A9Birds

Into 2017 Welcome to the first A9Birds blog of 2017 - I've purposefully left it until after 11 January for those still using the Julian calendar, and never quite got over losing 11 days back in the 18th Century! With the Winter Solstice now a memory, already the days are starting to clearly lengthen and watching the behaviour of various birds shows that Spring is coming...even though, as I write this, the garden is under six inches of snow.  Crossbill males were already singing back in December on nice, sunny days however it's not unusual as these birds are notoriously early breeders in order to maximise their access to seed cones in the various trees offering such. I'm not going to start the whole Crossbill species debate here, but I will say the song I've heard has been 'Scottish' to my ears!  The Coal Tits accompany on bagpipes, and Dunnocks on the squeeze box...okay, I'll stop there. Mr Crossbill looking for his next cone to prise apart R...

Waxwings galore Those of you who follow the A9Birds' Facebook page will be well aware of my  delights in the past few weeks as Waxwings finally started to arrive, and in good numbers.  These stunning looking birds, about the size of a Starling, can arrive each winter as bad weather and the need for new food sources drives them from their usual wintering grounds in northern Russia, Finland and Scandinavia.  The last two winters yielded very few of them here in northeast Scotland, but 2016 has remedied that by far Having seen a passing dozen or so birds earlier in October, Mrs A9Birds and I were heading home from the shops when we caught sight of a group of birds atop some birches, on the edge of our nearest town of Forres.  A resident flock of Starlings can usually be seen there, and as we drew nearer the silhouettes of Mother Nature's closest offering to a New Romantic singer from the early 1980s was unmistakeable.  "Waxwings!" I announced, probably a littl...

Fàilte gu Alba! ...that's Gaelic for welcome to Scotland, by the way.  In my last blog, I finished with a photo of the offered bounty of Rowan berries hanging off the trees...well, invaders from the north have arrived.  Mistle Thrush numbers soon became bolstered with Redwings and then Fieldfares in our local fields, whilst elsewhere small groups of Waxwings have turned up...all arriving from Scandinavia. "Welcome to Scotland!" a local Chaffinch welcomes a Fieldfare Other bird species have also arrived from the east, helped by some keen easterly winds in the last couple of weeks.  Species both mundane and exotic have appeared, and not just in our part of Scotland.  For example, yours truly has found a Yellow-browed Warbler and a Great Grey Shrike - neither are especially rare in the scheme of things, and very much expected on passage at this time of year.  In both cases, a wee bit of knowledge helped...important when finding any bird not pointed out to ...

The Last Day of Summer No - it's true, it really is...the autumn equinox is tomorrow!  So it's appropriate I make this blog entry today as I look back on the mixed fortunes of our birds that I've written about in recent months.   Our lonely male Swallow roosted in our workshop the night of 15 September before heading off the next day, so we wish him well and hope he returns with a new female next Spring.  Our resident Great Spotted Woodpeckers have successfully raised two young, so it will be interesting to see how long they stay on territory for.  The only way we know there are two youngsters is thanks to feathering differences, as shown in the photos below: Great Spotted Woodpecker chick 2016-1 Great Spotted Woodpecker chick 2016-2 Elsewhere around the patch, Red Kites have continued to be apparent so fingers crossed it won't be too long before we see their numbers grow even more.  Our nearest Kestrels failed to breed this year (possibly rela...

Autumnal August August is a 'funny' month in the Highlands, as the season (technically Summer) yields sights and sounds associated with other times of the year.  Some examples for you... Sat at Findhorn Bay the other day, the numbers of waders were rapidly increasing (especially Curlew and Redshank, plus lesser numbers of Dunlin) as were Greylag Geese.  The latter breed on the moor not far south of home, and make the journey north around this time...though the last of the group usually make their move on 12 August when the grouse shooting season starts (wise birds).  One of the group of fishing Ospreys came right over my head, en route for his nest with a flounder in its talons.  While I sat scanning the waders for anything interesting, I became aware of a male Yellowhammer was singing its familiar "a little bit of bread and no cheeeeeese" song on the farmland behind me, still hopeful for some summer love. Male Osprey with a flounder for his family Also s...

Mixed fortunes Mother Nature moves in many ways, reflected in recent weeks by the fortunes of the young birds and around our home. Our Swallow pair, as mentioned in the last blog, produced three chicks.  However a couple of days after hatching, we saw almost three days of continuous rain - a real rarity in these parts, despite what most uninformed folk think about 'Scottish weather'.  The lack of flying insects in such weather, plus the parent birds themselves getting wet and returning to the nest, this chilling the chicks, all combined to mean the youngsters were shortlived.  A real shame, but it's only nature. Ospreys - busy right now feeding their families At the other end of the scale, in terms of size and fortune, are our local Osprey chicks.  The two nearest nests to us both have good sized chicks, and is testimony to the new parenting team on both.  The closest nest has a new female (who replaced the late Green 5B, known as 'Beatrice' to...

Fun in the sun Well we've had some great weather in recent weeks, with the birds making the most of the warm weather (such as letting brooding parents take short breaks from sitting on eggs) and of course the longer days.   In our part of the world, we're now at the time of year where it doesn't get dark, remaining officially in nautical twilight at its darkest until the end of July, and not officially getting to 'night' dark until the second half of August.  It's one of the reasons why so many birds come up here to breed, with extended day length offering the biggest opportunity to feed as well as be aware of predators through most of the day. Gadaggadaggadagga - one of our Swallows dogfights the local male Sparrowhawk Our Swallows have built a brand new nest in our workshop, and it's been great to watch them toil away. One downside of improving their security this year (see last month's blog) is that we can't put a mirror up to see if ...