One day birding in Arrecife.

As usual, I headed off to Lanzarote intent on getting in some birding alongside the workshops and talks of MICRO2018. But, yet again, it wasn't to be. I only managed around a 2-hour stroll along the front at Arrecife, staring longingly at the distant gulls and up at the surprisingly green slopes. My one day off, a particularly lovely Thursday, was spent marking. You're welcome, students.

However, that two hours did give me sandwich terns, whimbrel, ringed plover, grey plover, yellow-legged gull and both little and cattle egret, as well as Spanish sparrows and ring-neck parakeets in town. Considering the price of the flights and my accommodation, I may have to head back soon, especially with Houbara Bustard, Spectacled Warbler, Trumpeter Finch, Cream Coloured Courser and Andouin's gull on offer....

Cattle Egret at the bus station

Spanish sparrows at the dog park

Grey plover near the harbour

New Toys: Camera Trapping

A few months ago, I cracked and bought myself a trail cam, deploying it haphazardly around Kirkland. Since moving again, it has hung from the back of the door making me feel guilty, but last week I got my act together. I chucked it on a tree in the back garden with some bird food tucked behind a stump and promptly forgot it for a week.

When I checked it today it was stocked with footage and shots of pheasants, woodmice, foxes and a couple of local cats. Over the next few months, I'm hoping to be more selective about my sites, but in the meantime, here are some of the shots and footage from the new place and the around Kirkland. 

Date with a dipper

After ID'ing my moths and placing the camera trap yesterday, I was out with a cuppa on the garden bridge. As I moved to the upstream side a dipper zipped from beneath me to the bottom of the waterfall. 

Usually, the dippers near the house vanish as soon as they're disturbed, but this one hung around as I finished my tea and went to get my camera. Remaining as I happily snapped away and allowing both Jack and Chrissy to wander over to me, watch and leave again without obvious concern. 

I got some great images (some of which I might try to do something special with), but for now, here are some of the middling ones... 

Sooooo I bought a moth trap - Kirkconnel moths 08/09/2018

On Friday I returned from a field trip to Harris (more on that another day) to find two new toys waiting for me. A shiny new trail cam, and Skinner trap from NHBS. I've been looking forward to getting the trap since moving house, so, with a warm evening, only ten per cent chance of rain at between 2 and 3 am and a relatively low wind, I deployed the trap in the back garden. 

I woke at 6 to cover the trap, then waited until the godson was up and about to open it up and identify the contents. NB: with a three-year-old "helping" I.D took about 2 hours...

On the night of the 8th of Sept we bagged:

1 canary shouldered thorn
5 large yellow underwing
1 common marbled carpet
1 silver Y
1 spruce carpet
1 autumnal rustic
2 centre barred sallow
1 pink barred sallow
1 frosted orange
1 small wainscot
1 setaceous Hebrew character
1 rosy rustic
1 dark sword grass
1 dotted rustic
1 dingy looking July highflier...
and one difficult barred chestnut.

I am happy to be corrected on any of these identifications, I'm just starting after all! 

The trail cam also went out on Saturday; positioned on a well-used deer track. I'll be taking it in later in the week, so watch this space for shots of our local roe deer population.

Silver Y

Pink-barred sallow

Small wainscot

Dark sword grass

July highflier

Common marbled carpet

  

Canary-shouldered thorn

Canary-shouldered thorn

Pink-barred sallow

Centre-barred sallow

Frosted Orange

Centre-barred sallow

Setaceous Hebrew character

Rosy rustic

Autumnal rustic

 

Dotted rustic

Barred chestnut

Happiness is....

The Beatles say that happiness is a warm gun. Far be it for me to contradict the Fab Four, but they are - in fact - wrong. Happiness is diving off down the valley for a few hours between rain showers to spend some time with the dippers. 

During a visit from the parents a few weeks ago, and a very rainy walk down the burn, I had spotted a few fledgling dippers that were very confiding. So I headed off through the territories of their skittish neighbours to those lower down the valley. 

There was plenty of insect life about, but the highlights were basking small copper butterflies and the wonderfully marked broom moth caterpillars below. 

Broom Moth Caterpillar

Small Copper

The trees were full of juvenile birds of all types, but I was intent on getting down the valley and settling in for a while, so I didn't give them much attention. A rough mix of tits and finches, feeding in the birch, hazel and aspen.

Thankfully, one dipper was again at the causeway; however I didn't spot the bird until I was right on top of it, and I was completely unprepared as it appeared not two meters to my left. Emerging from the water, momentarily cloaked in silver. 

I was caught, camera out but no settings fixed, stood in the middle of the path with no cover. Time for some ultra slow-mo fiddling with the camera... bringing it up as the bird made its short dives into the water and snapping away as it surfaced. I managed ten minutes with the first bird until I felt my arms and knee getting tired (it'd been doing bizarre yoga-like contortions to get level with the bird and  avoid being blocked by the tall grass). I straightened up and headed back toward the bridge, intending to sit and let the birds more nearer if they wished. 

Above and below every rock was scoured

The bird didn't seem to mind me at all, even when I was cursing my camera and frantically trying to delete images.

I was sat for around two minutes before the dipper joined me again, resting and preening for a while before disappearing under the tumbling flow, creeping in and out of the overhanging stones. I simply kept my finger on the shutter and let it run. 

Then there was a movement to my left. Something dropped into the low branches of a hawthorn before flitting up again. Redstart. I was delighted. I knew they were around in the area, but hadn't expected them so close to the house. I had been re-reading Birds in a Cage over the last month and having one of Buxton's beloved birds appear seemed a little serendipitous. I bought the camera to bear aaaaand... CF card full.

Damn. The images from my trip to Slapton were still on the card. Swiftly I began deleting images, clearing ten, then twenty. Shifting the settings for the new target. I looked up again... no bird.  

I turned back to the dipper for a while, watching it work its way around the boulders in the flow, periodically glancing back to the hawthorns... there were movements, mostly  a foraging chiffchaff, but the redstart was staying well in. Then it started to spit with rain. Then drizzle. Sod that.

I shifted my bag onto my back and, edging way from the burn to avoid disturbing the feeding dipper, I began to circle around the hawthorn... and flushed the redstart on the far side. 

Luckily it crossed to a smaller bush at the edge of the valley bottom. I managed a few quick snaps before it was away into the scrub, only to have a spotted flycatcher flash by moments later. Taking a single shot of this bonus bird I packed the camera into the bag and headed back out of the way of the rain.

Juvenile Redstart

Spotted Flycatcher

Ch, ch, ch, changes!

We're on the road again. This time in my longest move, from Portsmouth to Dumfries. I'm ending my short-term contract with Portsmouth to join the University of Glasgow's School of Interdisciplinary Studies. 

Over the last couple of months, I have been fairly short on opportunities to get out with the bins and camera. Fortunately, I was part of a field trip to Slapton Ley FSC (my placement during my FSC Trainee Tutor Scheme) and was able to get up early to enjoy some time to myself in this amazing environment, as well as catching up with a few old friends. 

I originally visited Slapton in the autumn, when I enjoyed wheeling starling murmurations and winter migrants. In May, the real highlight for me were the vociferous warblers, and I gleefully left made my way down to the Ley at 6 am each day in the hope of an improved picture of my old foe; the Cetti's warbler. 

Like my last trip, the Cetti's proved a difficult bird to snap, but this was more than made up for by the incredibly showy male black cap that greeted me by the humpback bridge every morning. There were plenty of Cetti's singing, though, and cirl buntings haunted the roadside hedges around the caravan park. There was plenty of food around for young birds too, with large numbers of adorable grasshopper nymphs.

Of course, having spent so long out of the field, I wasn't going to waste this time away. I also put the moth trap out every clear night and went a little mad on poop and pellets, managing to collect both otter spraint and owl pellets and dissolve them in biological washing powder to examine the prey remains. 

I managed to get a couple of new moth species, such as the gorgeous muslin moth, and some old favourites like the flame shoulder.

From the prey remains I found, it seemed like the otters around the Ley were happily snacking on eels, and the barn owls were fond of bank voles.

In June we were up in Scotland, this time on the track of the dream job. A great location, a fab uni and a chance to settle in one spot for more than 12 months. Obviously, the destination of choice was Chez Berry (who we will be staying with during the first year of my new role as we track down a suitable place to live). Chrissy and Bez's new place is well away from anyone else, a welcome change from the bustle of Portsmouth, and we settled in for a few days of fraught interviewing interspersed with lazing beside the stream in the garden with a cold beer.

Dipper pair 5 minutes from the new pad.

Around my interview, I took every opportunity to explore what I would be settling into. The campus is amazing! Built in the 1800's as a mental institute and now home to (amongst other things) a number of universities, a college, a spa (a SPA!), and a fantastic garden...  I was instantly hooked, and the possibility of not being able to work there almost led me to fluff my presentation.

Building from the teaching garden

The teaching garden

Rock garden

Luckily, I got the fateful call as we were driving down from Dumfries on the way to visit my folks. I was able to get back into Portsmouth in a much more optimistic mood and spent the last weeks of my contract in a much better mood than the preceding ones. I'm already planning what I'm going to get up to when we move. I've got my eye on a moth trap of my own and some long walks in the hills. My first book chapter will be published in August, and I've signed up to write two more. I'm going to get some time with my godson and the chance to actually get out birding. 

Between then and now I need to shift all my stuff again, then I'll have two weeks to settle up north before I jump into my new role. It might be a little while longer before I manage to get back to the blogging, but when I do, you'd better watch this space!