A Tenting Trip to Tentsmuir

Well it's official, Fridays have been renamed as Eddays (at least by me they have). Since I recently changed to working four days per week (Monday to Thursday) I have declared Fridays as official 'do what I want' days. I know it sounds selfish but I have my lovely wife's blessing to get out in the countryside and do what I enjoy doing (and she can get time to do what she enjoys doing).
Last Friday was the first opportunity for me to do just what I wanted, so I packed up my tent and my bird-watching gear and headed north. I did not travel too far from home, just to a campsite at Strathkinness near St Andrews, where I pitched my tent ready for the day ahead:

Getting Started

Tent Erected

With the tent erected I could get started on my great adventure, a nature-packed fun day at Tentsmuir Forest. As I didn't hang around there was no scope for the old 'loitering within tent' joke so I won't mention it.
From the vantage point of the campsite I could actually see Tentsmuir Forest, just beyond the Eden Estuary and RAF Leuchars.

Eden Estuary with Tentsmuir Beyond

Once I had driven through Guardbridge and Leuchars I went along the narrow road that takes you to the car park at the southern end of Tenstmuir. I got all my clobber together (rucksack, binoculars, telescope, etc.) and set off through the woods heading towards the beach.
It's a great place for wildlife watching Tentsmuir because you get so many different habitats in the one area. There is a conifer forest, extensive dunes, a beach with golden sand, the Eden Estuary, the Tay Estuary, etc. I had been there before but did not spend as much time as I would have liked.

Tentsmuir Forest and Dunes

Once I reached the beach I set up my trusty telescope ready for a bit of 'sea watching' whilst I was having my lunch. My apologies to my work colleagues but this is really where I want to be on Fridays at lunch time!

Telescope in Position for Lunch on the Beach

So with the sun shining in the sky and the sound of skylarks singing in the background I sat down to each my lunch whilst watching squadrons of gannets plunge-diving into the sea in search for their lunch.......bliss!!
After lunch I headed north along the beach keeping a watchful eye out for any wildlife. I know that many people don't count insects as wildlife, but I do like my bugs, here are a couple I spotted:

7-spot Ladybird on beach

Ground Bug or Beetle?

I am afraid I still haven't been able to identify the little armour plated bug, so any suggestions would be welcome.
I was also fascinated by the natural sculptures I found on the beach, such as these pieces of driftwood:

Fossilised Skull or Driftwood?

Crocodile near Dundee?

As I moved north I came inland from the beach to the sand dune area and stumbled across what looked like a dried up river bed:

Dried up River Bed

It also had some natural artwork around the edges where the water had evaporated in stages:

Natural Artwork

It even looked like the dried up river bed had a dried up crocodile on the far bank waiting to pounce?

Watch out for the Croc

I moved onto where there was a bit more vegetation and found some lovely dune flowers:

Birds-foot Trefoil

Silverweed with Ladybird



Sea Sandwort

There were also plenty of birds about including skylarks, gulls, pied wagtails, terns, etc. but they would not sit still long enough for me to photograph them. So I just enjoyed watching them and listening to them singing.
As I moved further up the coast I noticed towards Tentsmuir Point that there was some movement on a sandbank just off the shore. I set up my telescope and saw that it was a group of Atlantic Grey Seals clinging on to the remnants of a sandbank which the rising tide was trying hard to submerge.

Seals on Sandbank

I tried to get closer to the seals by moving further north towards the point but the tide was rising fast and the sandbank was not going to be there much longer:

Resisting the incoming tide

I grabbed my camcorder and tried to catch the drama as it unfolded, these seals were definitely not wanting to give up their sunbathing position in a hurry:

It was fascinating watching these seals cling on to this little patch of sand until finally they had to face the inevitable and swam off in search of somewhere else to sunbathe.
As I had now reach the most northerly point of this peninsular I moved west and headed inland, it was a shame to leave such a glorious beach and dune setting but here is a couple of photos to enjoy:

Unspoilt Beach at Tentsmuir Point



Tin Shack on Stilts....why?

Just before I left the dunes there was an old railway wagon on a plinth which I thought was strange, then I found a interpretation panel which explained all:

Rusty Wagon?



Now I understand!

Once I moved off the sand dunes I was expecting to enter back into the conifer plantation that makes up most of Tentsmuir Forest, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a little deciduous woodland:

Lovely Woodland

If you look carefully you will see a creature lurking under the shade of one of the trees..........

Highland Cow Sculpture

Yes it's a rare Irn Bru Coo made from girders.
Not only was it a lovely woodland with nice sculptures there were lots of pretty flowers and butterflies about including the following:

Common Dog Violet

Green-veined White on Bluebell

The Cinnabar

For those of you who like butterflies but hate moths I present Exhibit A: The Cinnabar (moth)...............I rest my case m'lud!!
I had reach the point in my adventure where I had the choice of carrying on along the Tay estuary to Tayport or head back through the forest to the car park. As it was after 4pm I thought I would mosey on back to the car park and then drive back to the campsite for some well earned bangers and beans.
It was a pleasant trip back through the forest:

Path thro' Tentsmuir Forest

I wasn't in any hurry and stopped several times to look at various birds, flowers and butterflies before I got to the car park, then headed back to the campsite.
Tent was still there OK but now the campsite was a lot busier. So I set up my cooker and got my grub on:

Tent and Chuck Wagon

Soon I was enjoying my sausages, beans and tattie scones, all wash down with lashings of hot tea, whilst enjoying the beautiful view:

Meal-time View

All in all I had a great day, so I topped it off by having a stroll down to the Strathkinness Tavern ( http://www.strathkinnesstavern.co.uk/index.html ) to enjoy a couple of pints of real ale.

All Fridays (sorry Eddays) should be like this!

Take Care

TeddyEdward

Come Rain or Shine

I get stir crazy if I'm stuck indoors for too long....... and the weather this January and February has meant I haven't got out in the countryside quite as often as I would have liked.
The last weekend in February was cold, wet and windy and by the time it got to Sunday afternoon I had had enough and decided I had to go out to preserve my sanity. I jumped in my car and had a tour around my local patch in West Lothian in the hope that some wildlife was still around despite the horrible weather.
I did manage to see a cormorant swimming along the River Almond just behind Edinburgh Airport, it was waterproof and totally oblivious to the wind and rain. I filmed it on my camcorder but it wasn't very spectacular so I won't bore you with it.
I then moved on to Humbie Pond just before Winchburgh and although there was plenty of birds there (swans, mallards, coots, herons, etc.) they were so far away that I could not get a decent photo of them. In fact I only managed to get my camera soaked.
A little further along the road I stopped at a regular haunt where I usually see a variety of wildlife, but this time nothing to report apart from wet trees and muddy fields:

Wet & Windy West Lothian

Wet & Muddy Fields

I was beginning to think I was wasting my time as I drove along the puddle-ridden back roads that run behind Newton village............then just as I turned a corner a red-legged partridge ran across the road in front of me and took shelter beneath a hedge at the side of the road. I pulled on to the verge, grabbed my trusty camcorder, wound down the passenger window and started to film:

Stationary cars make great bird hides as the birds don't seem to recognise them as a threat, but as soon as you step outside the car and they see a little silhouetto of a man ........... Scaramouche! .......... they are off.
With the partridge in the bag (so to speak) and buoyed by my success I drove on but I am afraid my luck had run out. All I managed to find and photograph after that was a wet tree and some miserable looking ponies in a field:

Wet & Knarled Oak

Very Damp Ponies

I didn't even bother to get out of the car it was so wet and miserable............. I just drove home..........glad I wasn't a poor pony out in a field.

...................................................................................

 

The next weekend was the first weekend in March and officially the start of Spring and the weather could not have been more different. It was dry, sunny, relatively warm and there was no wind.
Although I had a lot on that weekend I did manage to get out to the countryside around West Lothian for a short while one afternoon.
This time Humbie Pond was basking in late afternoon sunshine (the birds were still too far away to photograph):

Humbie Pond

Round the corner the roads had dried up a bit and the views were a little better:

Sunny West Lothian



Not so Muddy Fields

There was no partridge to see this time but I did manage to bag one of it's cousins............the not-so-intelligent pheasant:

Pheasant in Ploughed Field

 The knarled oak still looked knarled but now basked in sunshine:

Knarled Oak and Blue Skies

The damp ponies were not so damp and looked a lot less miserable and I even got out the car to take their photo:

Happier Ponies

It was such a nice afternoon I took a trip to one of my favourite woodlands, a small SWT reserve called  'Pepper Wood' to see if Spring had indeed sprung.

Pepper Wood (on the right)

Here there were certainly signs of a windy winter with many small trees and branches blown down. One of the things I like about Pepper Wood is that the SWT maintain it with a light touch and don't feel the need to clear away all the fallen branches which provides not only good habitats for wildlife but also some spectacular natural sculptures:

Mossy Log

Giant Stick Insect

Blunt-nosed Serpent

I had a look around for signs of Spring and there was certainly some evidence that it was on it's way.
Birds like robins and blue tits were flitting all over the place defending territory and chasing rivals away. A clear sign that they were gearing up for the breeding season.
Snowdrops were already well in bloom and daffodils were almost ready to burst into life:

Snowdrops in Bloom (with green moustaches)

Daffodils fit to Burst

 One of my least favourite plants in Pepper Wood also had a head start, the dreaded butterbur:

Butterbur Sprouting

Butterbur Carpet

This can carpet large areas of the woodland and can grow over a metre high with large leaves which deprive all other plants of the sunlight they need to grow.
Some other early blooms were the gorse bushes, often overlooked or even despised for their spikiness, but their flowers are lovely:

Gorse Bloom

In the late Spring these gorse bushes give off an intoxicating smell of coconut, but they are definitely jaggy.
So that was about all from my little trip to Pepper Wood and I concluded that if Spring had not already sprung it will not be long until it does.
I'll leave you with a little photo of blue skies as seen from the woodland:

Blue Skies over Pepper Wood

 

So remember whether it is rain or shine the wildlife is still out there, you just have to go out and find it

Take Care,

Teddy Edward

Digiscoping Doon the Ferry

Most of December and January has been blighted by wind and rain. So the other day when the weather improved and the forecast was merely 'showery' I took advantage of the time between showers to do some digiscoping.
What is digiscoping I hear you ask?..................and is it legal?
Basically if you are a keen bird watcher you will have a telescope and you may also have a basic digital camera. Digiscoping brings these two elements together: by clamping your camera to the correct end of the telescope you will have (in theory) the equivalent of a long zoom lens camera.
What you have in reality is a contraption that looks like this:

Digiscoping set-up

It looks a bit cumbersome, but does it work?
To put it to the test I took a little trip down to the shore-line at South Queensferry to try and photograph some waders. When asked I often advise those starting up on the bird watching trail to get themselves down to an estuary just when the tide is going out and they will see plenty of waders.
I of course arrived when the tide was coming in and the majority of the waders had departed for higher and drier ground.
Even though the waders were a bit thin on the ground (more on the rocks to be honest) the view was still spectacular:


Doon the Ferry

This was taken before I strapped the camera to the telescope.
Once I had the contraption all set up and I finally located a few waders (and other birds) I started snapping away. I must admit it was quite difficult to adjust the focus on the telescope looking through the camera and there was a great deal of camera 'shake' to contend with as well.
That's my excuse for the quality of the photographs I did take........judge for yourselves:

Oystercatcher

Carrion Crow

Curlew

These birds were over 100 yards away from where I was standing so the zoom element definitely worked but the 'shake' did impact on the quality.
What I did find out though is that I got on much better doing some videoscoping!
By using the video recording function on the small digital camera I managed to get these images:

 

 

Not quite BBC HD Wildlife Filming standard but I thought they were not bad considering my filming equipment was a bit more basic. Certainly worth trying a bit more of this in the future.
Buoyed by this minor success I thought I would move upstream of the Forth Bridges and see if I could find some more subjects to digiscope. Anyway it was coming on rain now.
I moved round to Society Point had a cup of coffee from my flask and waited for the rain to go off.
Once the rain had passed I snapped a couple of photographs of the Forth Bridges:

Rain passing over Forth Bridges

Forth Bridges after rain

So with the rain almost gone I thought I could get some more digiscoping done. However the weather had other ideas and a slight wind had got up, enough to stop me getting any decent photos of any birds, which were quite far away.
There were redshank, oystercatchers, curlew and black-headed gulls there but you will have to just take my word for it. All I managed to snap with the digiscope set-up was a blurred image of one of the cranes being used to build the third Forth Bridge:

 

Fuzzy Yellow Crane

You can just see this crane in the foreground of the previous photos of the Bridges, so that shows you how powerful a zoom the telescope can provide........pity about the quality.
Anyway it was time to leave and would you believe it the sun actually made an appearance.
I'll leave you with a couple of photos taken from Society Point:

Beach from Society Point
 

Sunshine over Fife

So if you every decide to take up digiscoping don't ask me for any tips.

Cheers

Teddyedward