Cottage Holidays throughout Scotland

Brown Rats – 30th December 2008

Brown rats can be readily identified as adults by their eleven inch long head and body and the nine inch tail. The colour of the coat varies from brown to black but is generally brown or grey streaked above and paler grey below. Sometimes there is a white patch on the chest and light coloured forelegs. The tail is thick, dark above and pale beneath and is often scaly and the ears are short with some hairs. Tracks of prints are star like and the tail is rarely dragged unless in soft mud, sand or snow. Pathways or runs between holes appear as depressions in soil or plants. One feature of the runs or paths is that if they are used over long periods whenever the rat’s body touches an object the fur leaves a dark greasy deposit. They are found in many places associated with man such as farmyards, refuse tips, sewerage systems, game rearing pens and gardens. They can also exist away from these places such as the bottom of hedgerows and in field crops. Shore lines such as the firths around Inverness often attract them and they take virtually any carrion that is found washed up. They swim readily and will colonise islands on lochs and lochans if the food supply on them is adequate.
The origins of the brown rat is thought to have been in Asia, possibly China, and it arrived in Europe in the first part of the 18th century and was first recorded in England in 1720. It was also known as the Norway rat but did not occur in that country until 1762. The black rat came to Britain with the Romans but despite being widespread and in large numbers they were eventually ousted by the brown rat. The population of black rats now in Britain is estimated at fewer than 1,300 which, ironically, makes them one of the rarest mammals in Britain. There is a colony of black rats on the Shiant Islands off the west coast of the Highlands. In contrast the brown rat population for Britain is a minimum of 7 million and in the Highlands they are widespread and only absent from the exposed tops of hills and some marine islands
Part of the success of brown rats is due to their varied diet that includes live food such as slugs, snails, frogs, young mammals and birds eggs. They can travel three to four kilometres a night and can climb well, such as up rough walls and high into trees after birds nests and eggs. They are predated by a wide range of birds and mammals including weasels, stoats, badgers, foxes, tawny and barn owls. Currently tawny owls are taking advantage of the large number of brown rats in the Highlands and are probably the main predator.
Controlling numbers of brown rats has always been a problem and even more so in recent years with the series of mild winters we have just experienced in the Highlands. Predation on sea birds has been a serious problem on islands such as Canna and Handa and there are also problems on the Isle of Rum where predation has taken place on the world famous Manx shearwater colonies on the tops of the hills. There are various poisons that can be used but some of these can cause serious problems to other wildlife and pets by secondary poisoning if they eat dead, poisoned rats. This was so serious with red kites on the Black Isle that a code of conduct was produced.

Snowberries – 8th December 2008

There have been reports from around Inverness and other parts of the Highlands of a shortage of wild berries and fruits this Autumn. Whilst this will mean shortages for wildlife such as the Scandinavian thrushes it will also affect people. The Autumn ritual of collecting berries and fruits for making wine, jams, syrups and soups just did not take place in some areas. In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in what is popularly called “food for free” and the numbers of books on the subject is a testimony of this pastime. This year, in many parts, people were out but either found a complete lack of berries and fruits or in such small quantities they were not worth collecting.
Blackthorn is a popular source of small blue-black plums called sloes and they are used for making a superb jelly and the traditional liqueur, sloe gin. A less known fact is that the juice of ripe sloes can be used as an indelible marking ink. A well known source of sloes is a line of bushes along a field on the southern edge of Inverness. The normal plan is to assess the crop in late summer but a walk along the two hundred yard long stretch this Autumn revealed just six berries. There were many disappointed people after the first frosts when you are supposed to collect the sloes. In the same area are some old and very large beech trees but very few people bother to collect the mast as the fruits are called. For some reason very few books mention food from the beech although it is in Richard Mabey’s book “Food for Free” the latest edition published in 2001 by HarperCollins. The brown three sided nuts of the beech can be used for cooking oil and for beechnut butter. This Autumn these very impressive beech trees were a rich golden brown as the leaves shone in the sunlight. Not a single beech fruit was found although one explanation could be that good crops only occur every three or four years.
The rowan trees seem to vary considerably although in some areas there were very few berries compared with the last few years. Rowan berries are used to make the famous rowan jelly recommended to be served up with venison. The fresh juice can also be added to gin imparting a flavour like Angostura bitters. Those berries that were there attracted the chaffinches and family parties of mistle thrushes and most trees were soon stripped. This means that the Scandinavian thrushes simply moved through and any fieldfares and redwings still to come will also move south or west until they find some berries.
A look in various parts of the countryside gave a mixed picture for many other berries and fruits. Some areas had a reasonable crop but others were so devoid of them that there is cause for concern. Interestingly in one area the white form of berries of the raspberry seemed to be doing well whilst the normal red form was very scarce. Brambles also seemed very patchy and there were few people out picking them although the poor weather could have been another reason. One exception seemed to be the introduced snowberry that had a rich crop of the conspicuous white berries. These berries are up to 15 mm in diameter and the photograph was taken on the roadside on the Black Isle. Ironically we cannot put this surplus of fruit to any use as it is poisonous. Perhaps all these berries and fruits are cyclic and will be back to normal next year.

Collard Doves – 22nd December 2008

There are plenty of pigeons and doves, sometimes called doos in the Highlands, in and around Inverness. At this time of the year large flocks of feral pigeons sometimes form of over a hundred birds or more. They will rest on the tops of buildings and, increasingly, they plunder bird tables and feeders in gardens. They compete on the tables and feeders with collared doves and, increasingly, wood pigeons. There seems to be a very variable range of colour in the feral birds and it can all be rather confusing. So what should be called doves and what should be called pigeons? The woodpigeon is straightforward with no other birds interbreeding with them. They are large plump birds with grey upperparts and pinkish underparts. Collared doves often feed with them on bird tables and the photograph was taken of one of these attractive doves on a table near Inverness. The collared dove is now widespread in the Highlands and the Western and Northern Isles. It seems difficult to accept that it did not breed in Britain until the 1950s.
The flocks of so called feral pigeons are a different and more complex matter as far as their origin is concerned. Despite their wide range of variations in colour including black and white ones they are all from the same source namely rock doves. A few decades ago there were three groups of the pigeons. One was the true rock dove that was a species in its own right. It was mainly found along the coasts of the Highlands and Islands where it bred in caves. These colonies were not necessarily remote as there are “doo” caves along the coast of the Black Isle near Ethie. Charles St. John in the 1850s went there and stood outside whilst the rock doves were disturbed and he shot them as they flew out.
Another group of pigeons were in the doocots scattered throughout the Highlands and Northern Isles, but for some reason, not the Western Isles. As these very old buildings fell into disuse the pigeons fared well in the general countryside and as they spread they met and paired successfully with the rock doves. The third group were the pigeons of the lofts holding birds for racing. Some of these birds just never came back, for a wide range of reasons, from their races. They moved into the countryside and they too made contact with rock doves and paired successfully.
The result of the masses of feral pigeons in various parts of the Highlands is that it seems likely that there are no true rock doves now breeding anywhere in the Highlands and Islands. A decade or so ago, perhaps even longer, there were claims that true rock doves still bred in the Western and Northern Isles. The current picture is unclear but what is the fact is that even 15 years ago there was a feral pigeon with a small party of rock doves on North Rona, forty miles north east of Lewis. The current feral flocks cause damage to structures by their droppings and compete with other birds for food, even in gardens within Inverness. To many people they are treasured and people just love feeding them. To others they are called ” rats with wings” because they consume so much. Part of their success is that they have been found breeding in every month of the year even in winter. Such is the case in Inverness and other towns simply because the temperature is often several degrees higher that the surrounding countryside.