New for 2012
Charleston House overlooks the harbour at Gairloch. Sleeps 10 and 1 pet welcome.
Available for 4 night short breaks or longer stays.
Archive for January, 2012
New – Large holiday home at Gairloch – Charleston House
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012Ray Colliers Country Diary – Firths around Inverness
Monday, January 16th, 2012
Now is the time of year to visit the coast around Inverness as the firths will have attracted large numbers of wildfowl and waders some of which spend their winter there. Some areas can be good vantage points to see a wide range of birds such as at Tarbetness , Munlochy, Chanonry Point at Fortrose and, further east, Burghead. However, if the weather is bad we have the choice of two excellent coastal hides, courtesy of the RSPB. One of these is at Udale Bay just to the west of Cromarty and the other is the other side of the firth at Udale Bay. Both are comfortable and well worth spending some time in. The advantage of such hides is that if you keep quiet you may well get lots of active birds close to.
The hide I like the best is at Udale Bay, mainly because the birds can be quite close in especially if they are feeding on the tidal water flowing between the hide and the large area of saltmarsh. An added bonus is to look at the edge of the trees to the left of the hide as there is always the chance of seeing a roe deer. As for the birds there are often mute swans close to and just occasionally whooper swans. The last time I was in the hide there were two adult whooper swans with three young birds from last year still showing many brownish feathers. These will be birds that bred in Iceland and they will take the long journey back, in just one flight, some time in March.
Whilst there may be birds active on the flowing water most of the birds viewed from the hide at Udale will be on the area of saltmarsh. Many of the waders such as redshank, curlew, oystercatcher and occasional bar-tailed godwits will be resting on the higher ground especially if the tide is full. There will be a lot of preening going on whilst others may be sleeping. They are resting before, when the tide ebbs, they can once again gather and feed on the rich mudflats in the bay. The ducks may be mallard, teal, wigeon and a few shelduck the latter looking so colourful, both male and females. With most ducks the male is much more colourful than the female as the latter may need plumage that will blend in with their surroundings when they are on open nests, often on the ground. The shelduck mainly nests in burrows in the ground or tree holes so the females do not need this camouflage.
From the Udale and Nigg hides there is always the chance of seeing a peregrine falcon as some of these birds of prey seem to spend the winter along the coasts around the Highlands preying on small duck and waders. The female peregrine is the larger of the sexes and so tends to take larger prey. At Udale and Nigg the peregrines will take such birds as redshank, lapwings, teal and wigeon. Sometimes these will be taken by the classic dive, called a stoop, as the bird hurtles down towards the intended prey. At other times the peregrine will try and outfly birds by its sheer speed. All this often happens at great speed and the first the observer will know is when the ducks and waders suddenly rise up in panic and the peregrine will strike so quickly it is often missed by anyone looking on. What is surprising is just how many times these birds are unsuccessful in their hunting flights.
Ray Colliers Country Diary – 2011 The highs and lows
Monday, January 16th, 2012
So what of 2011 in terms of wildlife and what have been the highs and, for that matter, the lows? As usual, there have been plenty of both, and in a sense it started with the very cold weather of the early part of the year with temperatures down to minus 15 Centigrade in our garden and plenty of snow for weeks on end. We made our annual winter trip to Burghead along the east coast from Inverness to sit on the peninsular near the harbour and watch the seaducks. The scoters have always appealed to me since I first saw a pair of common scoters breeding up in the flowe country of Sutherland some years ago. However the object of our trip was the king eider that had been reported there. Fortunately close to the shore and we had superb views through the telescope at the young male that was just moulting into its full breeding plumage.
There was one other surprise on the duck front for the year and that was one of the very few new birds for our garden. One morning I had idly glanced down at the few mandarin ducks on the pond on a number of occasions. Then for some reason I looked closer and suddenly realised that one of the birds was a wood duck, often called a Carolina duck. It was a splendid male and eventually it walked up with the mandarins to where I had been putting out mixed grain for them. It stayed a short while and we have not seen it again. It was presumably from a local collection but there have been known records of what could have been migrants.
The biggest disappointment of the year was undoubtedly the lack of butterflies in most areas with very few species up to their normal numbers. In the extensive dunes just east of Nairn for example, where we could see ten species in a day, we only found three and those only in ones or twos. In our acre paddock we could expect species in double figures for the year whereas we only recorded three, possibly four. Only the Scotch argus seemed anywhere near their normal numbers but even they were down. One can only wonder how this will affect this coming season. The only boost was the number of red admirals at the back end suggesting they might now be successfully hibernating as adults and surviving.
On the mammals front there was a great triumph as the “Atlas of Highland Land Mammals”, edited by Ro Scott, was published by the Highland Biological Recording Group. If you have not obtained a copy they are £8.50, including the p & p, so just send a cheque payable to HRGB to Ro Scott, Peddieston Cottage, Cromarty, IV11 8XX. I can assure you that it will more than please you. On the personal front the mammal of the year has to be one in the paddock close to the house. We had been putting out mixed grain overnight for the wild ducks to come up at first light and feed undisturbed. Looking down from the bedroom window at dusk one evening there was a badger feeding on the grain only about few yards from the house. Not only that but it was joined a few minutes later by another and they stood gobbling up the food as fast as they could. Perhaps to put this time of the year in 2012 into perspective, records for 2011 indicated there was frog’s spawn near Lochinver and on the Black Isle in the third week in February so not long now……
