Cottage Holidays throughout Scotland

Bird Feeding – 7th July 2008

Feeding birds in gardens, often referred to as “bird gardening”, is now a multi-million pound bird-food industry and one that is rapidly increasing. The increase is due to massive publicity by the media, particularly television, and the plethora of books on the subject in recent years. Various statistics are banded around such as the fact that gardens cover three million acres which is a substantial amount. One major step forward was the realisation that it was important to feed birds all the year round. Only a few years ago it was thought that birds could find sufficient natural food in the summer months and there was no need to feed them during that period. Even three years ago none of the supermarkets or garden centres in and around Inverness stocked any food for wild bird during the summer. The temperatures dropping to + 1 degrees overnight last month was a good example. Birds that needed caterpillars such as blue, great and coal tits would have had some difficulty in finding them. As a survival factor the adults would have left their young to die. Food in gardens allows the adults to keep up their food intake by seed and peanuts whilst what caterpillars they could find could go to the young birds.
The bird gardening has had a profound effect on the number of different types of birds coming in for food. Not only that but with the artificial nest boxes they provide both food and nest sites which are important as natural sites such as holes in trees are at a premium. It has not only been changes in small birds as some larger birds have now taken to the bird tables. In and around Inverness there have been additions to the small birds and one of the first birds was the siskin which is now found in virtually any garden in or around the City. In the last few years goldfinches have also turned up as have long tailed tits. The latter were certainly a surprise as it was thought their diet all the year round was based almost solely on insects. Now they can often be seen, sometimes in parties, raiding the peanut holders. Even the secretive and rather drab dunnock is now visiting feeders whereas in the past it found most of its food on the ground Tree creepers have been seen at the peanut holders although it is still not clear whether they are after the nuts or insects on the nuts. Perhaps the most unusual one of all and the least expected has been, in the last year or so, the crested tit that was thought to inhabit the upper parts of old Caledonian woodland areas. As for the larger birds, gardens now attract wood pigeons, pheasants and red legged partridges.
One of the more colourful birds that have colonised gardens after food is the great spotted woodpecker that go for the peanut holders. The spread of these birds in various parts of the Highlands, but in particular all the way down the Great Glen and the Black Isle, has been surprising. This has been put down to the increasing use of peanut holders being filled all the year round. This is a bird that may well have been extinct in the Highlands in the late 1800s mainly due to widespread felling of deciduous woodland but also partly competition for nest sites from starlings and predation by red squirrels. This year seems to have been a successful breeding season in and around Inverness as they have been many reports of juvenile birds coming to peanut holders in the last two weeks.

Mountain Pansies – 30th June 2008

Mountain pansies have large, striking and very vivacious blossoms about an inch across that grow on slender stems that seem to rise straight from grassland. The leaves are oval, low down on the stem, narrower further up and do not form a rosette at the base. The creeping underground roots send up flowering stems at intervals. The flowering stems bearing usually one but sometimes four blossoms are unbranched. Late in the year the fruit capsule, about three quarters of an inch across, splits into three parts each releasing the tiny ripe seeds. Whilst the colour of the blossoms varies in any one area in general the yellow type is found in Derbyshire and Yorkshire whilst the purple type, arguably the more attractive, grows in upper Teesdale and Scotland, including the Highlands. Around Inverness mountain pansies grow on grassy areas and rock ledges plus damp meadows and sometimes shingle. They have been recorded in a few places on the roadsides at Garve but by far the best place to see them in all their glory is the grasslands and hillsides either side of the upper parts of the River Findhorn. Elsewhere in the Highlands there are only three scattered sites and a small number of old records where the plants have not been seen since before the 1970s. This could be because of afforestation with the inevitable conifer plantations. On the side of Strathnairn along the River Findhorn there are sometimes hundreds of the flat faced flowers in quite small areas of grassland and the main type is a beautiful purple colour with contrasting yellow streaks with dark lines on the lower broad petal. There are other colour types there and some may be yellow, blue violet or red violet or any combinations of these colours. Despite their vivid colour the plants can be difficult to see unless the vegetation is close cropped by deer, cattle or sheep.
Such attractive large flowers have always attracted gardeners and at one time garden pansies were forms of another wild pansy whose Latin name is Viola tricolor. More recently today’s garden pansies were derived from crosses between the wild and the mountain pansies plus probably a third pansy from abroad whose origin seems to have been a mystery. For some reason the true mountain pansy has always been difficult to cultivate in gardens , a fact mentioned by gardeners as long ago as the 16th century. Mountain pansies are members of the violet family all of which, to varying degrees, are used as the food plants of some of the most attractive and threatened family of butterflies, the fritillaries. One of the largest of this family is the dark green fritillary which is found along the Findhorn valley as is the much smaller but equally attractive small pearl bordered fritillary. The former’s flying period is into September whilst the latter’s generally ends in August although with the weather this year both may be extended for a few weeks. Both these fritillaries have declined markedly down south but in the Highlands they are still widespread although in some areas there has been a decline through the change of countryside management. As for the future of the mountain pansy in conservation terms it could well be that its range and numbers may have stabilised and if the current overgrazing and over burning in some area are changed, as seems likely with current thinking, then the plant could return to its former range. Grazing of the areas supporting large numbers of these plants is critical with cattle being the most advantageous.

Quail -23rd June 2008

There are a number of birds in the Highlands that are notoriously difficult to see and good examples are the corncrake and water rail. This is partly due to their small size, their reluctance to fly and the fact that they frequent dense vegetation. Generally the only aspect of their secret lives that gives them away are their call notes. There is another bird that is even more secretive and much smaller than the other two and that is the diminutive quail. It is like a miniature partridge but it is only about seven inches long, less that a starling but it is rotund. This tiny game bird has yellowish-brown streaked upperparts, paler underneath and a yellow stripe through a dark crown. The male is more conspicuous, if you can see it, with dark white and black bands round the throat and through the eye. The female has a spotted breast and less distinctive head markings.
Quail are the only game birds in Europe that migrate but for some unknown reason the number of immigrants to Britain each year varies considerably. In recent years up to 300 calling males have been heard in Britain. In good years, often called “quail years” they can be found almost anywhere in Britain but an average over the years gives an interesting distribution map. It occurs in southern England and for the rest of Britain there is a small area around Inverness and a short way from there along the east coast. Why there should be an isolated breeding area around the city is another mystery. These summer records are just that, as there are so few examples of young or eggs being seen that it is just conjecture although it is presumed they breed . The adults spend all of their time in grassland or large fields with tall cereal crops in which they can hide.
The only give away of their presence is a series of triple call notes “whip-whip-whip” that is reputed to sound like “wet my lips”. It may seem as though it would be easy to pin down a calling bird but they are also extremely good ventriloquists, a habit it shares with the corncrake that can be almost as difficult to see. The only positive breeding record in recent years is a female and a brood of chicks crossing the road near Farr just south of Inverness. The photograph is of a full clutch of 12 eggs and they are only three centimetres long and laid on the ground in a depression. The chicks are so small when they hatch that they look like large bumblebees. Such small birds and their chicks fall prey to a wide range of predators both birds and mammals and farm machinery is another factor.
Despite their size quail have been eagerly sought for food as a delicacy and whilst they are now fully protected in Britain in other countries the numbers taken have been astronomical. Hundreds of thousands were being taken from a number of countries and this was not sustainable and the decline set in at the turn of the 20th century. Prior to that they were quite common in Britain and numbers were taken for eating despite their size. As for the future, the numbers in Britain will never rise until the current slaughter of quail on their migration routes through the Mediterranean countries is stopped. There is a Gaelic name for the quail, “gearradh gort”, which is not listed in most dictionaries perhaps because it was not in common use as the bird was so rare and rarely seen.