Cottage Holidays throughout Scotland

26th September 2009 – Coots
Just as bank nesting birds along rivers in the Highlands such as sand martin, dipper, grey wagtail and kingfisher have problems with water levels so do birds nesting on lochs. The source of the problem is the same, huge catchment areas and high rainfall and various birds have found ways in which to cope. Unfortunately not all birds have adapted to the problem and that has been the case with the two divers that nest mainly in the Highlands. The black-throated and red-throated divers lay their eggs in scrapes close to the waters edge. The reason for this is that they are ungainly on land and if there is danger they need to slip quickly into the water. The red-throated diver does not suffer too much from water fluctuations because they tend to nest on smaller water bodies that do not vary too much. It is the larger lochs that the black-throated divers utilise and it is these that often have the huge catchments areas. The famous diver islands have been the answer in many areas as these are artificial islands that rise and fall as the water fluctuates. There are 58 such rafts in the Highlands and they may well have been responsible for the increase in breeding pairs from 187 in 1994 to 217 in 2006.

Two other water birds, the moorhen and coot, will nest in vegetation such as sedge beds actually in the water although both birds will sometimes build their nests close to the edge. The moorhen sometimes even nests well off the ground in trees or bushes. Both species tend to nest on smaller water bodies such as Loch Flemington to the east of Inverness so like the red -throated diver the water levels may not fluctuate too much. If the coot is faced with the water level problem it simply builds up the nest and sometimes they can be a foot in depth and look incongruous and very conspicuous for any predators. The coot in the photograph was taken at Loch Flemington where it was feeding in the shallows. The rare Slavonian grebe which breeds mainly in the Highland sub-area of Inverness tries to solve the problem in another way. The nests are mainly in sedge beds and to a certain extent they are constructed so that they can rise or fall if the fluctuations are not too great. One problem over the water for these attractive grebes is wave action that sometimes swamps the nests. The Slavonian grebe has always been a mystery in the Highlands as to why it does not do better. Recent figures from the RSPB show that 2009 was a poor year for them. The most famous site is Loch Ruthven, a few miles south of Inverness, which is the Highland stronghold of the birds, and an RSPB reserve and yet, even there, in 2009 there were only 9 pairs and they produced no young. There seems to be something we do not know about these grebes.

Apart from fluctuating water levels there are other problems facing the birds on lochs and one main one is predators. If the bird leaves the nest invariably they will pause to cover the eggs but if they are frightened or the disturbance is sudden they may well leave the eggs uncovered. This is when the hooded and carrion crows are in their element and any such nest is quickly predated. Eggs and young are taken by mammals such as otters, mink, stoat and pine marten and sometimes it seems incredible that young birds fledge at all.

19th October 2009 – Fallow Deer.
Fallow deer are mid way, in size, between roe deer and red deer and the male, called a buck, is about three feet at the shoulder. The antlers of the buck, as shown in the photograph, are easy to tell from other deer in the Highlands because at the top it has a flattened section to each antler like a hand with fingers and so this is called a palmate. The females, called does, can be identified by their tail markings as the long , white tail is topped with black. There are a number of colour variations with one of the commonest being various shades of chestnut with prominent cream or white spots on the flanks in summer. In winter the spots are lost and the deer become a shade darker. There is another colour variation where the deer maintain their spotting throughout the year. There is also a black variation where the spots are even darker but this is only seen at close quarters. White deer occur that are really cream coloured and this appears where inbreeding is common. In the wild white deer are very rare but they are more common in deer parks.

These deer are gregarious but less so than red deer and even in the wild they rarely live in large herds. They are mainly woodland deer and have the reputation of being shy and cunning and feed mostly by night. They will graze on grassland and crops but will freely strip bark, mainly from smooth barked trees, tearing the bark off at four to four and half feet.. They are particularly fond of acorns, beech mast and chestnuts plus young shoots of holly and bramble. They can cause considerable damage to woodlands, conservation and agricultural interest and where they occur in numbers further south they need to be managed. The mating season takes place slightly later than red deer, in October and November. There is some doubt about their origin but most sources agree that if they were originally in Britain they were made extinct by the advance of the second glaciation. They were probably reintroduced to Britain by the Normans in the 11th century and their current presence in the Highlands is the result of them being kept in deer parks and escaping or being deliberately released. They were a firm favourite in deer parks because they are more docile than red deer and the spotting colour form is quite attractive.

One of the most famous deer parks was one of 2,000 acres at Rosehall near Lairg and fallow deer were the first ones to be enclosed there around 1877. In 1923 the park contained 200 fallow, 150 red, 40 roe and 50 sika deer. By 1949 very few deer were still in the park and there had been many escapes. Now only one deer park, with white fallow deer, exists in the Highlands. This small park is at Berriedale on the Welbeck Estate and they were first introduced in around 1900. The numbers have been kept at a low level for some years because the enclosed area is so small. They can readily be seen from the main road just to the south and above Berriedale although at a distance most people probably take them for sheep! These days there are various reports of fallow deer in various parts of the Highlands although in recent years the only positive ones appear to be in woodlands on the west side of Loch Ness. Other records have recently come from the Dornoch area, west of Garve, and Balmacaan. One intriguing old record, unconfirmed, is of fallow deer at one time being introduced to the Isle of Rum.

5th October 2009 – Alder
If alder trees are left alone they have regular branching and a conical shape and can grow to 22 metres high. The leaves are one of the last ones to form in the spring and the last to fall in the autumn. They are dark green, alternate, rounded and sometimes notched at the tip. The bark is rough and often sprouts young shoots. The male and female catkins grown on the same tree and the green fruits of summer darken later in the year and stay on the tree throughout the winter. The withered fruits look like small cones so that the leafless tree can look like some type of deciduous conifer. The roots of the tree are unusual as they have numerous nodules that contain bacteria that ‘fix’ atmospheric nitrogen that makes up for the lack of the chemical in the very wet conditions where alders often thrive. The trees have very deep tap roots and will survive for many years in dried out earth but as the soil around them shrinks the fluted upper rootstocks emerge so that the trees look as though they are in a mangrove wood. The wood is white when first cut but then darkens to a fresh orange or chestnut colour when exposed to the air.

Alders are found throughout the Highlands but there are only scattered records for the Western Isles and it is an introduced tree to the Orkney Islands. It is commonly found along rivers such as stretches of the River Nairn south of Inverness. In some places it forms woodland such as at Urquhart Bay and the Mound near Golspie. The latter has formed since 1816 when the embankment, the mound, was built across the head of Loch Fleet and the marshy area left inland was quickly colonised by the trees. This alder wood is probably the largest in Britain and until recently it was a National Nature Reserve. The fruits of the alder attract birds such as lesser redpolls and siskins and flocks of these birds can be seen in the trees at the beginning of the winter. The exposed root systems of the trees on the sides of rivers and burns form ideal holts for otters

The leaves and the bark have been used to make dyes and although the timber is now only used for shoe soles and broom handles in the past it was exploited for a number of uses. It was valued by furniture makers for its deep colour and attractive grain, qualities which gave it the name ‘Scotch Mahogany’. Because of its resistance to water it was particularly useful for making walkways, water wheels, piers, bridges and lock gates. Perhaps its most famous use was for clogs and the Irish settlers at Coignafearn and Coignashie on the Upper Findhorn had a ready supply of trees for this purpose. One advantage of utilising the tree is that it readily re-grows again from the cut base and this coppicing was often found close to smelters and gunpowder factories as the timber was used as charcoal. In other parts of Britain the alder tree has declined through drainage but we are fortunate in the Highlands as drainage has been relatively localised. Maintenance of river and burn banks sometimes means the trees are cut down but colonisation often takes place as the seeds have corky outgrowths that keep them afloat until they reach some fresh soil to germinate. In some area the trees have been planted to enrich poor ground or to prevent erosion of river banks and other water courses.