2 pets welcome no charge.

Fhaireag is situated in the small hamlet of Wester Aberchalder on the quiet and unspoilt south side of Loch Ness. This newly completed property is architecturally striking, and enjoys uninterrupted views to Loch Mhor and to the Monadhliath mountains.

There are other ways of avoiding predators and the mole is a good example as it  spends most of its life underground.   Others are simply secretive  such as the otter.  Some books say the otter is mainly nocturnal but if they are not disturbed too much  they can often be seen during  the day particularly when they are feeding.   I have watched an otter  feeding in a reed bed in the middle of the day on Loch Bunachton just south of Inverness.   Hare and rabbits feed during the day although they are both more active by night.  They rely on their speed to escape predators.  The rabbit with its fast but short run to its burrow and the hare for its sheer speed over open ground and the camouflage it has when crouched in its “form”.  This form is a depression on the ground and when they lie   flat with their ears pressed back over their back they can be very difficult to see.

Fortunately  for the naturalist animals leave many signs in the countryside.   Tracks in mud or sand, or for that matter in the snow of last week, are always a tell tale sign.  Droppings can be critical in identifying  animals such as badger and otters.  I rely on all the different types of signs more than sightings of the animals themselves.  I use the best book on the market for this which is “  Animal Tracks and Signs” by Preben Bang et.al. reprinted in 2011.    We may tend to think that we know almost all there  is  about animals especially the red deer, roe deer and sika deer but this is far from the case.  Then there are other animals such as the recently introduced mink that is still causing havoc with aquatic birds and animals such as the water vole.    Another nocturnal animal  is the hedgehog  that now seems to be in a serious decline in numbers.  To give readers a good idea of our current knowledge, or in many species the lack of, then  buy the latest  “ Atlas of Highland Land mammals”  edited by Ro Scott and published in 2011.   This is available  from the main bookshop in Inverness.    If you have any records of animals in the Highlands then  they will be very welcome by Ro Scott, email address.  Ro.Scott@care4free.net.   Next week I shall look at wild flowers, particularly  orchids.

The main mystery this year was  just when the frogs started moving and why, in some colonies, the numbers were so low.  Frogs will hibernate in a wide variety of places and if the winter weather is mild they may just stay in the water.  They can take in enough oxygen through their skin to keep them  alive in the torpid state of hibernation.  However, this is fraught with problems  as if the water ices over for any length of time there is just not enough oxygen in the water and many will die under the ice.  Unlike toads,  that will mostly hibernate in one area,  frogs tend to widely disperse from  the breeding site.  Then when the weather warms up in the spring they move out to the water.  This just does not seem to have happened this year as very few frogs were on the move at one time.  What prompts the initial move is a rise in temperature and rain and most frogs will move in a day or two days.  Perhaps this year the mild weather lasted for several days so we did not see so many as it was spread over several days.

However this does not explain why the number of frogs at some breeding  sites were so low  and, more significantly,  the number of clumps of spawn were well down at a number of  sites, including some garden ponds.  What makes this easier to assess is that one female will lay just one clump of spawn.     So if you look at these early enough, before they grow and start to join together,  one clump will mean there is one female.  An idea of the numbers in a colony  can then be compared from one year to the next.  There is no chance of mixing this up with toads spawn as their habits are quite  different.  Toads lay their eggs in long strings that they wind round submerged aquatic plants. If the breeding site  has deep water, which with toads is often the case, then the spawn is difficult  to see.  Indeed it is often the case of just not knowing a site has been used by breeding toads.    Once the frogs’ spawn has hatched there are many predators that take their toll.  This may be fish even as small as sticklebacks, to dragonfly  larvae and the losses may seem significant.   Even when the tadpoles have left the water in what  may seem  countless numbers to us then the predators are there  waiting,  especially birds.  However, so many eggs are laid that even if a very small  proportion are successful then it is enough to keep the overall frog numbers  constant.

One of the main reasons I look for cuckoo flowers is that it is the food plant of the caterpillars of the orange tip butterfly.  This is one of the spring butterflies and should already be on the wing as I found the first of the cuckoo flowers in blossom last week.  The eggs of this attractive butterfly are laid on the undersides of the flowers but are very tiny.  To start with the eggs are well camouflaged but after a few days turn  pink in colour and then a deep orange.  These are then fairly easy to see even with the unaided eye and they should be laid  in the next week or so.   These eggs will hatch in about  ten days and the tiny caterpillars burrows into the flowers which by then are well expanded.   The way  that the female orange tip chooses a particular plant is quite remarkable.  Not any cuckoo flower will do as they must be prominent, in sunlight and only a metre or so away from cover such as scrub or woodland.   The caterpillars are cannibalistic  so the female must be able to choose which plants do not already have an egg laid on it.   Eventually the caterpillars leave the food plant to pupate and the chrysalis hibernates until the following spring when the  adults emerge and the cycle starts all over again.

The orange tip butterflies are amongst the few success stories of butterflies in recent years  as, along with a few others such as the speckled wood and the ringlet, they have spread from the south.   With the orange tip the spread  started as long ago as the 1980s.  Prior to that it was confined to the south-eastern parts of the Highlands.  Then it started to spread to the north and west.  It seems to have first colonised  Skye and then was occasionally seen on some of the other islands such as Rum and Eigg.  Then it rapidly  spread to the north and even today it is spreading to the east.  The reason this is well recorded is that it was the subject of  postcard  surveys by Butterfly Conservation in 1997-98 and again in 2007.  Let us just hope that this spread continues.

Now the old drove routes are still discernible in  some areas but often replaced by modern  roads.  The road south from Ullapool, over the Dirrie Moor to Garve is one and there are some green, grassy areas on the side of this road.  This  may have been where in days of old cattle were rested overnight  and fertilised the ground by their droppings.  Another, perhaps even more remote, is the road between Bonar Bridge and Dingwall over the Struie.  Even  now on the Ordnance Survey map there is a small area along this road at the southern end that is  marked as the “Drove Stance” where the cattle were kept overnight.   The cattle would have been brought down from even distant parts of Caithness and they would have taken some controlling at night as no doubt they sought to go back to where they had been bred on small farms and crofts.

The cattle were not like modern Highland cattle as they were smaller and mostly  black and,  particularly in the west, were called Kyloes.   I have always been fascinated by the old droving  trade and was eager to help over a venture  that began in Dingwall a few years ago.  Several people banded together and decided to do something to remember the droving sagas and so the Highland Livestock Heritage Society was formed.  Its broad aim was to commemorate the historic achievements of the livestock breeders and drovers  in the Highlands and Islands of  Scotland.  The idea was to create  in the heart of the Highlands a cluster of commemorative   facilities and  activities  with an exhibition, archival/research centre and a commemorative   sculpture with, appropriately,  Dingwall Mart at the centre.

Now the Society has achieved most of its aims.  There is a superb sculpture outside the Mart as shown in the photograph I took last year.  There is  a permanent exhibition inside the Mart and all the archival materials have been stored in the new Archives Centre in Inverness.  The exhibition was only possible by the many contributions and help   from a large number of people.  I submitted  a few photographs including one of the cattle shoes that were put on them near  Inverness when the  harder roads went  south.   The sculpture outside is very impressive indeed and will provide a landmark for many years to come. The old drovers, the cattle, the dogs and the long and often arduous routes south will not  be forgotten.  Take time to look at the displays and that sculpture as they are well worth the visit.

One of the main  problems over wildflowers is identification but there are now many admirable books on the market to help.  I tend to look at the  groups I can easily recognise and with other groups just lump them into a few obviously different ones.  Wild roses are a good example as there are so many sub-species even the experts cannot agree.  I tend to put the  roses under a few  species such as  dog rose and burnet rose.   Sedges are another example of this and, unfortunately  for me, I  have never been able to grasp the various ferns although people tell me they are not difficult.   I also find some of the aquatic plants difficult although they include some of my favourites.  The emergent ones and most of the floating  ones are fairly easy but the underwater  world of plants is more difficult.

Many people  specialise in  certain  groups of plants and one of the favourites  is the orchids.  One of their many  attractions is simply their names such as butterfly orchid, frog orchid and  early purple orchid.   The latter, as the name suggest, is one of the earliest to flower.  Amongst the orchids there are still some difficult  groups such as the spotted and marsh orchids. Some are locally abundant such as spotted orchid and  marsh orchids.  One  aspect of orchids  is that you can find them in the most unexpected places    For example a few years ago just south of Inverness I came across, purely by chance, a small area of mixed grassland and moorland that was grazed by Highland cattle .    There were over ten  species of orchid  including butterfly, frog, small white,  early purple and, in the wetter parts, marsh orchids.    Some of the orchids are only found in certain  types of specialised areas such as pinewoods  and some are very rare.  The locations of some of these  rarer ones are  often kept secret because  of collectors.  This has eased in recent years and the many guide books give away their location.

One aspect  of wildflowers is the way in which, for centuries, many   have been utilised by ourselves.  This includes  thatching for using  wide range of plants from  heather to wild iris and turf to bracken.   Then there is the very  wide and often ancient use for medicinal purposes let alone the culinary ones.  They have even been used  as emblems for different  Clans and foraging for them  as food is still very popular.     Wildlife relies on wild flowers in many ways such as foodplants for caterpillars of butterflies and moths,  Why not choose a group yourself to concentrate on this summer?  I would thoroughly  recommend the orchids.    By far the best book on orchids is “Wild Orchids of Scotland” by Brian Allan and Patrick Woods published  by HMSO in 1993.

If the red deer were seemed to epitomise the deer scene there was little in terms of a challenge.  After all of the four deer to be found in the Highlands,  excluding the mystery of the muntjac, it was by far the commonest and the most widespread.   Fallow deer were always in small groups and scattered as if they could not survive the winters.  They came from deer parks and were a favourite for their looks and varying colours.  The park with a small herd of white fallow deer  on the east coast near Berriedale has been there since they were first introduced in 1900.   Sika deer have been a problem in recent years and will continue to be so and nobody really knows what will happen to the frequent sika/red hybrids that seem to be taking over in many areas.  In some areas of the Highlands there are now more sika than  red deer.

The smallest, by far, of the four deer is the roe deer that in the past have received little   attention compared with the red deer.  At this time of the year their coat is a foxy red with a buff caudal patch.  When  roe deer have young the kids  have spotted coats that afford them excellent camouflage.  Unlike the red and sika, that invariably have only one calf,  roe often  have twins and sometimes even triplets.    Roe deer are the only hoofed animals in which the implantation of the fertilised eggs is delayed.   This delayed implantation enables them to produce their kids at an optimum time in the summer.   Perhaps this is why they have twins or triplets.

Now the roe deer is the most widespread deer in the Highlands and this is for a number of reasons.    The control of their numbers depends on a number of factors.  One of the reasons is the damage they do to young trees either by debarking by the bucks with their antlers or by fraying to eat the bark.  Roe deer venison has never been popular in the Highlands although it is considered a delicacy on the continent.  Most of the roe deer carcases are sold to the continent where they  attract much higher prices than  the red deer venison.   However, the system of “trophy” heads of roebucks  in the Highlands is famous for stalkers all over the world.

There are many sites that afford outstanding views of such often  dramatic movements of birds in terms of sheer numbers.   Promontories are the best places and perhaps none more so that the outstanding  one at Tarbat Ness east of Tain in Easter Ross.   Little wonder then that it is included in one of the top sites in  the RSPB’s third edition of  “The top 52 bird watching sites in the Highlands” published in 2006.   Whilst the gannets and auks may be present  there are a wide variety of other seabirds.  Terns are often present and these include  common, arctic and sandwich and it is easy to see, with their light and buoyant flight, why they are commonly called “sea swallows”.    The other common seabird that may be flighting past in their hundreds, often in loose flocks,  are the kittiwakes.  These dainty looking birds, resembling gulls, get their name from their  strident calls  The calls, echoing around such cliff faces have such a haunting quality  because the last note rises higher than the rest.

Other seabirds include shags, cormorants and sometimes shearwaters but there is one bird that seem be resident.  This is a sea duck, the eider, and they can often be seen diving for shellfish which is their main diet.    There is often a few gulls hanging around with them, especially the large herring  gulls.  These gulls are scavenging, awaiting any titbits that the eiders bring up and cast aside or loose.   The male eiders are one of the largest of ducks and their black and white plumage is very attractive especially as the sides of their heads are an attractive apple green colour.   Just occasionally the rare king eider is recorded with the common eiders.

Seabirds are not the only attraction at Tarbat Ness as the path to the lighthouse on the rocky headland is covered with gorse and this gives shelter, particularly at this time of the year, for small birds.  Look out for linnets, yellowhammers, stonechats and greenfinches.  Apart from the often  high gorse there is also shelter from the  walled fields and a small woodland block.  This combination of shelter attracts autumn migrants including many rarities that have been recorded there. The prominent lighthouse with its distinctive two red bands was built in 1830 and went automatic in 1985.

The next day, as an afterthought, I went on line and typed in ptarmigan whisky and was  in for a surprise.  It is not called ptarmigan whisky but was marketed as snow grouse and went on sale in August 2008 in time for the start of the grouse shooting season.   I have no idea how long ago grouse whisky, that is red grouse, has been marketed.   What I do know is that three or four  years ago black grouse whisky was added to the market.  Some of the publicity was over the fact that  for each bottle of black grouse whisky sold a donation went to the RSPB.  This was to be used for management of areas, including  sites in the Highlands, for the rare black grouse.

So now we have red grouse, black grouse and snow grouse whisky and it made me think of the mixed fortunes of these birds in  the Highlands.   The red grouse is the commonest and most widespread and large tracts of countryside, especially in the east, are managed with this species in mind.  There is an ongoing debate as to whether this should be a separate species that is endemic to Britain and Ireland.  Some argue it is a separate species whilst others say it is a race of the willow grouse and so it goes on.  The black grouse is in a bad way despite all the effort in time and money to improve its habitats in those areas where it still occurs.   When I was warden at Inverpolly in 1969/70 it was quite widespread and they were breeding in the woodland around  the house.

Ptarmigan are restricted  by their habitat requirement as in eastern areas they do not usually breed under 700 metres.  Living on the high tops makes the ptarmigan one of the hardiest of birds.  They may be holding their own in some areas but disturbance is an increasing factor.  Carrion crows and hooded crows predate the eggs and these scavengers seem to be on the increase.  Global warming, real or  perceived, may be another threat.   What will be interesting is if the Scottish government will change the status of the black grouse and ptarmigan when the current and ancient game laws are re-assessed.   Many people think that these two critical species should come off the list of birds that can be shot at certain times of the year.

The latest news on the “grouse whiskies” is that there is yet another one just come on the market.  This time it is called “Naked Grouse” although at the moment I have no idea where this name came from.

There are other forms and colour combinations and one is the dark  looking purple plumaged cock pheasant.  Then there are the melanistic, almost all black,  birds or even the pure white ones.   Their introductions were mainly  for game shooting and it is currently estimated that some 25 million pheasants may be released  for shooting every year.   Apart from these annual introductions there are a far smaller number of so called “wild “ birds.  However many people believe that the pheasant would just become extinct in the UK if it were not for the annual introductions.  This is why the pheasant in the Highlands is largely confined to the areas where game shooting  is part of the function of an estate.  So currently the pheasant  is only normally found   in the eastern parts of the Highlands.

At this time of the year the cock birds are in their peak plumage with the iridescent copper coloured body marked with dark scallops on the breast and flanks.  The feathers on the head and neck are normally metallic green that often seems to glow in the sunshine and there are small “ear tufts” on the red face. One characteristic of the cock bird is the very long tail that is often ginger in colour  crossed with dark bars.  In  contrast the smaller  females are  rather drab with their brownish plumage with dark flecks on the upperparts and flanks.  This forms a perfect camouflage for when   she  is sitting on eggs that are normally on the ground.  The camouflage is a  protection against would be predators such as foxes, crows, stoats and brown  rats.

For most of the winter the hens the cocks  have been in separate groups but from now on there are subtle changes.  The cocks will seek out the hens and try to set up territory and  hold a small number of females if he is dominant.  In contrast other cocks  may not attract any hens and through all this is the dramatic  display of the cocks.  The bird will sit and call which resembles a croak and the wings are flapped rapidly.  This display  can be noisy especially  when the bird adopts a raised position such as a mound or  old tree stump.   The nest is in a slight depression, unlined but in thick cover.  It is believed that a sitting hen pheasant gives off no scent so that it is not found  by would be predators.     Mortality is high especially when the chicks are small and cold wet springs are often a disaster.