Highland Insider

Nosy Norris and I followed the Pack Leader up the Ullapool Hill paths this morning and as usual his choice of route didn’t disappoint. Nosy got the chance to bounce around in the heather and chase snowballs (puny wee things, but still fun) and I got my first view of bonny Loch Achall.

A great walk and great views but as I looked down on the gleaming water I thought the only thing missing was a bit of wildlife. We’d walked for about forty five minutes and seen nothing but a few crows and gulls mooching overhead. There were signs of critters – a pile of fur-filled poo, a young beech tree stripped of its bark – but nothing to stop and watch. Just as I was thinking this I became aware of a busy twittering noise coming from over the next hillock and getting nearer. We waited a minute or two and were rewarded when a gang of long-tailed tits flew past us and settled in the stand of birch trees below.

I always love seeing long-tailed tits. I don’t know who first described the bird as ‘a ball on a stick’ but they were spot on. The wee round body with the long straight tail makes an unmistakeable silhouette whether perching or in flight. These ones were specially welcome as they made a good walk complete.

A wee gang of wigeon have been gathering by the shore of the loch over the past few days. There were about a dozen when the PL first noticed them, increasing to thirty-one last time we were able to count them.

The reason we can’t always count them is that sometimes we walk past that spot in the evening, when we’re taking Nosy Norris for her late walk. Then all that can be seen is the reflection of moonlight or the flashing marker buoys on the dark water, but we can still hear the birds chuntering among themselves. It’s a lovely sound, the more gutteral calls punctuated with what sounds like a mini swanee-whistle, reminiscent of the whooOOo0 of the eider ducks.

I don’t know why I’m always surprised that ducks are so beautiful, but somehow I never expect it. Wigeon certainly are, especially the males with their golden foreheads and rosy breasts. I don’t know whether they’ll stay here for the winter or head somewhere further south. We’ll just watch and see, and that’s the pleasure of living among wild things and learning about them day by day. We got to know our local wildlife in Nairnshire so well, I thought I’d miss that familiarity when we moved. To some extent I do, but it’s quite exciting to have a whole new cast of regulars to become familiar with. Like making new friends.

The midges may have driven us indoors the other day but they brought the house martins out in force. A few have been swooping over the garden for a couple of weeks now, but when their favourite mobile snack arrived on the scene they brought some more pals along for the party.

There were at least thirty of them today, zipping around the sky like guided missiles, catching midges on the wing. We were down below, cheering them on.

Pied wagtail chicks in their nest on the shelf

I write a weekly nature column in the local paper and over the past three summers this has always featured the pied wagtails that have taken to nesting on a shelf in the old stone shed. They always get in there early, make a flattish nest (full of Nosy Norris’s hairs this year, of course), and are usually sitting on eggs by the time the swallows arrive. This has been bad news for the swallows, who still come looking for their old site just outside the shed and are chased off by the wagtails.

Good news for us though; we love having them there. This year, they moved to a shelf in a different corner of the shed and the PL was able to get a photo without disturbing them (this one’s zoomed in). That was last week, and today all four have fledged and are dashing around the shed and the covered walkway that joins it to the house, already wagging away whenever they stop for a rest. The PL had to rescue one that had stopped for a rest in a bucket of rainwater, but its ducking didn’t deter it one bit. That’s wagtails for you, they’re all wee daredevils, wandering about on roads and nosying into things. We once watched a pair attacking a bat that had come out of the roof during the day. They might look comical with their funny bobbing tails, but they’re not to be messed with.

We’ll keep an eye on the nest, as the parents have always got another brood off pretty quickly. All being well, we’ll have wagtails everywhere again in August.

The long winter brought an unexpected dilemma for us. All through the weeks of snow we dutifully kept the garden feeders topped up with peanuts, fat balls, even home-made ones when we were snowed in and couldn’t get down the hill for supplies. We watched with great satisfaction as the population of small birds flocked to keep themselves well-fed and watered. The feeders were so well used they looked like living feathery sculpures.

That was when the sparrowhawk moved in. It got its first blackbird in early February, followed by a coal-tit from the beech tree. Not long after that one of the resident buzzards landed in the garden, scattering the chaffies that were hoovering up under the hanging feeder. She didn’t get anything on that occasion, but the sparrowhawk took up a regular watch. One day near the end of the snows, we thought a blizzard was starting again, but when we rushed to the window we found the flurry of white was not snow but tiny feathers…

So, to feed or not to feed, that was the question. But there was no choice, really. The garden birds needed their food and the raptors needed theirs. We carried on stocking the bird table and feeders, keeping the hanging ones tucked away in a thorny rambling rose,  and let Mother Nature take the blame and the credit for the rest.

I watched a huge gang of geese flying over the fields around Castle Stuart near Ardersier this morning. They seemed confused, going off in one direction for a bit then changing and switching back again. They were still mooching around like this by the time I’d gone into Inverness Airport, drunk a coffee, drove through Adersier and back onto the road.

Further on was a field full of another three to four hundred grazing pink-foots, and there’s been a cluster of Whooper swans hanging around on the sunny side of a nearby farm for the past month. We reckon it’s so cold they don’t know whether they’re coming or going. It snowed today and there’s a north wind that would take the face off you, as my mum would say.

I was thinking the Whoopers were getting ready to head up to Iceland but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve arrived from further south and think they’re already there.

We were back up at the loch the other day, looking out for the osprey, which still seems to be visiting regularly. There was no sign of it that afternoon, but we had a fair bonanza of other feathered locals, including a pair of ravens and a fine display from the resident buzzard family. The one that made the hike worthwhile, though, was a female crossbill, sheltering from the rain in a pine tree.

 We used to see these chunky wee finches a lot; in fact when we first moved here, we regularly watched them from the kitchen window, feeding on the pine cones in the woods that border the garden. They looked like flocks of miniature parrots, with the brick red colouring of the males interspersed with the green of the females; quite exotic against the backdrop of a conifer plantation and grey Scottish skies. Then the trees were harvested a couple of summers ago, and we haven’t seen the crossbills since. (The red squirrels had to flit too. It was a sad price to pay for having more light in the garden.)

I’m hoping it was a Scottish crossbill we saw, although they’re hard to distinguish from the common variety. They’re the only bird to be found in Britain and nowhere else in the world, and they’re on the RSPB’s red list for endangered species. They’re confined to the Highlands and these pine-rich woodlands are perfect for them, so the odds are it was the real thing cheeping away in the tree. Apparently birds have regional accents, but I couldn’t tell if this one was Scottish or not.

Those darn swallows are back outside the bedroom. Three weeks ago we waved the wee ones goodbye as they popped out of the nest and edged their way in stages from the beams to the shed roof, then  to the nearby telegraph pole. It was great to see them fly and the experience came with the bonus of quieter mornings and being able to finally scrape the great mound of swallow-poo off the front path.

We moaned about the poo, but in fact it contributed, for one weekend only, to our amazing designer compost heap. We have all the usual stuff on the heaps (there are three behind a living willow screen at the bottom of the garden): teabags, veg peelings, grass-clippings. Our secret ingredient is the litter from the hen house which activates it all nicely – essential when the weather stays so cool all year round.

Three weekends ago though, we added not only the guano of baby swallows, but a generous contribution from a long-eared bunny called Cuddles, who had come to us for his holidays while his owners went to Orkney for a week. We grinned as we turned the heap over, imagining the richest black gold ever next spring, but we were definitely relieved that the swallows wouldn’t be depositing it on the front path for another year.

Then, blow me, I came home one day last week and had to re-learn my automatic ducking manouevre pretty quickly, as I turned onto the path and nearly had my hair parted by a swooping swallow. The adults are back on the nest, and on Sunday Lee got a had a discreet peep in. They’ve got a clutch of new eggs, which must surely be their third this year. I’m not sure they’ll have time to rear them properly before the rest of the local swallows gang up on the telegraph wires to plan their trip south. But one thing’s sure: if they do manage to hatch the little punks agan, we’ll be ready with a plastic sheet.