May 31, 2005
15 minutes of fame in Bird Watching magazine
Well, normal service is resumed for now. Though hopefully I'll be able to persuade Sean to let me showcase some more of his photography (this is a nice way of saying hopefully he'll make my blog that bit more colourful and high-class with his excellent photos...)
Still, it's all very promising here just at the moment. The northerly wind has died off, and Metcheck (see the Weather Starling below for a link) has us down for easterlies backing south-east by the weekend. Whoo-hoo! I've got to do some breeding wader surveys for FWAG over the weekend, so if there's any justice they'll coincide with my stumbling across something decent.
Plus, fame for this blog at last! Okay, not exactly on a Belle de Jour scale, but fame nonetheless. Wait for it... Bird Watching magazine! There's an article in the June issue on the subject of birding blogs, which rather sweetly includes Aurora Borealis in a list of "Top Birding Blogs". With a subtitle that infers it's inspirational, I'm hugely flattered. (And somewhat flustered - there's probably some colourful views and sentiments expressed in here which might not be too palatable to some Bird Watching readers. Oh well, no time to censor it...)
To be fair, I had a little advance warning of this happy event when the author Katie Fuller mentioned it to me in correspondence. (Katie Fuller of the excellent Bogbumper blog linked below). I'm sure Bird Watching won't mind me blithely reproducing the fragment of the article where Aurora Borealis is mentioned... after all, they never asked me if they could reproduce any of the pages of the blog... in retrospect, of course they're welcome. And I hope Bird Watching's readership enjoy Aurora Borealis, now officially "an interesting perspective on birds from someone much further north than most of us"!
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May 30, 2005
Guest photo gallery#2 - birds
Here goes with the second of the Guest Galleries, once again courtesy of the hugely generous Sean. A nice smattering of common, scarce and rare British birds - especial highlights for me being the Cirl Bunting and the front shot of Great Grey Shrike, but there's something here for everyone. Contact Sean to enquire about these or any other of his many images via aurora.borealis AT swarovskibirding.com
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Sean is of course the jammy bastard who got the opportunity to go and take superlative photos of the Belted Kingfisher only a few miles from home. Don't we all wish birds of that calibre turned up on our local patches? Not that I can complain on the basis of the past 18 months birding on our island.
On the subject of which, a very unsatisfying weekend. Last year we had south-easterlies over the weekend of JL's birthday, culminating in our female Sardinian Warbler. This year however the wind was a spiteful north-easterly, bringing only foul weather and general misery. I tried to dig the first of the vegetable plots in the lower tree yard on Saturday morning, and managed a few hours of painful slog until the driving sleet forced me indoors to an early bath. At least JL's birthday do in the evening helped ease the aches of muscles unused to such abuse, employing the tried and tested medicine of beer and whisky. Yesterday's weather was no better, so I stuck to indoors work on the conservatory. Today is an improvement being dry and sunny, so I suppose tonight will involve another spell of digging. Oh joy. It'll all be worth it when the first mega turns up in the tattie patch!
And finally today... Happy 40th birthday, JL!
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May 25, 2005
Guest photo gallery #1 - orchids etc
A guest slot today for something slightly different. Actually, something very different, as it's a) not birds, and b) photos of a manifestly superior quality to the ones I take. My good friend Sean Cole has kindly sent me a selection of his wildflower photos to make a small gallery here; I've taken the crass liberty of putting a watermark on them and making them much smaller than the original large, sumptuous images he sent me. I hope he won't mind. The reduced images don't do the originals justice, but I thought some compromise had to be made for those labouring without broadband. (Like me!)
Anyway, enough of my witterings. Onto the main event, the photos. Sean's a modest sort of chap, but I'm sure he won't mind my saying that should anyone want a print of any of the following, or indeed just be put in touch with him to enquire about any other images in his extensive British and European wildflower library, they can do so via emailing me at aurora.borealis AT swarovskibirding.com
Aren't they wonderful? I'm busy basking in some reflected glory, and ought to take the opportunity to thank Sean for letting me showcase some of his work. Rather raises the standard of this blog I reckon...
Appetites whetted, there's more of Sean's photography to follow in the next day or two; this time slightly more on-track, being a bird gallery. On the subject of which, bird news from here? Ach, bugger all. Didn't bother getting up early again this morning, and drove the trap as an afterthought on my way to catch the ferry. Really don't know why I bothered, as there wasn't even a house sprog in there. And to think I want to build another heligoland in our bottom tree park... can't think why! I reckon though it should attract more than B's original heligoland, or at least will do once it's established. The plan is to have shrubby trees running up inside the trap itself, with a fair-sized patch of oats and kale planted immediately in front of the trap entrance, this in turn surrounded by cover in the form of some conifers, rosa rugosa and a few broadleaves. Has to be a winning formula!
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May 24, 2005
A few of my favourite things
(NB - for those looking for the Little Auk / Gyr Falcon image - click here)
Nice conditions yesterday afternoon - a light south-easterly and persistent showers. Of course, I was at work and in no position to take advantage of this, and had to resign myself to hoping anything good would stick around until the late afternoon and my return home.
We'd asked JL to come by the house and let the dogs out for a pee at lunchtime, as we were both out... so it was ironic that at the foot of the drive he found a nice bright Icterine Warbler, and then outside the conservatory window a Bluethroat perched on the wall... I missed the Bluethroat he found last year on our manure-heap, so wasn't really expecting to see this one either.
By the time I'd got home JL had trapped a second, less well-marked Icterine, but hadn't relocated the elusive Bluethroat. B let me have a quick look at the Icky before he released it, and JL and I relocated the Bluethroat mooching around my compost heap. Sadly not a nice sparkling spring male - instead a rather scrotty female, which promptly matched it's behaviour to it's rather dingy looks when it went into the dog run and started to pick around the day's crop of dog shit. Nice. Anyway, a Bluethroat's a Bluethroat, and just sounds satisfyingly exotic even when the reality is less prosaic.
Enthused, got up early this morning in the hope of a Red-backed Shrike or similar. (Trumpeter Finch... Oh please please please...) As is usual when I make an effort to haul myself out of bed at an ungodly early hour, I found bugger all.
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May 22, 2005
A taste of southern reedbeds
(NB - for those looking for the Little Auk / Gyr Falcon image - click here)
The south-easterlies seemed to have fallen by the wayside, as today was to be taken up by two activities of paramount importance; plastering the newly lined walls in the conservatory, and watching the FA cup final. Early on, I had to pop down the road to collect our portable CD player so I'd have music to work to, so took the opportunity to drive the heligoland and see what I could find - and was well-pleased to find a Grasshopper Warbler skulking through the rhubarb. Always a quality bird. It shot straight to the ramp in front of the trapping box, so I went to pull the cord that operates the trap, and watched the bird vanish before my eyes. Sadly not into the trap - it had found a minute crack in the wood and somehow insinuated it's mousy self through it to freedom in the rhubarbs outside the heligoland.
Still, even if I couldn't catch it for B to ring, it was a good bird to find and see at close quarters. And I got back home feeling pretty pleased with myself. The FA cup interrupted the plastering, and Arsenal's inexplicable lack of form against Utd kept me riveted as the otherwise completely useless Lemon pulled off a series of top drawer saves to keep us in the game. By the end of extra time I had the sick feeling that we'd weathered a storm only to go out on penalties. After all, my experiences of penalty shoot-outs is pretty lamentable. But a good omen was about to hove into view...
P called from the kitchen to come and see a bird outside. She sounded fairly urgent, so I dashed through. Something was being mobbed below the road, and whilst I couldn't see the cause of the agitation, the effect was plain to see - a swirling mass of Starlings and Hooded Crows doing their nut by the Roadside croft. I panicked - where were my bins? In the car. Car keys? Oh shit... P remained calm, and pointed out her bins were on the back seat of her car, so I sprinted outside, collected them and ran down the drive. A large brown raptor briefly appeared over the near horizon before dropping down out of sight, far too quickly to see it except with the naked eye, and leaving the impression of a pale head. Osprey? It then came back, this time stalling over some rosa rugosa bushes, and letting me clap bins on it - a Marsh Harrier. I had a feeling this was quite a good bird for the island, so legged it back inside to phone JL.
B arrived shortly afterwards, having also seen it. JL's arrival was slightly delayed, and despite searching extensively he hadn't refound it by dusk. P and I walked over the moor and round the golf course in a bid to relocate it for him, but nothing doing; lots of migrants though, especially hirundines; over a dozen House Martin, half a dozen Swallow, and 2 Swifts.
Checking the books, the harrier was only the 2nd for the island, so not bad going at all. A nice start to the spring for me. But not a BB...
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May 20, 2005
Scorched earth
(NB - for those looking for the Little Auk / Gyr Falcon image - click here)
The rabbit-proofing continues, as my torn and bloodied hands bear witness. Have you ever tried wrestling with 50 metre lengths of rabbit-netting? It's no fun. Particularly piquant is the way the wire not only tears you to shreds while you're trying to fix it to the existing fence, but also rubs salt (only worse) into the wounds by filling the cuts with the hideous grey galvanising compound the wire is coated with. Needless to say, it stings like hell.
Consolation being that if it's hard for me to deal with, it should prove a considerable obstacle to the bunny-bastards. The bottom park is now almost entirely rabbit-proofed, and the rate of attrition amongst the newly planted saplings seems to have dropped dramatically to next to nothing. That said, the last fortnight's unremitting north-westerlies have scorched all but the most sheltered trees, and the trees that haven't been bunnied are now mere twigs with charred black leaves crisply fluttering in the (oh joy!) gentle south-easterlies.
Fortunately closer inspection reveals that most of them have new leaves sprouting lower down, so all is not lost yet. I've got to get some windproof netting fixed up, which ought to protect them from the worst of the northerlies. And still the top tree park to rabbit and wind-proof... And plant trees. Still, it seems like a mountainous commitment at the moment, but the validation will come in a few years time when it starts to attract some migrants, and hopefully rarities too.
To that end I'm aiming to create a mosaic in the tree parks, with small patches of vegetable cropping and oats interspersed with and sheltered by the trees. I was always hoping to get away from chemical inputs once here, but reality bites and the thought of dealing with thick grassland to open these growing areas up is just too appalling for words. I marked out my first tattie patch last weekend, and sprayed with Roundup. I'm not too proud to use chemicals now. They're a means to an end.
Now, south-easterlies... what could they bring? Only a Chiffchaff in the plantation last night, but it was almost a year ago that the Sardinian Warbler turned up in there on JL's birthday (nice!). What's our first BB of the spring going to be?
(Postscript - having just typed the above, a text arrives on my mobile from JL - a Rosefinch in my bottom park. Okay, it's not a BB, but it's a start!)
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May 16, 2005
Rabbits - fluffy Agent Orange
(NB - for those looking for the Little Auk / Gyr Falcon image - click here)
A funny sort of weekend up here, (not funny as in ha ha, hee hee - more funny as in wry smiles and shrugs of enforced tolerance), as while the rest of the country basked in brilliant sunshine, Shetland braced itself for yet more chilling north-westerlies. Being outside was absolutely no fun at all, and my Breeding Bird Surveys are still undone. Only 4 days to go until the first, already extended deadline...
There are some summer birds around, most noticeably the tirricks (Arctic Terns to you!), which are bombing around the croft and my end of the island in some numbers. I just hope that by some miracle they can find enough food this year to breed with any success whatsoever. Last year was a complete disaster. Also noticeable by their presence are the skuas, a handful of Bonxies and Arctics, already patrolling the shoreline, and in the case of the Bonxies the roads for roadkill rabbits. Yet another sign o' the times.
Went for a walk around the golfcourse with P and the mutts on Saturday; kicked off with a new species for me for the patch, Tufted Duck, a pair mooching around the back of east loch; also plenty of Wheatears, a pair of summer-plumaged Dunlin, 4 Great Northerns, and 19 Purple Sands. Also a rare (and tragic) sight for the island - a Gannet perched on a rocky promontary. Judging by the grass-stains on its breast, it had crash-landed on the golfcourse. It seemed alert enough, but looked awkward when it shifted position. We debated what to do; trying to approach it with a view to taking it into care seemed likely to cause it to fling itself off the rocks, possibly to further damage. Reluctantly, we eventually decided to leave nature take its course. Besides, I'm damned if I've a) got the skills to set broken Gannet bones, b) got the bottle to try and catch an enraged and well-armed goose-sized seabird, and c) enough fish to feed it. Plus the chickens might have something to say about sharing their area with a recuperating Gannet.
Spent an unhappy few hours yesterday attaching rabbit wire to my new fences. I'd planted the first few hundred trees a couple of weeks ago, and already the bastard rabbits had started to prune them. Terminally. Bought 200m of wire on Friday, and P cut the first 50m roll in half lengthways to give me 100m of bunny-proofing. Got soaked in the bitterly cold rain, but the thought of thwarting the long-eared tree-assasins kept me going. Still loads more to put on, but thankfully about two thirds of the trees still aren't in, so have been spared the slaughter. Will have to buy replacements this autumn.
Woke up this morning to snow. How can this be? The rest of the country gets Great Reed Warblers and marsh terns. We get yet more Arctic weather. Summer's not here yet. Hell, Spring isn't either!
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May 12, 2005
Orchids in east Kent - photos
(NB - for those looking for the Little Auk / Gyr Falcon image - click here)
In the absence of any good birds to talk about on Shetland, and being acutely aware that the orchid season is in full swing in the south of England, now seems like as good a time as any to put some of my orchid photos from east Kent on here. They were taken during the 90's at several locations in east Kent (none of which I'm going to reveal, as plant-collectors are just as rapacious as egg-collectors, and there's no point in making their life any easier).
Some are unashamedly 'arty' (the Green-winged Orchid and White Helleborine for example), but none of them are anything I'm too ashamed of; not bad for an old manual focus camera and no macro. Apologies if you're viewing this without broadband, as the pictures will probably take some time to download. I think they're worth the wait though. High res prints are of course available (£2.50 each) - just contact me via this site!
Burnt Orchids
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Lady Orchid coming into bloom, in an exposed downland location
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Lady Orchid, full inflorescence, in a more typical shady woodland setting
Spotted Orchid (fuchsii)
Fragrant Orchid
Early Purple Orchid
Green-winged Orchid
Monkey Orchid
Early Spider Orchid
Bee Orchid
Fly Orchid
Man Orchid
Butterfly Orchid
White Helleborine
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