Postcards from the Outer Hebrides, May 2014

"It's easy to be lulled by the harsh poetry of the crofters' lifestyle, the community's lilting dialect, their love of music and the aesthetic possibilities of spun wool..." 

Mark Cocker, 'Birders - Tales of a Tribe'

It's never much fun coming home from holiday is it? The last few days have certainly been a struggle, rushed from the relative calm of Inverness, via the Caledonian Sleeper, to a Euston station morning rush hour. But it was my decision to head straight back to work with minimal sleep so I have no one else to blame. London is a long way from the Outer Hebrides but it seems even further away now after the ten fantastic days we had hopping through the islands recently.

Travelling south - north, from Barra and Vatersay to Tarbert on Harris, via the Uists and Berneray, revealed a series of fascinating islands, each steeped in history and spoiled with some of the most mesmerising wild landscapes I have ever seen. Mountain, dune and machair, at times they seemed just strides apart. And the Beaches, the white sand and turquoise waters - imagine an overcast day in Thailand with ringed plovers where the tourists would be and 30mph winds perhaps. Glorious in other words.

Of course the birds were great too and a steady diet of MaCleans macaroni pies meant I explored a lot and had some memorable encounters along the way. Unfortunately those encounters did not stretch to the Snowy Owl at Solas as I got the news too late, but you can't win 'em all. We did eventually pass that way, but only to meet with the worst of the trip's weather which was otherwise pretty good. It's hard to find a Snowy Owl when you can barely stand for the wind and can taste the sand in your mouth. We did manage to see, eventually, another Hebridean speciality though. Hearing that 'crex crex' sound for the first time in an overgrown front garden on Barra was a nice moment - that sound belonging to a Corncrake, less a bird, more a jarring 'song' wrapped in a riddle. That noise followed us places, unseen, until the last day when we got lucky and passed a garden from which a bird flew up briefly then disappeared, looking as surprised as I was. Looking at the map of the Corncrake's rapid and systematic decline across the British Isles on the wall in the Balranald RSPB visitor centre was as stark and sad reminder as there could be of the importance of mending our ways with our landscape. Other highlights included numerous Golden eagles, especially around Harris, Short-eared Owl, Twite, ubiquitous Arctic terns and the acrobatic (and brilliantly close) Arctic skuas chasing them. It was great to see large numbers of dunlin and ringed plovers on their breeding grounds for a change, instead of a Kentish mudflat shrouded in winter mist. Likewise, it was interesting how relatively commonplace cuckoos were, with willow warblers topping the charts for migrant passerines.

All in all, it was an amazing trip and thoroughly recommended. I look forward to going back one day, but for now, here are a few photographs...

If there's one thing better than the scallops and chips from the fish bar on the main street in Oban, it's the confiding black guillemots (Cepphus grylle) in the harbour...

The chapel at Howmore, South Uist. We stayed in a traditional 'blackhouse', now a small bunkhouse, just to the left. The machair teemed with bird life and the sounds of drumming snipe at dusk confused some of the other guests!

Well you've gotta move your cattle somehow - photo taken from the back of the Royal Mail Post Bus no less. We saw a LOT of post boxes on this trip.

More usually seen in drab winter plumage on in-land gravel pits and reservoirs in the south, a summer-plumaged Great Northern Diver (Gavia immer) is an all-together different beast. A velvet-black head and a back that could be marked with constellations, they were a common sight from the beaches.

I had never heard a Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) sing before this trip. Front of the queue in the looks department but late for a song, it was nevertheless nice to hear the quiet, Stonechat-esque warbles trickling down the hillsides.

Peat cutting by Loch Druidibeg, South Uist.

Traigh Lar at Balranald RSPB, North Uist.

Somewhere on Berneray - the smallest island we visited but one of my favourites.

The sheep of North Uist have voted.

Kayaking on the flat calm bays of East Harris - not far from Loch Needletail (where respects were duly paid)

Arctic skuas chasing terns at Luskantyre beach, Harris.

Patch notes and Nightingales

Yesterday morning I visited my local patch for the first Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) of the year. This is the 20th year of the British Trust for Ornithology’s BBS survey which is an admirable landmark in UK conservation. Every year a large number of volunteers conduct at least 2 visits to their given 1km square, recording all the birds (and mammals) they see and hear in the vicinity. The result is an important snap shot of local and national bird populations at a key time in the year. Tied in with this data are useful notes on land use, habitats and significantly, changes in habitat.

This is the 3rd year I’ve surveyed this site in North Kent between early May and June and it’s something that I always look forward to. My square has remained largely unchanged in 20 years; open, tilled fields interspersed with a few bushes form the primary landscape, with houses, gardens and a woodland edge filling in one corner. There have been a few subtle changes including a new hedgerow that is now gloriously deep and shrubby as well as two small copses, planted as a result of agri-environment stewardship funds for the farmer. It is remarkable what a difference this small change makes.

It’s been interesting to see what changes have taken place in the last 20 years, since 1994 - the last year a Spotted Flycatcher and Yellowhammer was recorded here in Spring. Numbers of skylarks and corn buntings, the stars of my patch, have remained fairly stable, while starlings have dropped considerably. My great hope is that the pair of Turtle Dove which were recorded for 3 consecutive years from 2002, but not since, will one day return. To my eyes, this landscape could support them, I guess I’ll just wait and hope. A quick scan through the summary of 20 years of data also shows that this unremarkable piece of farmland has recorded 65 species on the BBS survey, not all breeding of course, but it shows how important even a seemingly featureless part of the countryside can be and how important it is we look after it.

 Here is the latest chapter in the survey, as of yesterday between 05:52 and 07:10am. Conditions were good - overcast with some brief drizzle giving to cool, calm morning. The highlight was probably 4 wheatears together in one field, but this was the part where I walk between the transect lines that split my square, so not valid in this instance. It was good to see my first local Swift too and equally heartening to encounter 4 singing Corn buntings and numerous skylarks. It also looks like a good year for whitethroats - calling and displaying from the very areas planted to improve the area for wildlife. And that is rewarding indeed.

BBS visit (1) 2014:

Red-legged Partridge 5
Grey Heron 1
Woodpigeon 22
Collared Dove 3
Swift 1
Green Woodpecker 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker 1
Magpie 1
Jackdaw 1
Carrion Crow 3
Goldcrest 1
Blue Tit 2
Great Tit 1
Skylark 16
Swallow 2
Blackcap 5
Whitethroat 5
Wren 3
Starling 9
Blackbird 5
Song Thrush 2
Robin 8
Dunnock 4
House Sparrow 2
Chaffinch 6
Linnet 1
Corn Bunting 4

I wonder what changes we’ll see to this list in the next 20 years?

Common Whitethroat (Sylvia communis) singing from the same perch as it did in 2013

One bird that is found locally but it is unlikely to make it to my patch is the Nightingale. Writing in the Independent this week, Michael McCarthy recounts an interesting encounter with a Nightingale in Chiswick of all places - but it’s an encounter which we could all be sharing soon:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/nature-studies-isnt-it-time-the-bbc-broadcastthe-song-of-the-nightingale-again-9324038.html

He is urging the BBC to broadcast the song of the Nightingale on Sunday 18th May - 90 years after they first broadcast it to huge acclaim. I hope they do. With the fate of this declining bird’s single most important UK breeding site (in North Kent) in the balance due to development, it is a song that deserves to be heard.