A couple of hours on North Uist

The drizzle began to clear, the fence had been repaired and the requested agenda emailed off; so it seemed like a good time to go and look for the reported small Canada Goose at Balranald. 15 minutes later I turned into the access road towards Balranald stopping en route to scan Loch Scaraidh which had been home to an immature, female Ring-necked Duck. Originally being found on Loch Hosta in early November 2012 this stray from America moved to Loch Scaraidh sometime in January during a particularly cold spell that left Loch Hosta mostly frozen. Sure enough she was still present and bobbing around amongst a growing flock of Tufted Duck. Neighbouring Loch nam Feithean held plenty of wildfowl too with over 100 Teal present as well as 7 Shoveler, Wigeon, Mallard and Tufted Ducks although it was strangely bereft of geese. Scanning across the machair from the road didn't reveal many geese either so I headed to Hougharry, just around the corner. The bay was nice and sheltered today and so the calm conditions made locating the distant, immature, male Surf Scoter reasonably easy. This bird also arrived in November 2012 being found on the freshwater, Loch na Reivil at Hougharry. Even in juvenile plumage the large, bulbous bill appeared to show a faint hint that it might develop into something a lot more gaudy with time. 

Immature Surf Scoter, Loch na Reivil, December 2012

 It still doesn't have the colourful bill of an adult but there does appear to be some colour developing and the pale, face markings have now disappeared. The plumage is largely black and at one point today I did think I saw a goasting of a white nape patch although it was distant and even with the scope on 60x magnification it was difficult to pick out the bill pattern.

Now it was time to try my luck with the goose. I drove along the rough track leading to Aird an Runair and soon became aware that there were a lot of geese scattered over the machair. Mixed flocks of Barnacle and Greylag Geese could be seen all over the place. Just then an immature Peregrine came hurtling across, low to the ground. It landed on a fence post for a while before its excited head bobbing led to an unsuccessful  dash at a large flock of Rock Doves. Twite, starlings and doves scattered everywhere, filling the sky with panicked birds before calm was restored and the Peregrine left the scene. I began concentrating on the geese once more but no amount of scanning was revealing the quarry. I could see that there were some Barnacles just over a rise not far away. I parked and walked carefully across to a gate to be greeted to my delight by a reasonably close Richardson's Canada Goose. Well at least that's what some people call them whilst others would say that there's so much interbreeding between them that you can't safely assign them to race.

 It was certainly small with a short, stubby bill and sqaure-looking head. Birds resembling this individual in structure, appear most years in North Uist and are always seen associating with Greenland Barnacle Geese. Hybrids between Canada and Barncale Geese, showing mixed feature are also occasionally picked up in the islands. Descriptions are submitted to BBRC and there's quite a file of pending indiviuals of various races building up. Maybe a suite of characters may enable them to make decisions in the future but what-ever they decide these are pretty good looking for Canada Geese. 

Listing in 2013

Happy New Year and here's to a good birding year.
A bit of a late start being the 4th January and getting back to the Outer Hebrides around mid-day today in the drizzle wasn't particularly a promising prospect; whilst the demands of work meant I would have to spend the rest of the day in the office without a chance of exploring.
As the ferry approached Lochmaddy a lone Guillemot flew past the bow and so became the first on my Outer Hebrides list this year. I like to keep track of just how many species I see in the islands during a year although it's not a serious list. It's not the sort of manic, hear-tearing obsession that's going to see me hurtling up and down the islands in an attempt to amass as many birds as I can whilst handing over all my hard earned cash to our beloved Calmac and fuel providers; it's more for posterity so that I can look back and say that was a good year. 2012 wasn't particularly brilliant number wise with my own list reaching a meagre 195 species although there was some quality birds with Semipalmated Plover and Great Sandplover being particularly notable. The most I've ever had during my 8 years in the Outer Hebrides was 212 species (well maybe 211) a few years ago which is going to take some beating.
As the ferry slipped into the mouth of Lochmaddy Bay no less than 3 White-tailed Eagles hung in the strong southerly wind over the hills to the north. This in turn encouraged a mass of gulls that had been feeding around a fish farm to take to the air and allow me to add 2, 1st winter Iceland Gulls to my yearly tally which by the end of the day was teetering at a lofty 19 species.

I'm dreaming of a white (Gyr) Christmas

 

Any birder living in Uist at the moment would be forgiven for thinking that Christmas had come early with all the reports of white-Gyr's during the last month. The first sighting came on 18th November when one was seen at Bornish, South Uist. This was followed by one that hung around for a couple of hours on the morning 1st December at Balranald, North Uist. Initially it was presumed to have been the Bornish bird although when one was found dead at Eoligarry, Barra the same day the situation became more tricky.

Gyr at Balranald, December 1st  (Brian Rabbitts)

 Next came a sighting of a bird perched at Ardivachar, South Uist, 3rd December and it looked like this bird was on its way south until there was a sighting at Balranald and Loch Paible, 11th December. Again it was presumed that the bird of the 11th was the same as the bird of 1st and 3rd December although thanks to digital photography it would appear that this was not the case. The photo below shows the bird from the 11th December that is renewing its inner primaries although the bird above (1st December) does not show the inner primary moult.

Gyr near Loch Paible, 11th December (John Kemp)

There was another sighting from Loch Paible, North Uist yesterday, 16th December and then one today from Kipheder, South Uist. From the superb photos by John Kemp it's quite obvious that the Gyr on the 11th December is a different bird to the one photographed today from the south end of South Uist that shows a full set of fully grown primaries.

Gyr, 17th December (John Kemp)

So I suppose the question remains, just how many Gyr's have there been? That's at least 3 in the last month and there's one thing for sure; I'm glad I'm not a medium sized gull or wader in Uist at the moment! More photos can be found at Western Isles Wildlife.

Gyr Falcon on North Uist

"Better have a look at that white blob on the fence post" I thought as I walked back towards the visitor centre at Balranald this morning and so glad I did. The probable plastic bag, that can often be found adorning various fence lines, shrubs and is widely distributed throughout the coutryside actually turned out to be a fantastic immature, white Gyr Falcon. Even at the great distance that this bird initially was the huge bulk was apparent. It actually appeared larger than a Common Buzzard and much more powerful. Unfortunately it didn't stay for long and a few flaps of the broad-based, pointed wings saw the bird disappearing low into the dunes to the south.

 JK had been disappointed at his unsatisfactory veiws of (presumably) this bird 10 days ago at Balranald when he had distant flight views of it for seconds. He braved the omens from this new report of the bird last seen heading south and drove up from South Glendale, at the very bottom of South Uist. I headed to the very south end of Balranald first noting a Peregrine and Merlin before finally hearing the sound of alarming Herring Gulls which once more revealed the presence of this butey. It perched on a post over-looking the mouth of Loch Paible before again heading south.

It flew across to the dune ridge at Knockintorran and perched on a post apparently on top. JK by this time wasn't far away so I directed him to the where-abouts of the bird. I saw him arrive; I could see the bird still perched but our twitcher from the south couldn't, so he started walking towards the dunes. I looked down to tie my boot and woosh, it was gone! Not my boot but the falcon had, once I had looked up again. It hadn't come my way but the phone call to JK didn't lift his spirits much although he needn't have worried as a few mintues later he was watching it; this time quite close, perched on a fence post. You can find more photos of this bird on Western Isles Wildlife
It's hard to imagine how something so large, white and gernerally causing pandemonium can disappear so easily but Gyr's unlike Peregrines hunt mostly in level flight and so at least here they probably often stay quite low to the ground. They also travel at some lick too, with a couple of flaps covering large areas of ground. Hopefully this bird will have better luck than the one found dead at Eoligarry on Barra in early December which was presumably the individual seen on South Uist in November. Amazing to think that there have been 2 Gyr's in Uist in the last month.

Eaval

Eaval, lying on the south-east side of North Uist reaches only 347m above sea level so you might think that there's not much to it, but rising like a rocky pyramid straight out of the boggy moorland this hill provides some of the most stunning views in the Outer Hebrides.

Eaval looking across Loch Obasaraigh

Probably the easiest way to get there is to head to the end of the Loch Euphort road before striking out across the moor towards Burabhal. It's not long before you reach probably the trickiest part of the whole walk......a river crossing on stepping stones. If the levels of Loch Obasaraigh are high or there's a high tide then the rocks allowing you to skip across the river can be covered. Today with all the recent rain many were submerged and others very slippy; not helped by otters regularly using these rocks to spraint and pee on, so creating nice, green, slippy patches. I managed to make my way across without any mishaps and continued around the north-east side of the loch. Once around the east side you begin to climb Eaval. My only company on the way out (apart from Rowan the dog) was a heard of Red Deer and a few Rock Pipits. As I reached the upper slopes of Eaval a Golden Eagle came shooting over the summit heading in a stooping glide towards Burabhal and the Lees. Shortly after this I was on the top and what a view you get.

Eaval summit

Looking north from the summit

Looking west

Looking south (Ruabhal is the highest point on Benbecula!)

The Minch from the summit

Two cheese rolls later and a cup of coffee I headed back the way I had come. A Raven was calling in the distance and a Rock Pipit was feeding on the grassy slopes but apart from a couple of Fox Moth larvae it was pretty quiet as it often is out here.

Fox Moth caterpillar

As I got to the east shore of Loch Obasaraigh I noticed some very fresh otter spraints along a small stream, not far from otter prints I'd seen on the sandy shore as I headed up. Rowan the dog went first as we circumnavigated the loch when I heard a "plop" in the loch waters. I noticed a small ripple leading away from me and wondered if I'd just missed an otter. I hung about for a while but nothing showed so continued around the next rocky headland. I glanced behind and there heading quickly through the water in the direction from which we'd come was a large, dog otter. I grabbed my camera and just in time noticed it heading up stream. Unfortunately the camera was on the wrong setting and the otter was wary of me so although I managed to take a couple of shots, he soon spotted me and disappeared once again.

A mile or so later we managed to slide our way back over the stepping stones once again without any mishaps, noting fresh otter spraints on a rock here too. A good walk with some stunning views and classic Hebridean wildlife.

Over-looking Skye

For too many years I've been whizzing through Skye on my way to or from the Outer Hebrides with occasional visits to the Black Cuillin for some superb mountaineering but very little in the way of birding. This weekend I went to Sabhal Mor Ostaig for a mini SOC conference arranged by Bob McMillan (of Skye Birds) and Jane Cleaver from the SOC. The line up of talks on Golden Eagles, White-tailed Eagles, Corncrakes and Manx Shearwaters all sounded pretty interesting and very relevent to the immediate area and although Gaelic Bird Names by Tristan ap Rheinallt maybe relevent it didn't stir much in the way of exciting anticipcation in me.....how wrong I was! All the talks were excellent and fascinating but the delivery and dry wit of a Welsh man telling us about Gaelic bird names and their relevance to past bird distribution really was my first revelation of the weekend as to how interesting - (yes, that was the word I wanted to use), the subject actually is. The second revelation came the following day when we spent a couple of hours with Bob McMillan birding between Broadford and Portree. In the couple of hours we managed to pick up 8 Slavonian Grebe, Great Northern and Red-throated Divers, a couple of small groups of Whooper Swans (flying over), 6 White-fronted Geese, no less than 8 Golden Eagles and around 40 Waxwings; not forgetting 2 otters and numerous Fieldfare and Redwing. It really was a good morning out.

I'll certainly be heading back to Skye before too long and hope to start taking tours that include this fascinating isle in 2014.

Pipit conundrum

On the 31st October I photographed this pipit at the south-west end of Benbecula around Borve Point.

Having heard a slightly unusual pipit call in flight that was similar to Rock Pipit but "thinner" and less emphatic I began examining every bird that I came across as I walked around the south-west tip of Benbecula.  As I rounded the headland I noticed this striking bird feeding amongst the Rock Pipits gathered on the seaweed and rocks. It immediately struck me due to its strong supercilium, generally pale upper parts (compared with Rock Pipit), very distinctive supercilium and rather pale under parts. The wings bars were well defined and the streaking more clear cut than in the Rock Pipits (around 10 in all) present. The legs were also rather pale and the outer tail feathers appeared white. I was hoping for Water Pipit but the bird really didn't strike me as such. After some time I thought that this indivual may be a Scandinavian Rock Pipit that hadn't attained full winter plumage or was a very well-marked individual.

To me the upper parts appeared too olive-grey for a Water Pipit; the wing bars rather grey (rather than white); the under parts although quite distinctly streaked didn't appear clean enough for Water Pipit and there was some yellow suffusion on the belly.

Below are a series of photo of a British Rock Pipit taken on the same day.

I found one or two websites that showed the variation within both Water Pipit and Scandinavian Rock Pipit although such a strongly marked bird with grey upper parts at this time of year appeared a little odd. If you have any comments please feel free to get in touch: steveduffield@mail.com