusual in that it does not have a name, not even on the largest scale of O.S. maps. It supports one of the two very large colonies of toads in that part of Strathnairn, the other being even larger at Loch Farr five km to the south. The breeding adults seem to hibernate in woodland just east of the loch whilst immature toads spread out over the lower ground of the strath at this time of the year. The photograph was taken in late summer and shows the extent of the loch with no name. Although nobody seems to have carried out a survey of dragonflies there are several species such as damselflies, darters and dragonflies. The huge and impressive golden ringed dragonfly is still on the wing until the first frosts will kill them off. There are still some butterflies around and one of the best places to see them is the large glade at the start of the trails as on the lower slopes it is well sheltered.
This is a good time of the year to see family parties of siskins and lesser redpolls and later in the year mixed flocks of both these attractive woodland birds. The Scottish crossbill also nest in the conifers but these are early breeders as, depending on the seed crop from cones, they can nest as early as January. If you go early in the morning you may well see roe deer grazing in areas outwith the trees, foxes crossing rides and the elusive otter on the lochans or along burns. Red squirrels are found in woodland throughout this strath but the best way of noting their presence is the stripped cones as the animals themselves are very elusive.

The publication of the two volumes of “The Birds of Scotland” in December of 2007 by the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club has, quite rightly, been hailed as a major step forward in the existing knowledge of birds. The accounts give the up-to-date knowledge of the various species with detailed information on such aspects as Scottish range, distribution and status plus trends and population. In a sense it is a celebration of the knowledge of very many people apart from the 157 authors co-ordinated by a team of nine editors. There is another aspect of the book that may be, by some, overlooked and that is the fact that it is a very important document for the conservation of birds and, for that matter, other wildlife. One of the most fascinating aspects of the accounts of each bird is the very important section simply highlighted by one word, namely “Threats”.
One of the most important of these is briefly mentioned in the beginning of Volume 1 under the section on “Seabirds”. It states that in the early years of the 21st century many species of seabirds are experiencing food shortages and links this to over fishing and lack of discarded fish by trawlers. It also mentions that a rise in sea temperature, particularly in the North Sea, may also be having an effect on the food supply chain. Whatever the reason, and it seems likely to be a combination of events rather than a single one, it could be disastrous news for seabird colonies around the coast of the Highlands. The numbers of many of these are of international importance and there is now a serious cause for concern. The signs were there some time ago such as Volume 2 reports for July 1959 when 8,000 four to six week old puffin chicks died on St.Kilda. This was explained as a dearth of sand eels and sprats. In the last two years there have been reports of many puffin chicks dying with pipe fish at the entrance to the burrows. Pipe fish are nutritionally far less value as food to seabirds as opposed to whitebait or sand eels. Other seabirds have also suffered such as kittiwakes, razorbills and guillemots.
This may, on the face of it, seem fairly straightforward but the situation is made more complex by the predatory great skua. These large seabirds are about the size of a herring gull but even bulkier and it has a powerful looking partially hooked beak. It was renowned for its piratical behaviour with other seabirds such as puffins by harassing them until they dropped the food they were carrying, particularly sand eels. The great skuas were so quick they could often catch the discarded fish before it hit the sea below. They occasionally took adult birds and also fed extensively on fish discarded from trawlers. When the fish stocks such as sand eels decreased and trawler discards were lowered the skuas started taking the adult birds instead.
The skuas have even begun to prey at night under the cover of darkness on the small petrels such as the Leach’s on St. Kilda. Volume 1 give some facts about these rare petrels on St. Kilda where the skuas went from 42 pairs in 1986 to 229 in 1996. In recent years it is estimated that the skuas take well over 14,000 petrels each year. The books highlights these problems and many others such as brown rats, pike, pollution, mink and other predators on a wide variety of birds. It will be interesting to see what is to be done about all these problems many of which are, needless to say, man made.