Harlequin shows well in North Uist

Since the 1st winter male Harlequin was spotted bobbing about on the sea off Balranald on 18th February, I have made regular visits in an attempt to get a decent photo. The first visit left me with a dripping wet digiscoping camera after it shot out of my pocket and straight into a rock pool, thus limiting me to my SLR and 300mm lens. Every time I turned up this cracking duck was present although the resulting distant, dark blobs in a huge seascape left quite a lot to be desired and even more to the imagination. It was always just too far off-shore for me to produced anything of any use. Then I received some superb images from a visiting birder, Josh Jones which I gratefully posted on my site (www.western-isles-wildlife.com) although I have to admit with a little envy of his obviously good views.

At last today the persistence paid off and we (John Kemp and I) had mega views; initially feeding a reasonable distance away at around 150 - 200ft I was firing off rounds of shots when this happened:

I was quite low to the water as the Harlequin alighted on the sea and could not actually see the bird at all although John was happily clicking away in his more elevated position. After a tortuous wait it eventually swam out and allowed me to take some more images although unfortunately against the light. Luckily for me it then came back around the rocky promontary I was on and clambered out of the water a mere 20 - 30 ft away.

It then continued to make up for all those distant views and slightly disappointing visits by swimming back and forth in front of us for the next 20 minutes whilst it fed quite contentedly.

Happy blowing bubbles

Add to that 3 Iceland Gulls (2 x 1st winter and an adult), a 1st winter Glaucous Gull, a female Ring-necked Duck and an immature White-tailed Eagle to make a good start to the week.

Muirburn havoc in North Uist

On returning home with a car load of trees and shrubs on the afternoon 10th March I noticed the south-east slope of Ben na Coille, North Uist ablaze. The wind was a south-east to easterly, force 7, gusting to force 8. Within the hour the whole western slope of hill was on fire and smoke was drifting over Carinish. By 17:30 all 3 fire crews from the Uists were out fighting the blaze; attempting to contain the fire and stop it from reaching the main road. At 19:30 it was still possible to see flames leaping into the air around the Carinish community woodland and further afield towards Loch Euphort. Why? because someone thought it was a good day to clear the heather from the hill of Ben na Coille for his sheep to have better grazing this year.

Below are the legal requirements for a muirburn:

• By law, burning is only allowed between: 1st October - 15th April: extendable to 30th April by permission of the landowner.
• Notice of your intention to burn in the coming muirburn season must be given in writing to the landowner, and occupiers of land within 1 km of the intended muirburn site, at least 7 days before burning.
• Burning must not start between sunset and sunrise.
• Sufficient people and equipment must be available to control the fire.
• All reasonable precautions must be taken to prevent injury or damage.
• The smoke from the fire must not cause a nuisance.
• If the fire will be within a Site of Special Scientific Interest or other designated site, you must check whether consent for burning is required from Scottish Natural Heritage. Do not burn without such consent.
• An appropriate Health & Safety Risk Assessment must be carried out before burning.

Golden Eagle, Hen Harrier and Merlin did nest in the area as well as Red Grouse and Stonechat, to name but a few. Greenshank could well have nested within the now burnt area in the past but it'll be a good few years before any of these birds nest here again.
Whilst I was photographing the blaze I noticed someone walking back from Loch Carabhat and Ben na Coille. They didn't look unduly concerned but I wanted to know what they had seen and went to meet the crofter. I asked him if he'd been to the back of the hill and he said not. I mentioned the disastorous hill fire and he said that it was all leggy heather that was neither good for man nor beast. I informed the fella that Golden Eagle (could be on eggs now) and various other birds nest there but he just shrugged it off. He said it was how you managed the moorland. MANAGE! The fire was totally uncontrolled and has ripped through Carinish community woodland. It's amazing that people get away with this flagrant vandalism and disregard for people and wildlife.

Maybe it's time for some tighter controls on muirburn.

From Desert to Glen

It was school half term and Johanne had to renew her first aid certificate so as fate would have it we found ourselves on the mainland and staying at the Dolphin Bay Suites in Ardeseir for a few days. The views from the apartment around 15 miles east of Inverness were great with flocks of Common Scoter and Long-tailed Ducks to entertain (well me at least) but planning ahead I had in mind to set up a trip or two with Western Isles Wildlife to explore the Highlands. Therefore the draw of a Desert Wheatear wintering at Rattray Head seemed a very reasonable place to start an exploration of some of the Scottish Highlands I wasn't so familiar with. Under great duress I headed across country on 23rd February to try my luck with the wayward wheatear. I arrived at the carpark near the lighthouse at Rattray Head around 10 am. and wandered onto the beach in reasonably calm if somewhat cold conditions. The thermometre was reading around 1 degree C. but with a breeze off the sea it felt somewhat colder! I scanned the beach opposite the lightouse and saw nothing so I ventured around the dune to the south and was greeted with a sweeping, almost desolate looking stretch of sand which was pretty un-inspiring so I returned to spot the wee wheatear hopping amongst the seaweed and debris back where I'd started. I crouched down on the beach to find the wee bird heading straight towards me and within minutes I was floundering to sort out my camera settings as this lovely bird was hopping withing yards of me. Failing completely to secure anything of any use I watched the bird for a while and noted that it repeatedly returned to a particular perch. It was obviously not a shy individual so I popped myself down a few yards from the stick: within minutes it was hovering around my head and I was failing to get the shot but once I'd settled the bird returned time and time again allowing me to sort out a decent shot or two

Following on from this excellent encounter I headed to St. Combs where as luck would have it someone had reported a King Eider the day before. St. Combs is only a few miles north of Rattray Head and basically on my way home so it would have been insane not to try and have a brief look. I headed into the village and the first obvious view point over the sea. The immediate impression was of an almost bird-bereft sea-scape but a little patience showed that various seaduck species were present and bobbing off-shore; amongst which was a fine drake King Eider. The bird was distant and as I'd buggered my digi-camera after dropping it in a rock pool after photographing the Harlequin at Balranald I just enjoyed the bird through my scope.
The following day was family day so what better thing to do (living on an almost tree-less island) than enjoy some mature Caledonian Pine Forest. We all headed for Aviemore and  went for a stroll in the woods. OK I had a tip off but wasn't really expecting this:

Not only was I not expecting it but the rest of them weren't expecting a full on charge from a huge, turkey- sized, pumped up grouse either! Brillaint!!

Harlequin Duck makes 100

Some days you have good ones and some days not so good but Mr Rabbitts certainly hit the jackpot when he found a 1st winter male Harlequin Duck at Traigh Iar, Balranald yesterday. There are 11 previous records from Scotland and 6 from the rest of the UK which makes this bird the 18th to be found in the UK. There are 3 previous records from the Outer Herbides including the first for Scotland, a male north of Berneray, North Uist on 13th February 1931. A long gap then followed until the second for the Outer Hebrides, a female was found at Coll, Lewis in January 2004. The third record for this archipeligo was also a drake seen off St. Kilda in May 2007 by just a couple of lucky obersvers there on the day.

This 1st winter male is currently hanging around a series of rocky outcrops and a small rocky island south of the coastal car park at Aird an Runair, Balranald. The first photo was taken yesterday against the light in the late afternoon. Unfortunately on clambering back off the slippery rocks my digi camera fell into a rock pool and now, not suprisingly is buggered. The rest of the shots taken today were obtained by holding a digi camera to the eye-piece of my scope so please forgive the quality. The bird spends most of its time a good distance from the shore so securing a decent shot is somewhat challenging. Even so, what a belting bird.

This turned out to be my 100th species in the Outer Hebrides this year and my 282nd species in the Outer Hebrides since January 2005. They do get harder!

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.