Cottage Holidays throughout Scotland

There is a rapid turnover of birds in the garden coming  to feeders at the moment.   Although some bird will stay and breed in the garden or nearby, many will leave for other areas.  In the case of the chaffinch things get a little more  complicated.  Some of the birds that have frequented our garden all winter have come from Scandinavia and will now move back there to breed.  Siskins have been one of the  dominant birds in gardens this winter with many readers getting  in touch with me expressing their  pleasure at  just how common they have been.  Some will possibly breed in the garden,  I had a pair that built their nest in  a small conifer in the garden a few years ago.   However, most of the  siskins will move out once the warmer weather comes.  They will breed in the large areas of conifer woodland and there the female will build the small neat cup shaped nest from conifer twigs, grass, heather, moss and spiders’ webs.    Whilst the female builds the nest and incubates the eggs, the male joins  them after hatching and will share in feeding the young even when  they first leave the nest.  Many people  will see them  when they come back to the feeders in gardens.  Bird feeders must be like picnic tables to them with  a constant  source of food always there.

There is a mystery here that was mentioned in  this column over a year ago and it does  not seem to have been resolved.  In the “wild” in the Highlands siskins will often mix with lesser redpolls and down south in England both  species come freely to feeders in gardens.  Records from the south indicate that last winter in particular the number of lesser redpolls rose to almost the same as the siskins.  Yet in the Highlands the records  of lesser redpolls at bird feeders in garden are still few and far between.    For example in my garden this last winter we have only had two records, one well before Christmas for a couple of hours and then another in the last week or so.  The last one was,  judging  by the lack of pink feathers on the breast, was a  female and by the general plumage  likely to be a young bird hatched last year.   Just occasionally it comes into feed and always on the nyger feeder with siskins and this is where I took the photograph.    The bird is in the spillage tray under  the main part of the feeder and, by co-incidence, it is there as I write these notes.  The photograph was taken through the glass window with a telephoto lens,  a Sigma 150 to 500 mm.   The small and neat black bib under the beak and the reddish cap are diagnostic features.  Interestingly the red cap varies in  colour and can be an attractive gold colour although is  unusual.

The other attractive bird in the garden  this winter and again commented on by readers has been the large numbers of bramblings.  These are about the same  size as the chaffinch but much more colourful, especially the male birds.  Whilst a very small number of  bramblings may stay to breed in the Highlands, often only one or two pairs, but in the winter it is a different matter.  The winter numbers are  variable from year to year.  In poor years there may be only around  1,000 birds whilst in a bumper  year this can rise to a staggering 100,000 birds and all from north west Europe. So if like me there are still a few bramblings in your garden  they will soon leave for Scandinavia,

Just in the same way as some naturalists focus on birds of prey, butterflies or deer others look at wild flowers.  The wild flowers sometimes  means orchids as they are very attractive and some are quite rare and difficult to locate.   They also have fascinating names such as frog, butterfly, bee, fragrant, birds’ nest and early purple.  One of the other groups of wild flowers that attract naturalists  are the saxifrages and, as with the orchids, many are very attractive and some quite rare.   Some people go even further with their approach and try to photograph every species.  Orchids are a favourite for this approach  although saxifrages come a close second.    Saxifrages also have the advantage of  being  well represented  in gardens often being classed as rockery plants or even alpine plants as some grow at high altitudes.

The names of saxifrages may not be quite so attractive as the orchids but they are still intriguing such as  starry, yellow mountain,  mossy,  arctic and Highland.     One of the saxifrages that is well distributed in the Highlands, and for that matter in the Islands, is the very attractive purple saxifrage.  This saxifrage is renowned for two reasons with one being the fact that it is the only saxifrage in   the UK with, as its name suggests,  purple flowers. The second point is  that it is the earliest of the saxifrages to flower.   I first found this when I was recording a raven’s nest in March one year on a  steep cliff in a high corrie.  Ravens are well known for being one of the earliest of nesting birds with eggs in the  nest as early as March.  The other birds that are that early are the golden eagles, herons and, perhaps surprisingly, the relatively small dipper.  As for the raven’s nest  I was checking out, I had reached the  final part of the steep cliff face when  there, all around me, were the trailing stems of purple  saxifrage.  It was a sight of glorious purple flowers on an otherwise black and drab looking landscape.

Another unusual aspect of the purple saxifrage is that whilst it can be found on damp, stony and rocky areas on hills it is, in   contrast,  also found near sea level in the north west.   There is some variation in the colour of the flowers as, although the general colour is perhaps best described as rosy-red, they can vary.    They range from  deep purple to pink  even white.   This  variation is often perpetuated by gardeners.  The colour variations and those with large flowers have been selected out for gardens and given horticultural names.  Their spreading  form makes them ideal for garden rockeries in trailing over steep slopes and stones.   There is the long held belief that saxifrages are able to crack stones to enable them  to gain a foothold to grow.  This is reflected in their  Latin name as saxum means rock and frango means break.  It means that the plants are able to create  their own foothold by the cracks they form.  It is no surprise then when the Gaelic word for the purple saxifrage is  Clach-bhriseach Purpaidh  meaning “purple stone-breaker”

The other early saxifrages to flower in the spring are the two golden saxifrages, the opposite –leaved and the alternate-leaved.  The former is the commoner of the two and it grows in damp woods, ditch sides, burn ravines and mountain flushes.   They are attractive flowers but the name golden is perhaps an exaggeration as the colour  of the flowers is yellow which   is a better description.   So why not take up the hunt for saxifrage’s this year and photograph them?

There are many iconic birds and mammals in the Highlands such as golden eagles, black grouse, red deer and otters.  There is one bird that is not only one of the most iconic but also a migrant as it leaves our shores in the Autumn and spends the winter way off in  Africa.  It is the famous osprey and, rather unexpectantly,  it is one of the earliest of the many migrants to return to nest here.  Last year, for example, the first migrant I saw was not a sand martin or swallow I had deliberately  gone to Loch Flemington to see but a lone and magnificent osprey circling rather  ominously over a fish farm in Strathnairn.   Looking at the earliest dates for the return of the ospreys in the annual bird reports from the Highlands in the  last three years have been  22^nd March,  21^st March and  19^th march. 

This year the first date I heard was from the renowned Loch Garten nesting site where the first bird back touched down on the nest at just after 6.00 pm on 27^th March.  The fascinating   aspect of such records is that most of the birds at such famous sites are ringed with  colour   coded rings apart from the usual  metal ones.  This means with a reasonable view the individual birds can be recognised.  Staff at Osprey Centre  were overjoyed to find it was EJ, named after her ring letters, and ready to face  her 11^th year in the Cairngorms.   As soon as EJ landed she started to re-arrange nest material and scraping a nest cup which is a sure sign of her intentions.  Fortunately the RSPB staff had just installed a camera at the nest in time for people to see the  event on line.  Last year when I was there they were expecting EJ  to lay another egg and when I got back home I switched the computer on to find she had  laid the egg just after I had left the centre.  Such are  the advantages of modern  technology!  As for EJ she, and for that matter the staff at the centre, are hoping that her partner last year, called Odin, will soon be joining   her.  Keep looking at the website for the latest news. 

Meanwhile at another osprey site at a Centre that is getting to be as well known as Loch Garten,  the first osprey had also arrived back.   She was  at the Scottish Wildlife Trust Reserve and Centre at the Loch of the Lowes Reserve near Dunkeld.  The osprey is called Lady, the oldest breeding female osprey recorded in the UK.   This 27 years old bird of prey immediately  saw off another female, a young bird, that attempted to land on her nest.   Perhaps it is a sign of Lady’s age and experience that the intruder did not even put up a short  rebellion but left.  Lady started to dig at the old nest  and taking out grass that had grown over the winter and re-arranging some sticks.   The male arrived and they mated three times in the  afternoon so the low temperatures were not affecting their routine.   Lady is amazing as she has lived three time longer than an average osprey.  In her lifetime she has laid 64 eggs with 49 going on to hatch and successfully fledge  from the nest.  A record by any standards.  The male is called Laddie and is Lady’s fourth.  Interestingly, whilst other birds of prey such as the sea eagle and the red kite had to be re-introduced, the ospreys did it on their own.  Perhaps the  most successful conservation  story of recent times, perhaps ever.