Baby Birds

It's been so wintry over the last few months and even though we are now officially into Spring it still feels like Winter.
So I thought I would turn the clock forward a couple of months to late Spring/early Summer and share a few photos (and observations) of some baby birds which will hopefully cheer us all up.
I thought I'd start with a baby bird that most people get a chance to witness even if they are not keen bird watchers...................... that is ducklings, in particular Mallard duckings.

 

Best follow mum

 

The water looks cold and deep!!

Everybody present and correct

Some of these young waterfowl can be born quite a bit away from the water, Mallards for example have been known to nest in trees a few hundred yards from the nearest water. So Mallard ducklings can spend their early days on dry land before heading to the safety of the water.
This is not the case for all waterfowl............Coots for example nest very near to the water's edge and even sometimes on small rafts of vegetation. Their young (I'll call them cootlings) have to be able to take to the water within a day or two of being born, hence why the look like little blobs of fluff, making them very buoyant:


Coot and cootlings

Being fluffy might help them float but it makes them very difficult to photograph, especially using autofocus.
Another water-borne youngster you may be familiar with has in the past been described as ugly (no we are not talking Herons, in which case I would not argue) I'm talking about the ugly duckling itself..........the cygnet. Here is a pretty big cygnet which is starting to show all the poise and grace of an adult but still retains the grey feathers and dark coloured beak of a juvenile:

Mute Swan Cygnet on Union Canal

This photo was taken in the Winter on a frozen canal, so not exactly an early summer youngster, which gives you an idea how long some of these larger birds take to reach maturity.
Moving on to dry land and concentrating on smaller birds which have a relatively short lifespan, and the chicks have to grow up fast.
We'll start with everyone's favourite the unmistakably cute Blue Tit. Here is a recently fledged (i.e. left the nest) youngster crying out to be fed:

Feed me!!

You can clearly see its bright orange 'gape' which acts as a target for the parents when stuffing caterpillars in their beaks in the dark of the nest hole (or box). They also pull back their wings and flutter them in a pitiful way and it seems that this begging works as the parent came along with a mouthful of insects for the hungry chick:

Yum Yum!!

Blue Tit chicks are much more lemony and greyer than the adults, who are by this time looking very bedraggled having to constantly find food to feed their hungry brood which could be as much as a dozen chicks.
Here is another youngster, see if you can guess what bird it is:

Who Am I??

I am sure you all knew it was another garden favourite.............
...........a juvenile Robin. It will be another few months before it gets its distinctive red breast but the shape of the bird, its beak and the way it hops about lets you know it is definitely a Robin.
I have had people saying to me "I saw a female Robin" and when I asked how they knew it was a female they said "it didn't have a red breast". Chances are it was most likely a juvenile, as you all know adult female Robins look just like their male counterparts.
Here are another couple of fledglings which have some of the colouring but not quite full adult plumage:

Young Greenfinch

Young Goldfinch

The young Goldfinch has the bright yellow wing bars but lacks the black head, white nape and red face that makes the adult so distinctive. It is however cute (if you like that sort of thing!)
As you may see from the above photographs and those below young birds are not very wary are are therefore extremely vulnerable:


Young Starling on a bench

Young Sparrows sunbathing
 

This obviously leaves them exposed to predation.
The most prolific killer of young birds is of course the domestic cat, they are relatively easy pickings for them, especially if they are on the ground. Whether they are on the ground, on roof-tops or on exposed branches of a tree there is another predator which times the birth of their young to match the abundance of young blue tits, goldfinch, sparrow, etc..................the aptly named Sparrowhawk:

Sparrowhawk

This one was visiting my neighbour's garden looking for some nice tit-bits to eat.
I've also had them in my garden, going by the evidence I found.............a pile of feathers an a neatly removed greenfinch beak!
So small baby birds beware!!
Some larger baby birds may well be save from Sparrowhawks, but they also have to be careful as there are plenty of other predators out there, Peregrine Falcons and Goshawks to name but two.
That is why some birds (in particular sea birds) like to nest in colonies either on high cliffs or islands out at sea. On Inchcolm Island in the Firth of Forth you can see lots of sea birds nest on the island and the surrounding rocks. Birds such as Puffins, Heron Gulls, Guillemots, Cormorants, etc all like to nest in places like this.
Here is a Herring Gull chick I photographed on Inchcolm Island:

Herring Gull Chick

In all honesty it may be a Lesser Black-backed Gull, I can't tell the difference when they are this young. Whether it's a cute chick or not is open to debate.
I'll leave you with one or two pictures of one of my favourite baby birds.
I had the privilege of working for Friends of Kailzie Wildlife in the Scottish Borders not too long ago and had an opportunity to attend the 'ringing' of the Osprey chicks which they monitor using high definition cameras and feature in their wildlife centre. These are wild birds which fly to West Africa every Autumn and return in the Spring to the same nest to lay their eggs.
Just before the young Osprey are about to fledge they are brought down from the nest on top of a very high tree and given lovely ankle bracelets to identify them by. Remember these 'chicks' are only about six weeks old, but have been fed by the parents on a high protein diet of fish, fish and fish. So if you want the kids to grow up nice and strong you know what to feed them.............
I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed the experience:

Osprey Chick Posing

You lookin' at me?

Me with some chicks

So watch out for those baby birds when the Springtime finally arrives

Take care

Teddyedward




To Pitlochry and Beyond

It was my birthday  a few days back and I decided to take a little trip 'Up North' to the Pitlochry area, to enjoy the scenery and hopefully spot some interesting wildlife.
There had been some snow recently and although it had all disappeared from the central belt I was hopeful of snapping some wintry scenes with snow-capped hills the further north we went.
Our first stop on our trip up the A9 was at The Hermitage, just outside Dunkeld. There was a little sprinkling of snow here but the wildlife definitely was keeping a low profile and there was certainly no opportunity to photograph any. What I did manage to photograph was something that seemed out of place and out of season. It was something I normally associate with an urban environment and I normally see in late October or early November.......................it was a bonfire in the middle of a field half way up a hillside...........strange but true.

A bonfire in February?......no Guy though

Perhaps it was to do with some weird Perthshire cult, like the Wickerman, I didn't wait to find out and beat a hasty retreat.
Back on the A9 and heading North we were feeling a bit peckish and desperately in need of a cup of tea. Luckily just past Dunkeld is a great little cafe near a hamlet called Dowally (hamlet is stretching it a bit as I think there are only three houses). I like the name Dowally, sounds a bit eccentric to me, anyway the cafe was beckoning us:

Food, Drink and Crafts....what more could you want?

I plumped for the black pudding roll and Moira had a roll on bacon, all washed down with lashings of hot tea.........scrumptious.
We were ready to hit the open road once again. Talking about roads Dowally sits on one of General Wade's roads, which were built back in the 1700's to allow the rapid deployment of the Government's troops in order to quash any potential Jacobite uprising...........I wonder if they stopped for a black pudding roll and tea?
Onwards and upwards, our next stop was just outside Pitlochy, alongside the River Tummel. Although there was no snow here there was a slight covering on the distant hills, so I took a picture:

River Tummel

What I didn't notice, but Moira kindly pointed out, was a couple of cows coming down to the river to drink. They weren't Highland Coos, more of the 'How Now Brown...' type:

Refreshments Stop

I thought they were quite brave as the Tummel is a deep fast-flowing river. It flows into the River Tay a few miles further downstream to create Britain's largest river (in terms of volumetric flow). At an average flow of some 200 cubic metres per second more water flows into the sea from the River Tay than the Thames and Severn added together. Your interesting fact for the day!!
Back to our trip to Pitlochry.........which was looming close as the nearby sign indicated:

I didn't see many flowers but it was bloomin' cold.
When we drove into Pitlochry I headed straight for the car park near the Dam and Fish Ladder, strategically avoiding all the 'nice shops' in the town (after all it was MY birthday outing).
A short walk from the car park takes you right onto the top of the Dam, giving excellent views of Loch Faskally on one side and the River Tummel on the other side.

Loch Faskally

River Tummel from the Dam

The dam itself is a large concrete and steel structure with a power station at one end, but don't think that this massive man-made structure meant the area was devoid of wildlife, quite the opposite.
Although it was the wrong time of year to see salmon working their way up the fish ladder there were a few fishermen still about.
There were the human type:

Fishing on the Tummel

And the bird type:

Heron on the Tummel

There were also disco ducks:

 

Well it's a Tufted Duck really with some brightly coloured reflections on Loch Faskally.

The next photo probably illustrates better why it's called a 'tufted' duck:

Tufted Duck on Loch Faskally

Other interesting sights included the Fish Ladder or Fish Pass, which is basically a series of concrete tanks joined together running from the top of the dam to the bottom. The water in each tank flows through to the adjacent lower one via a small pipe, so the tanks don't empty. The salmon are strong enough to swim from the river up through these small pipes of fast-flowing water to reach the loch above and on to their spawning grounds. Some even jump across the dividing walls between tanks if the pipe traffic is busy. They usually do this in October/November so no photos of them in February.

Here is a photo of the Fish Ladder though:

Fish Ladder or Fish Pass

For those of you more interested in Mechanical rather than Civil Engineering here is a photo of one of the turbine impellers (or a Francis runner to give it a more classical name).

Francis Turbine Runner

There are two turbines at the Power Station each generating 7.5MW, so not huge but worth having.

Here is a photo of the Dam and Power Station:

Pitlochry Power Station

Enough of the engineering, let's get back to the wildlife watching, here is a Blue Tit at the car park on the way out:

Blue Tit in tree

And a Carrion Crow in a tree, keeping its beady eyes on me...........

 

Crow looking for some carrion

After leaving the Dam we stopped at a cafe in Pitlochry for some well deserved apple pie and coffee, then a quick turn round one of the 'very nice' shops before heading back down the A9.

On our way South we took a detour, turning off at Ballinluig and headed West towards Aberfeldy.

We didn't stop at Aberfeldy but took the A826 which heads up over the hills to Crieff (this was also part of General Wade's military road network).

The higher we went the more snow we saw at the side of the road, luckily the roads were clear but they had obviously had quite a bit of snow recently:

 

Wintry Conditions

As we came past a clearing in the trees we spotted a couple of Red Deer Stags and stopped the car:

 

Stags in the Clearing

The deer suddenly froze and just stood there watching the car. I'm sure if I had got out at this stage they would have bolted so I stayed in the car. Luckily I had my cameras on the back seat and I managed to run off a few photographs:

 

Red Deer Stags

Another car pulled up behind us and when he seen why we had stopped he started taking photos on his mobile phone. They even stood still long enough for me to get my camera with the zoom lens out and take an even closer photo:

 

Red Deer Stag

They weren't exactly 'Monarchs of the Glen' but were impressive enough and very obliging when it came to photographing them. In fact I got bored before they did and drove off............and no they were not made of plastic, they did move...........slightly.

We headed on up the hill and joined the A822 which took us through the Sma' Glen, with some dramatic scenery on the way:

 

Heading to the Sma' Glen



As we dropped into the Sma' Glen there was less snow around, although there was some still on the hills around us:

 

Yeti in the Sma'Glen

As we drove on to Crieff and made our way home via Gleneagles and Glendevon I realised that I did manage to achieve my birthday wish of snow-capped hills and some winter wildlife (not to mention apple pie).

 

Take care out there,

 

Teddy Edward

 

 

 

 

 

 



Winter Wildlife

It's January and some of you may be experiencing winter weather. Some of you may even have snow. I know it is snowing in England............... because it's on the BBC News every five minutes!!

We had a little snow in Scotland at the weekend, not much just a dusting of icing sugar, but it was cold nevertheless. If it's cold for us wrapped up in our winter woollies imagine what it's like for the poor birds and animals!!
So I thought I'd grab my camera and go out and see if I could find some winter wildlife around the Queensferry & Kirkliston area.
My first stop was a little back road known locally as the Royal Elizabeth Yard (it used to be a Royal Navy Victualling Depot some years back i.e. it stored navy supplies including the rum rations).
Here I snapped the following picture of the distant Pentland Hills to set the wintry scene:


Snowy Pentland Hills

As you can see from the picture there was not a lot of wildlife to photograph so I moved on. Next stop was Pepper Wood, where I parked up and headed to the old railway line that runs between Dalmeny and Kirkliston. This is now a cycle/walkway and surprisingly enough there were a handful of people out walking some with and some without the obligatory dog.
I thought I might be able to snap a few birds in the trees along this walkway but they were being very elusive, hiding in the undergrowth and simply refusing to pose for me..........so I just had to photograph the walkway:

The Old Railway Line

I'm always on the look-out for quirky things and I did find a strange vision, where a gap in the trees had allowed some snow to settle right next to a bush with pinkish branches. Made for a bit or a surreal image I thought............

Pink'n'white

Looks like the bush has dandruff!!

Anyway I did manage to find some wildlife in the form of a gaggle of geese in a nearby field, the only problem was they were quite far away. I had no sooner got in a position to take a photo of them and they decided to take off. Oh blast! I thought.........so all I managed to snap was a couple of distant photos of them taking to the air and flying off:

 

Geese take-off

And disappear

 

I think they were Greylag geese but I couldn't be certain as I didn't get a chance to study them and my photos are too crappy to tell.

Anyway I thought I'd head towards the back of Edinburgh Airport, as there are usually a few geese hanging about in the fields round there. The B9080, which use to be the original A9 from Edinburgh to Stirling, Perth, Infinity and beyond before they extended the runway at Edinburgh Airport is a great road to learn to drive on and also surprising good for viewing winter wildlife. Here I managed to get a little closer to a largish flock of Greylags:

 

Greylag Geese in field, Kirkliston in background

 I did manage to get closer than that:

Greylags Grazing

Even though I was well wrapped up it was cold so I didn't dwell and headed back to the comfort of my car. Makes you realise that wildlife is made of tougher stuff than we are. Certain geese, ducks and swans come to Scotland in the winter because they find it warm, certainly warmer than the Arctic regions where they choose to nest and raise their young.

Some greylags stay all year round in Scotland but some go further North to breed, so when they return in the winter the numbers swell, hence it is the most common goose to see in Scotland in the winter. We do get other flavours of geese, particularly Pink-footed Geese which also come here in large numbers and if your lucky you'll see Barnacle, White-fronted, Brent and Bean Geese to name but a few.

Goose seems to becoming a popular Xmas dish so these Greylags need to be wary............I wonder what Bean Goose tastes like??......... Perhaps in a Black Bean sauce..........hmm!!!.......not very wildlife-friendly.

These geese, and thousands of others, spend all day grazing in stubble field and munching new shoots but in the evening they all take to the air and fly back to their evening roosts which are usually beside water such as a loch or river estuary. Places like Loch Leven in Fife, Aberlady Bay in East Lothian and Caerlaverloch near Dumfries as brilliant places to visit if you want to see thousands of geese arriving to roost in the evening or leaving to graze in the early morning (depending on your approach to early rises)

As grazing birds like geese seem to thrive well enough in Scottish winters, I wondered how other wildfowl that depend heavily on open water for their food were coping. For this reason I jumped back in the car and drove to nearby Humbie Reservoir (aka Carmelhill). This is more of a fishing pool created by a restricting weir on the Swine Burn, never-the-less it is a good little stretch of water to see wildfowl.

Humbie Reservoir (aka Carmelhill or Swine Burn Pool)

Although the far end of the pool was covered in a layer of ice the near-side (where the weir is) was relatively ice-free and occupied by a family of Mute Swans. It may actually be two families as there appeared to be two adults and five cygnets. However one of the adults may have been a juvenile from two seasons ago as it would also be all-white by now (unlike this season's cygnets which still had a significant covering of grey feathers in this their first winter):

Swan Family

If it was one family, that's a lot of cygnets to bring-up in one season, I'm sure one of you Swan experts out there will put me right. Anyway it was rewarding to see they were all thriving and managing to find something to eat in this half-frozen pond (even though it was some rancid looking pond week............not to dissimilar to the cabbage we use to get for school dinners.....yuk!)

You might be wondering how mammals cope with the Scottish winter, after all they don't migrate to warmer climates. Well most British mammals are hard to see (and photograph) in the summer months and appear to become even more elusive in the winter months, especially small mammals like voles and mice which don't hibernate but do keep snuggled up in their homes unless they really have to go out to feed. This is why a lot of birds of prey such as buzzards, kites and even golden eagles will scavenge more than normal during the winter months, when live prey is less abundant. Larger mammals such as Red Deer will venture off the hilltops in severe weather and come down to lower ground where they can find grazing that is free of snow and ice.

The only mammal I did manage to photograph was horses in jackets (makes a change from pigs in blankets!!):

Horses in Jackets (not in Tesco beefburgers)

As we have seen the larger birds such as geese and swans seem to be coping well with the winter but what about the smaller birds? Well there are some smaller birds that find our Scottish climate relatively balmy and leave the chill of Scandinavia behind to sunbathe over here in the winter. These include thrushes like Redwing, Fieldfare and Blackbird as well as Starling, Brambling, Goldfinch, Waxwing, Robin and Bluetit to name a few. So the birds in you garden in winter time could well be a mixture of resident birds and migrants, perhaps why there appear to be more in the winter than in summer, especially if you feed them.

Feeding garden birds is very popular in Britain and I'm sure it must have a significant impact on the survival of many of the smaller birds over the winter months (so keep it up!). Here is a couple of snaps of birds that visit my garden to be fed:

 

 

Goldfinch in the Buddleia

Starlings love seed in dripping

Goldfinch & Siskin on the Feeders

 Well that's enough from me on the winter wildlife in my locality, not always the most exotic but great to see anyway. Hope you all keep wrapped up during the winter months, but don't be frightened to get out there now and again and see what wildlife you can find.

 

Take care,

 

Teddy Edward