On a midweek run, Backwoodsman was surprised to see a stand of Autumn Crocus just by the Pinkston Road in the little parcel of land planted up by the developers of the NorthBridge estate, right at the edge of the new Sighthill Park. Wet weather came over the following days so Backwoodsman was pessimistic that there would be anything to see by the weekend; Autumn Crocus are usually flattened by the rain. Sunday morning was brilliant with blue skies, so we went to look, taking in the ripening Pear crop by the canal at Pinkston, and the Water Lilies in the SUDS ponds on the way.
A small flock of Long-tailed Tits was enjoying the sunshine. They were unusually still in the tops of the Lime saplings; perhaps they were warming their tiny bones after a cold night.
The Autumn Crocus were doing very nicely despite the weather; more flowers had emerged, enlarging the groups and brightening the display, which was really pleasing.
Our eyes were drawn to a striking gallery of Starlings, mostly young birds.
Starlings like this part of North Glasgow – it offers feeding opportunities on grassland and also on the Borron Street tip. As we walked away from the Starlings, an upright and pale bird hopped into view and perched on the iron rail beside a SUDS pond metres in front of us.
We caught a flash of a white rump as it flew to the rail – Wheatear, we thought. The posture looked right, and the perching habit. We sat down for a cup of tea and watched. There were plenty of places (concrete benches, guard rails, waste bins) for the bird to perch on, and it took full advantage, moving around us and trying out the possibilities. It was happy to let Backwoodsman approach it with the camera, suggesting that it was a young bird. Adult Wheatears usually flee from the approaching photographer or walker.
This was a one-off sighting; Backwoodsman runs through this area regularly and would have noticed the bird had it remained. It would not seem unreasonable that this young bird had fledged on the rough grassland to the north and was beginning to range south as a prelude to migration.
Backwoodsman looked back through the archives for other possible Wheatears and arrived at a folder of images taken at Cardross on September 21st in 2024. An adult bird, definitely a female, was feeding in the brambles.
When she took off, the distinctive white rump was even more obvious.
Further down the foreshore, she visited a pair of young birds, identifying them unambiguously in the process.
We might have struggled with these birds – they could be juvenile or female Stonechats, or Whinchats. Their posture makes them look quite rotund, whereas one of the key descriptors of the Wheatear is “sleek”. The adult plumage is clearly developing; there is a strong hint of the eye stripe and the white rump is clear to see.
One Shetland sighting was particularly confusing. Backwoodsman spotted this individual some years ago on Sumburgh Head and was thinking Flycatcher, but it is probably a young Wheatear.
We spotted this bird not too far away; it may be in moult but it has some of the lovely grey colour which all the books give to adult Wheatears. It could be that this moulting adult was keeping an eye on the young bird as the latter learned its trade of foraging in the coastal grassland.
Any regular readers of these posts who track our movements will be ticking off the regular haunts, like North Glasgow and the Clyde at Cardross, and will be expecting to go to the Ayrshire coast any time soon. Stevenston has offered transient sightings of Wheatears, usually in the early autumn. We found this bird between Barassie Rocks and Irvine in mid-August.
Wheatears have a huge breeding range in the northern hemisphere and head south into Africa for the winter. There is an excellent account of this to be read, and of other behaviours and habits, courtesy of a PhD student carrying out research at the the Fair Isle Bird Observatory.
By now and with any luck, all our Wheatears will be a long way south. We’ll look forward to their return, and will hope to catch some in the striking grey breeding plumage.
Backwoodsman was fortunate to be booked on a boat trip to the Isle of May, organised by the Scottish Seabird Centre. The trip was a birthday present – thank you, Faye!
The trip took place on a day of brilliant light and across a flat calm sea. We passed by Bass Rock on the way, so it took a while to reach the Isle. Once we arrived at the Isle, we were free to wander, though the importance of staying to the clear paths was stressed by the warden from our boat. And with good reason – almost every part of the grassland seemed to contain a Puffin burrow. Puffins were everywhere, sitting in small groups, or setting off to fish.
There were even Puffins holding Sandeels in their bills, something we had not seen on any of our visits to Sumburgh Head in Shetland.
We headed to the edge of the Isle hoping for some good views down onto cliffs and opportunities to photograph nesting birds. The path took us to some good viewpoints and there, below us, were Kittiwakes and Guillemots in abundance.
Photographing Guillemots can be a bit frustrating, particularly if they are standing on a ledge and incubating eggs – one each, that is. Most birds will be facing the cliff, bill upturned; this group may contain some birds on eggs, though there are no eggs to be seen.
It is worth looking at the rocks on which the birds are standing; “ledge” might overstate the amount of space and stability on offer to some of these birds. As the Scottish Wildlife Trust says:
“Guillemots are fiercely territorial, defending what can be tiny nesting areas. They can show aggressive behaviour towards neighbours and the female may reside on the nest site for several weeks after the male takes the chick out to sea in order to protect the nest site from competitors. In some areas, such as the Isle of May, guillemots have been recorded to return to the nest sites as early as October, most probably to defend high-quality nest sites.”
“A single egg is laid directly onto the bare rock – no nest is made. The mottled egg is pear-shaped (pyriform), and this is a special adaptation so that the egg rolls round in a circle when disturbed rather than off the ledge.”
The Guillemot’s pyriform egg is really quite interesting and is much studied. A recent (2020) PhD Thesis by Dr Jamie Edward Thompson from the University of Sheffield entitled “Egg Shape in Birds” discusses the Guillemot’s egg in detail. Thompson points out that:
“[The] Guillemot’s pyriform egg is inherently stable, especially on a sloping ledge, allowing the egg to be more safely manipulated by the parents during incubation and incubation change-overs.”
From photographs, he concludes that the majority of incubating birds are oriented with their heads directed upslope; birds incubating their single eggs, have the blunt end of the egg oriented away from the bird and up the slope. This natural resting position of the egg tends to lift the blunt end up and away from the guano which inevitably carpets the densely crowded breeding ledges. There are many fascinating things in the thesis; one of the publications upon which the thesis is based contains this graphic which shows a whole spectrum of egg shapes, with the pyriform egg at one extreme.
In Chapter 3 of his thesis, Dr Thompson (a student of Tim Birkhead, author of The Most Perfect Thing: the Inside (and Outside) of a Bird’s Egg) writes about Edward Walter Wade (1864–1937), author of The Birds of Bempton Cliffs (1903, 1907). Thompson’s discussion shows Wade to be both an insightful ornithologist and climber of considerable nerve. Unfortunately, he was also an egg collector; page 53 of the thesis shows a remarkable image of Wade, or a fellow nest robber, swinging from a precipitous cliff by a rope.
Once the eggs have hatched, there are chicks. We were able to observe this group from the path close to the cliff top; there was space enough for the birds to be relaxed, and for the photographer to be confident about his footing.
One of the wardens walked by and suggested that the chicks were not too far from launching themselves from the cliff to begin their seagoing lives. Backwoodsman photographed this young Guillemot in September at Aberlady some years earlier.
Birds which are not incubating, and are perhaps waiting to go out fishing, show a bit more of themselves: the chocolate brown head and the yellow inside of the bill respond to strong sunshine.
The birds form rafts on the sea, and individuals will sometimes be sufficiently relaxed to allow close approach by a vessel.
The SWT also comment:
“Many North Atlantic and Arctic guillemots may display a variation in their summer plumage, displaying a striking narrow white spectacle around the eye and white line along the furrow behind the eye. This is not a distinct subspecies, but an alternate colouring that becomes more common the farther north the birds breed.”
It is estimated that approaching one million pairs breed in UK waters. The Forth Islands population is relatively modest in comparison with that based on other sites. Furthermore:
“…geolocation tracking data from common guillemots [was used] to show that they use fixed and individual-specific migration strategies, i.e. individuals go to the same wintering areas in successive years, showing fidelity to geographical sites. They point out that while this behaviour allows individual guillemots to become familiar with their chosen winter home, it represents a constraint in the context of rapidly changing environments. Guillemots may not be able to adjust their migration strategy as conditions change, for example as a consequence of depletion of forage fish stocks in their chosen wintering area, or impacts of climate change on forage fish distribution.”
It remains to be seen what impact the recently approved Berwick Bank development, potentially “the world’s largest offshore wind farm”, will have on the Forth Islands Guillemot population.
Backwoodsman will look forward to his next opportunity to visit the marvellous reserve that is the Isle of May.
We used to see Purple Sandpipers regularly at Troon on the Ballast Bank, our main place for the species, back in the day before the invasion by the Troon Tadpoles. Backwoodsman had taken a few pictures there but was stranded short of enough material for a post, and had begun to despair of seeing these pretty little waders again. The odd bird would turn up at Stevenston or Saltcoats but they were always distant. For example, this shot is a long range effort taken at Stevenston Point; the size contrast with the Redshank is quite striking.
A recent trip solved the problem. On a Saturday in mid-April, we had taken an early train from Glasgow Central to Gourock and boarded the ferry to Dunoon. It was a brilliant morning, and flat calm. The crew member collecting fares took note of the camera and spoke of dolphins on the inbound voyage. Backwoodsman scanned the middle distance; there were no cetaceans to be seen but small groups of Guillemots were flying low across the water, heading east and further into the mouth of the Clyde. This is a long-range shot made more difficult by the speed of the vessel in one direction and the birds in the other.
The vessel docked, the handful of passengers disembarked, and a larger group of gaudily-clad racegoers heading for the Scottish Grand National in Ayr boarded the empty vessel. We looked around the pier, initially hearing, and then seeing Black Guillemots courting.
We enjoyed watching the birds for a while before heading north east along the Esplanade into Kirn. Familiar sounds made their way to us across the water, the “yah-roo!”calls of displaying Eiders. We usual hear this call from a distance but it is even more pleasing at close quarters. Backwoodsman had recorded this video at WWT Martin Mere on the recent visit and was wondering if it would ever be useful for anything – here are some loud Eider calls.
The group of Dunoon birds came in quite close – they were too busy courting to be upset by figures on the shore.
We could see up to ten drakes and one duck at a time; they would sail about and call, and then the whole group would dive. The colours looked vibrant in the excellent light, particularly that incongruous botanical green on the back of the neck.
Herring Gulls watched them too.
We moved along, finding Turnstones, and then, oh joy, Purple Sandpipers. It was almost high tide by now but the Purple Sands were still foraging.
Summers et al. investigated the diet of these birds. At high tide, they feed on Kelp Fly up in banks of drying weed, and eat small shellfish when the water is lower and more of the shore accessible. Females have longer bills which allow them to take larger shellfish, Summers et al. referring to this as sexual size dimorphism.
According to the BTO, Purple Sandpipers do not breed regularly in the UK; their data for 2013-2017 has one pair breeding in northern Scotland, with of the order of ten thousand birds spending the winter with us.
Summers et al. also studied Purple Sandpiper migration making use of tracking devices. This seemed interesting:
“Purple Sandpipers winter at relatively high latitudes compared to other waders. It is suspected that the majority that winter in Britain and Ireland originate from Canada, but there is no primary evidence of their breeding grounds and migratory routes. These birds, characterised by their long bills, start to arrive in Britain and Ireland in late October/early November, after completing their post-nuptial moult at an unknown location. Fifty geolocators were attached to Purple Sandpipers in northern Scotland and southwest Ireland and we established for the first time their Canadian origin (Baffin Island and Devon Island), migration routes and post-nuptial moulting areas. Spring departure from Scotland and Ireland took place mainly in late May, followed by staging in Iceland and/or southwest Greenland before reaching the breeding grounds. Those that staged in Iceland departed earlier than those that flew directly to Greenland. Post-nuptial moulting areas were in southern Baffin Island, northern Quebec/Labrador (the Hudson Strait), and southwest Greenland. Migration from Baffin Island and Labrador took place during late October – early November, and during mid to late December from Greenland, usually in a single trans-Atlantic flight. Therefore, this migration was scheduled at a time when most other wader species are already on their wintering grounds. No birds staged in Iceland on the return trip. The flight from Baffin Island to Scotland and Ireland was accomplished in about 2.5 days at an average speed of about 1400 km per day. Freezing of coastal waters may be the reason for the eventual departure from the Hudson Strait. The more northerly route via Iceland, taken in spring by most birds, and the more southerly route in early winter were associated with seasonal shifts in the Atlantic low pressure systems (depressions) whose anti-clockwise wind-flows would have assisted flights.”
This material comes from an open access journal and the title page features a charming pencil sketch of Purple Sandpipers on the wing.
The birds do not look remotely purple in the strong morning light but a greyer sky and lower colour temperature bring out the effect for which they are named.
This image from Troon in early May shows a bird starting to develop some chestnut colour in the plumage below the neck in preparation for the long flight north and breeding.
At the highest point in the tide in Dunoon, we found birds in repose.
The light had gone by now and we headed back to the ferry. It had been a very enjoyable and productive morning. Perhaps there would be dolphins to see on the return trip? Alas, there were not, but the Purple Sands had delighted and now there was enough material for a post. Yah-roo!
Recently, Backwoodsman was offered, and was very grateful to make, a visit to WWT Martin Mere. The visit took place on March 11th in 2025 – thank you Mother for taking me. We were fortunate to visit before the feeding stopped on March 16th; it seems likely that the five hundred or so Whooper Swans which had wintered on the reserve would probably then head back to Russia, weather permitting. According to social media posts, the numbers of Whoopers were down below three hundred by March 17th and there were just ten on the reserve by March 24th.
The Whoopers were quite combative but then the spring is a tense time for birds, as hierarchies are established and breeding rights contested.
In front of the Discovery Hide, the Black-tailed Godwits were in a testy mood with bill-to-bill combat rife. The books don’t help much with this; while the excellent Waders by W. G. Hale describes the Godwit display behaviour, and refers to territory defence, it does not describe what Backwoodsman witnessed.
It was surprising to see the precision instrument that is the Godwit bill used in this way. Backwoodsman was also surprised to see the extent of the flexibility of the Godwit neck, which appears to be folded into a right-angle in some of his shots. Wader preening involves a range of contortions but these have mostly involved rotation rather than folding in Backwoodsman’s experience.
The Shelduck were at it too, with encroachment upon established pairs resisted strongly.
It is a treat to be able to sit in a hide while wild birds parade about just metres away. Whooper Swans seem to become quite relaxed after wintering at Hogganfield Loch and will come quite close, even when a big lens is being pointed at them. Godwit and Shelduck are something else entirely when Backwoodsman finds them in the wild with the former often taking to the wing, and the latter walking or gliding out to some distance. Not today!
The trick may well be in the feeding which the WWT undertake. At three o’clock sharp, a warden with a barrow emerged beside the Discovery Hide and began to hurl handfuls of grain to the gathering birds. They all came in; the Shelduck were all over it like seniors on a promise of a free biscuit.
The waders did some tidying up between the bigger units and the Pintail fed in the shallow water at the edge of the mere using their long necks to get grain off the bottom.
Backwoodsman has been hoping to make this post for a few years now. The problem has been getting enough Pintail images to do something decent.
Sightings of Pintail have mostly been confined to the WWT reserves, though we once saw one bird at Troon, and a small group upriver from Cardross on a freezing winter day with horizontal rain, the kind of day when the camera stays in a waterproof bag if the photographer has any sense at all.
Getting right on top of them in a hide and in good light rather changed the game. There were Pintail on the wing (the first image in the post) and in repose, Pintail sailing around looking elegant, and then groups of them upending.
Martin Mere seems to be a stronghold of this species – the BTO highlights Lancashire as a popular wintering site. Pintail are very seasonal with of the order of twenty thousand pairs present in the winter, and fewer than thirty pairs breeding in the UK.
There is a BTO document describing their mass movements and saying that: “The breeding area of the Pintail covers a large area of the northern Holarctic, across North America and Eurasia. The Pintail is mainly migratory and in most regions is a long distance migrant. Wintering areas are spread out in western and southern Europe, across Africa south of the Sahara, southwest Asia, India, southern China and Japan. North American Pintails move south and leave most of the breeding range during winter.”
Backwoodsman looked at the Featherbase site hoping to find the long feathers which give the species its name. He failed to do the job unambiguously. Though the wonderful rich colours of the bird can be seen in the individual feathers, it is hard to assemble them into anything like as glorious as the bird itself.
Backwoodsman cannot look at a Pintail without thinking of le gâteau Opéra to be found in any good pâtisserie, always Backwoodsman’s favourite indulgence when in France.
PS Backwoodsman thought you might like these gloriously-lit birds too; male Pochard, followed by male and female Wigeon.
Backwoodsman feels that there has been little good light for months now. As he emerges blinking from the trees, fetched out by the longer days, he thinks back to a brilliant day just before Christmas when he visited the Claypits LNR on a mission – to find and photograph the Water Rail.
This visit had been thought about for months, ever since we saw a Water Rail on the Forth and Clyde Canal near Stockingfield Junction one Sunday morning. There was no camera to hand so Backwoodsman could only stand and gape as a Water Rail swam across the canal from the towpath side, emerged into the rushes on the far bank and began to forage in full view. All was serene for a few minutes until it was spotted by one of the local Moorhens; hostilities broke out immediately and the Water Rail was pursued down the canal towards the bridge. Our walk continued through the Claypits LNR where we found a couple of birdwatchers with cameras. We lingered too long and they were onto us: “We’ve got a Water Rail, have you seen it?” and so on. We told them about our canal sighting but they so weren’t listening. We left and Backwoodsman resolved to go back on a very bright, cold and midweek day when the reserve might be less contested.
On December 19th 2024, Backwoodsman headed off to the Claypits LNR. The plan was spend an hour or two on the reserve and then jump on a number 7 bus up to Possil Marsh to look for waterfowl. It was a brilliant Thursday morning and absolutely freezing. Backwoodsman arrived at the reserve and crossed paths with a young woman on a mobility scooter; she had seen the bird but not for long enough to get it in focus and capture an image.
Backwoodsman took up a position on the small viewing platform which overlooks the reedy inlet from the canal. The platform looks a bit like a Juliet balcony; anyone standing on it definitely looms, so stillness and silence are essential if anything lurking in the reeds is likely to feel confident enough to emerge for very long. A Grey Heron looked down on Backwoodsman’s folly from its perch across the canal.
Backwoodsman watched; the sun went behind some cloud, the wind came up the canal like a swinging blade and the temperature dropped. Nothing much happened until a long string of bubbles appeared in the small patch of open water Backwoodsman was watching; then there were swirls in the water of the kind that a large Carp would make. A long brown shape with a tail broke surface for a second or two, and was gone. Both Otters and Mink are present in the area. Another time perhaps.
There was a growing clamour as two people in camo and woolly hats came into view. They were shouting, and in seconds, Backwoodsman found himself the filling in a numpty sandwich. Backwoodsman was interrogated; was he from the Clyde Bird Group, or Nature Scot, or the Bearsden Bird Botherers? They were loud, they were moving a lot and they were insufferable. Backwoodsman headed off on a circuit of the reserve.
The numpties had gone when Backwoodsman returned and all was quiet again, save for the calls of a pair of Wrens. They sped through, but not before one had posed attractively in good light.
Then something rather wonderful happened; a female Kingfisher visited, and stayed for quite a long time. These are Backwoodsman’s best images of this species; good light striking the birds really brings the semi-iridescence to life. The bird visited a number of perches; Backwoodsman likes the use it made of the Great Reedmace.
Backwoodsman was very cold by now and started to head for home. While pausing by the inlet for a last look, he was overtaken by a couple of wild-looking chaps hurling whole slices of bread into the inlet. “Aye son”, they shouted, “have you seen the heron?” Backwoodsman was able to tell them that their quarry had been perching in a tree earlier that morning but had flown off. “Son, son”, one shouted, “there’s a wee Robin behind you.”
Backwoodsman turned to see two male Bullfinches in good light, so here is one of them. After a brief discussion of the differences between Bullfinches and Robins, the three of us agreed that it was pure freezing and time for home and we went our separate ways.
So no Water Rails then? Well not on this visit. As it seems unlikely that one will be seen and photographed in north Glasgow by this observer, Backwoodsman will share some images prepared on a visit to Slimbridge.
The Water Rail is really very striking, with the upper parts superbly camouflaged for foraging in reedbeds. This video has a bird foraging, and calling or “sharming” as it is known according to the BTO. The Wikipedia article cited at the top of this post is a recommended read: it is a good one.
It is hard to know how things will turn out for this bird on the Claypits LNR. Every time Backwoodsman runs through the Claypits site, he sees someone looming conspicuously by the inlet. Presumably they are after the same bird we saw near Stockingfield Junction, but it would be very exciting to think that there could be two individuals in this area of north Glasgow.
Backwoodsman has ventured out to the coast several times in recent weeks, hoping to catch sight of recently-arrived Knot but it has been a massive Knot fail, alas. It was hoped that a Knot post could have been finished off by now but it will have to wait for some more images. Other subjects have been available, some familiar but set off by very good light, and others unexpected in their locations. All have formed the subjects of their own posts but it is hoped that you will not mind the repetition.
The images were captured over trips to Barassie, Troon and Stevenston between the beginning of October and mid-November. You can take the train to Barassie and walk to Troon, or vice versa; it depends on the timing of the high tide and what you hope to see. The Stinking Rocks at Barassie are a good high tide roost for shore birds; the Ballast Bank at Troon used to be. South Beach at Troon has really good foraging for the smaller waders so the order of business can be planned to take in good sites just around and at high tide. Stevenston has similar foraging and roosting sites but it is on another train line so tends to be a separate trip.
Turnstones have been reliable sightings at Barassie; Backwoodsman was fortunate to find them foraging and then gliding* to a roosting site as the tide rose.
The foraging birds prompted a curious conversation with a lady walking a dog. “Was I getting some good photographs?”, she asked on approach. I indicated that I was hopeful because of the quality of the light.
Her dog was chasing the Turnstones which were probing for the small creatures in the benthic zone where the rising tide lapped the sand. Unfortunately, Backwoodsman’s face is known to give an all-too-accurate account of what he is feeling. “Oh”, she said, “these birds enjoy teasing my dog.” This was an odd remark because she seemed interested to know which birds Backwoodsman was looking at, implying some kind of interest in species other than canine.
Many people engaged Backwoodsman in conversation that morning. All of them had a dog or three and all the animals were running wild. The humans were all excited because there were five Little Egrets on the Stinking Rocks. Backwoodsman had been watching the Egrets foraging as the tide rose but could only get a decent image of four of the five on the rocks.
Could this be a family group, still together following a successful breeding season? These birds absolutely shone in the morning light so it is unsurprising that they attracted attention. Fortunately, the photographic software has a tool (the Highlights slider) to control very bright areas so some texture can be revealed on the flank of the Egret.
No-one seemed to have noticed the Golden Plovers sitting behind the Egrets, Backwoodsman’s first sighting of these glorious birds this season. The same could be said for the Redshanks (them being unnoticed); later, on Troon North Beach, Backwoodsman caught up with some feeding birds and enjoyed their bustle and all their different postures.
The Ballast Bank used to be a good place to find Golden Plovers, Dunlin, Knot and Purple Sandpipers, but things seem to have changed. Backwoodsman has failed to see a single shorebird on the Ballast Bank rocks on any of his previous six or seven visits; this seems very odd, because it really does look like a good place to sit out the high tide. Unfortunately, the rising tide attracts potential disturbance in the form of a wild swimming group (Backwoodsman has named them the Troon Tadpoles). The rocks favoured by the shorebirds are adjacent to an area of shingle used to enter and leave the water. So, wild swimmers waddling about and eating cake in Dryrobes every day, yes! Shorebirds, no more. This is not a reliable line of causation but it is interesting that the timelines match – that is, pre-pandemic, lots of birds, post-pandemic and everybody getting mennl-elf and wanting to freeze their bits off in public, no birds. Backwoodsman will probably now excise the Ballast Bank from his route and go straight from North Beach to South Beach by the shorter road route.
On the last visit to Troon, Backwoodsman failed to find any Dunlin on South Beach. The foreshore had been remodelled by a storm and the kelp was piled wide and deep over the places where Dunlin usually forage. Backwoodsman will have to wait to find numbers of these exquisite birds elsewhere, or perhaps just later in the winter. It has been possible to find the odd one or two; again, Barassie came up with the goods. Such light!
There were also one or two at Stevenston when we visited at the weekend (16th November 2024) but the main species present were Ringed Plovers and Sanderlings.
It was a big high tide and there was a small promontory of sand left exposed; all the small waders were at its edge with the Sanderlings being driven from left to right, and back again, by a man kicking a tennis ball for his dog. Backwoodsman took advantage of this disturbance by dropping to the sand and keeping very still. The Sanderlings came by, sometimes running, sometimes on the wing.
The light rose and fell as a squall blew in from over Arran and some pleasing images were had before the horizontal rain forced an end to the business. A stealthy exit saw to it that the birds were not disturbed further.
Backwoodsman feels that these images are better than what was available when the Sanderlings post was compiled; he hopes that you find them pleasing. He doesn’t know where he is going to find any Knot though!
Finally, the Curlew of the Stinking Rocks – there always seems to be one there and Backwoodsman is always very pleased to see it. Unlike the hundreds at roost at Cardross, this one seems relatively relaxed about walkers on the shore so long as they keep their distance.
Curlew are under pressure from habitat destruction and disturbance and one member of the group of thirteen Numenii species (Curlew, Whimbrel and Godwits) is no more. This morning (18th November 2024) at 0600 hours, the Radio Four Today Programme carried the news that the Slender-billed Curlew, a species of bird that historically was a regular visitor to the Mediterranean, is very likely to be extinct.
This follows the news (28th October 2024) that four other species of shorebird that regularly visit the UK have just been uplisted on the IUCN Red List: Grey Plover and Curlew Sandpiper as Vulnerable to global extinction, and Dunlin and Turnstone as Near Threatened. Much cause for concern then. Perhaps these birds would all do better if they didn’t waste their energy teasing dogs?
*Re the gliding photograph: some of you may spot that one of the birds is very much in summer kit. Indeed it is; Backwoodsman is cheating, having taken this photograph in May! It would be a shame not to post it though.
To introduce this species, Backwoodsman offers a fine colour woodcut by Allen William Seaby (please see this one too). The bird and its habitat are drawn and coloured beautifully. Backwoodsman hopes you are getting the impression that this creature may be well camouflaged and therefore quite difficult to see?
Snipe have been on Backwoodsman’s wishlist for a long time but it has just never been the right time to get them in the camera. On a winter day several years ago, Backwoodsman went to RSPB Lochwinnoch with the birdscope but without the camera – together with the necessary tripod, birdscope and camera make for a most uncomfortable pack. Just outside the Visitors Centre window, a scrummage of small waders was underway. A helpful volunteer identified the participants as Snipe. Backwoodsman was transfixed; not only were they a completely mad shape with their long, straight bills but they seemed to be jumping on and over each other in a scene of chaos and frenzy. Fast forward to the Old Racecourse at Irvine; we heard unearthly sounds all around us but could not see any birds; Snipe, said the Merlin App. We were hearing the famous drumming (vide infra). The Stevenston Ponds are reedy and shallow; on a winter visit, a small group of birds exploded from the margin before us and sped away on sharp wings. Our eyes are in by now – the birds are Snipe – but they’ve gone.
How to get onto them with the camera? There is a problem with Snipe; their habit is to conceal themselves while foraging or resting. Baclwoodsman’s RSPB bird book describes them as secretive and the RSPB website has them skulking.
John Clare’s poem to the species (“To the Snipe”) resents the extent to which boys and men with dogs and guns clatter through the natural world disturbing everything and shooting anything slow enough. Of Snipe, he says they are:
“Hiding in spots that never knew his tread A wild and timid clan …That from man’s dreaded sight will ever steal To the most dreary spot”
Backwoodsman behaves a bit like this on Avanti trains so it’s going to be a tough gig to get the images he seeks. Fast forward again to the very end of September 2024 when we visited RSPB Baron’s Haugh. We haven’t usually done very well there – regular readers may remember a slightly disgruntled post from the very beginning of the year (Kingfishers, January 27th) but we decided to give it a punt on a rather grey Saturday. We arrived and from the Causeway Hide, we could see a lot of Lapwings; the autumn season sees a gathering of these beautiful birds at the Haugh.
The hide was busy, and suddenly, so was the sky, as it filled with birds. We looked up and around for raptors but the reason was rather less ethereal. A large atgani chap broke cover on the far side of the Haugh – wearing your camo undies would seem like nugatory effort if you’re going to stand on the birds’ heads.
But there were many Snipe too. At the river, Backwoodsman was able to find the vantage point where the atgani had showed up, and take up a similar forward position, but was able to use the cover much more effectively. There were Snipe right in the foreground, with some attractive dead wood to set them off. There were also Snipe on the wing; the overall impression was that hundreds of birds were present, which was very surprising to Backwoodsman. The book says that Snipe will “gather together in groups and fly in loose flocks called ‘wisps'”.
We get wintering birds in the UK – is it possible that we saw a large group of winter migrants (it was definitely a bit more than a wisp!) just arrived and yet to disperse? The EuroBird Portal does appear to show a lot of movement activity around the end of September.
Baron’s Haugh has undergone a certain amount of remodelling recently, seeking to re-establish a connection between the River Clyde and its natural floodplain. There seemed to be a fair bit of water on the Haugh and it may be that there are more stances for Snipe away from potential predators. The view of the warden (via email) was that, firstly, there were always a lot of birds on the reserve in the winter, and that secondly, they had created quite a few new places where the birds could feel safe from predators (if not entirely from atganis) and stand about in plain sight, rather than skulk.
Backwoodsman found severalexamples of actions (three links here, one per word) designed to support these and related birds through focused conservation work in the UK.
The Snipe could be confused for a Godwit at extreme range because of the very straight bill, but there can be no mistake once the proportions and plumage can be taken in.
In “To the Snipe”, John Clare wrote:
For here thy bill Suited by wisdom good Of rude unseemly length doth delve and drill The gelid mass for food
The bill – “…of rude unseemly length”; guess he means it strikes him as unusual. Dominic Couzens writes:
“The Snipe’s long, straight bill is the perfect tool for probing deeply into the soft mud, and as a result the Snipe is indeed the champion probe-feeder among waders. It will feed whenever the substrate is not too hard, and it especially favours the edges of pools and puddles. Where the earth or mud is rich it will stand still in one place for some time, making a series of insertions on the spot, leaving behind a semicircle of small holes. And once the bill is in place, the Snipe will often vibrate it a little, and pull it up and down, feeling around in the mud for movement a few centimetres below its feet. The bill is a feat of biological engineering. At the tip it is fitted (as are the bills of most species in this family) with millions of tiny touch-receptors that are wired to a special part of the brain. The receptor organs come in two kinds, one detecting pressure and the other detecting shearing movement. Together they provide the Snipe with an exceptionally fine sense of touch at the bill tip, easily enough to pick up the presence or movement of particles nearby in the mud. The Snipe’s bill also demonstrates another, more unusual trick: it can be opened only at the tip, so that food can be picked up and swallowed without the bird having to remove its bill from the mud. The bill structure is not especially rigid; the component bones and connectors can move relative to one another, an arrangement known as rhynchokinesis. The trick then is mechanical: if the bill is bent slightly at its near end, the bend can be transmitted to the tip such that the rest of the bill remains closed. In this way the Snipe’s bill tip can pinch a worm or insect larva in situ, and the long tongue can then transport the food item up towards the mouth.”
“…the Snipe is indeed the champion probe-feeder among waders.” Just imagine the machinery of evolution slowly but inexorably clicking into place to deliver such exquisite adaptation and performance. Backwoodsman would love to find the primary literature which sets out the taxonomy of the Snipe bill in detail; it must be the stuff of true wonder.
And there is more, again from Couzens: “The bill is not the only unusual anatomical feature of the Snipe; it also has a modified tail. Most waders have 12 tail feathers, but the Snipe has 14 or sometimes more. The very outermost of these are specially stiffened and attached to the body by independent muscles, such that they can be splayed out from the rest of the tail. When a Snipe indulges in one of its rising and plummeting display-flights high in the air, the wind passing by these outermost feathers causes them to vibrate and to make a distinctive buzzing sound (“drumming”), a little like the bleating of a sheep. The sound adds an instrumental dimension to the display, without the bird having to go to the trouble of singing. The sound made by the feathers varies according how susceptible to wear they are; worn-out feathers presumably make a less attractive sound than intact ones.” Here is a a good recording of this remarkable sound. As usual, the Featherbase site allows us to see all the feathers; on the left of the left hand image (IMG241) is a group of 14 feathers which may be the tail array.
John Clare regretted that men found themselves compelled to go boldly and unwelcome into the realm of the Snipe and disturb these beautiful birds (like our atgani). Or possibly, boldly go. Intrusions seem to be much in the news just now with the mounting tide of inane froth about space travel. And now we have Prof Brian Cox at it, being anointed cultural heir to David Attenborough and getting a new series on the BBC. “‘Human race needs to expand beyond Earth,’ says Prof Brian Cox.” Basically, we’ve screwed everything we can out of this planet, so we need to go pillage another one to maintain our ridiculous modes of consumption and waste. Anyone familiar with Attenborough’s elegiac coverage of our fading natural world will find Cox’s brassy rapacity an abrupt and unwelcome change of tone.
Though there could be some potential positives – our finest billionaires heading for the stars in spaceships which then go ‘pop’ (like those rich chumps diving to the Titanic wreck in a submarine which went ‘pop’ implosively), would probably improve the prospects of the species.
It was so pleasing to get anywhere near some Snipe; it would seem unlikely that Backwoodsman will ever get any nearer to one unless some birds show up right outside a quiet hide somewhere. It is tempting to crop tighter and make the images bigger but the quality deteriorates. Perhaps this one is worthwhile; even though there is grain, some of the markings come out nicely and the postures are pleasing. Soon, it will be time for wintering waders at the coast and waterfowl on the lakes, and Backwoodsman hopes, lots of new material.
PS. Some of you may be interested in this petition at Change.org. UK government (DEFRA) is considering permitting the sale of millions of elvers (baby eels) from Gloucester to Russia next spring. Already last year they allowed the export of 1 tonne (3 million individuals) of this critically endangered species. These elvers will be sold to Kaliningrad, a known transit point for the vast smuggling trade in elvers, the most smuggled wildlife in the world by numbers and by value. This all sounds most regrettable.
In her first novelOranges are not the only Fruit published in 1985, Jeanette Winterson described the strange upbringing of a young girl beset by an oddly religious parent. As if this were not challenge enough, she is forced to learn cross stitch at school. She produces a sampler bearing the following legend, from Jeremiah (8:20):
THE SUMMER IS ENDED AND WE ARE NOT YET SAVED
Academics huddled in the trenches and waiting for the whistles to blow and send them over the top to face the machine-gunned demands of wonks, and all those students with mennl-elf, will recognise the peculiar melancholy brought on by the second half of September. June came and you were confident of getting those calculations run, making some starting materials for some project students to do wonderful things with in the autumn, writing and submitting that grant, preparing all your classes and supporting materials in good time and order, and finishing those four star papers. But no-one would ever leave you alone for more than half–a-day at a time…and now ” The summer is ended etc.” And to make matters worse, many of the birds of summer are heading south, and it will be a while before wintering birds reach us.
Backwoodsman has probably had his last sight of an Osprey over the Clyde estuary for this season (end of July in this case), and it seems most likely that the Hirundines will have left us too by the time this post is made.
Very unusually, Backwoodsman cannot remember his first sight of a European Barn Swallow with any confidence, which is a little disturbing. There are half memories of birds passing across the surfaces of school cricket fields, fast enough to set the dry grass of the outfield aflame, but the details which usually anchor these memories cannot be found. Instead, it was an enamel badge which provided Backwoodsman’s first recoverable memories of the Swallow.
A very small Backwoodsman wore a dark green anorak which was covered in enamel badges; he didn’t really care what they were and he lacked affiliation with any of the organisations represented upon them, but if he liked the badge, that was it. They could have been anything; a nice bit of enamel and it’s on there and worry about it later when you get quizzed by grown-ups. But this one is not to be forgotten; what a piece of design! The bird is styled superbly and the sunburst echoes the Kyokujitsu-ki or Rising Sun Flag of Japan (another great bit of graphic design) persuasively. Details of the travel organisation which had these badges made are not to be found by Backwoodsman, alas.
The BTO tells us that “Swallows must be amongst the most popular birds – their arrival each spring in the northern hemisphere presages the onset of summer. Swallows are easily recognised with their slender bodies, long pointed wings and forked tails; martins tend to have much less deeply forked tails. While the deeply forked tails may help their manoeuverability in pursuing aerial insects, in many species they are also used as a signal of male quality, those who can grow longer, and importantly symmetrical, streamers being the most favoured by the females.”
Swallows like the sawmill at Cardross and the place where the Geilston Burn spills out over the mud. Backwoodsman suspects that they make nests in the big (barn-like) shed at the western end of the sawmill yard. On a recent visit, Backwoodsman found a group of Swallows of various vintages. The young ones still have the yellow “feed me” mask.
Backwoodsman attempted to track birds either taking insects from the surface of the burn, or drinking from the fresh water as it ran out into the estuary; it is hard to tell which. Better executions of these images would win competitions – these would not.
We are told that the way to get good shots of fast-moving birds on the wing is to anticipate where they will be, pull a focus on that space, wait for the bird to enter and then fire. Of course, focussing on thin air is a challenge, so you have to find something solid at about about the right focal range (some ripples on the water in these cases) and hope for the best. As you need a fast shutter and therefore probably a wide aperture to keep the ISO down, your depth of field will be shallow and the scope for error almost unlimited. This is what you get, v1.0. Backwoodsman is a mere novice when it comes to birds on the wing.
Sometimes, the Swallows are still – they must get quite tired from all their “hawking“. Backwoodsman has failed to find a satisfactory definition of this term, though it is very widely used. Presumably it means to fly rapidly after prey and catch it on the wing? Swallow flight has been studied quantitatively using fast cameras and wind tunnels (and written up in an open access paper): there is something called the Strouhal number which relates wing beats and speed. The quantitative work has wingbeats around 7-8.5 Hz and speeds across the ground of up to 14 m s-1, or of the order of 30 mph in Rees-Mogg units. There is, of course, some infamous discussion about Swallow flight dynamics in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which you will find here, and here.
Somewhat aspirationally perhaps, InterCity trains used to sport a swallow livery. This recollection got Backwoodsman thinking about the national rail system we used to have, and the fragmented thing we have now, and how the future of rail transport is being ransomed by HS2; the thoughts follow a depressing trajectory. No-one can revel in the national pickle that is HS2 but there is some amusement to be had from the situation. In the recent Panorama programme HS2: The Railway that Blew Billions, Andrew Gilligan says (see 38:30-39:50) of Johnson, grand emperor of “levelling up”, “he quite liked big, stupid projects…of course, this was big and stupid to an extraordinary degree…”.
When Swallows do sit still in good light, their semi-iridescence can be enjoyed fully. There is a nice walk from Bishopbriggs towards Kirkintilloch along the Forth and Clyde Canal and it passes through an awkward space beneath the Hungryside Bridge, where your life may be taken by a weekend warrior on a bicycle. The bridge seems to be a Swallow nesting site and we were fortunate to find some birds resting. It was early May; presumably, they were busy building nests, or possibly looking after eggs. They look in really good condition.
Swallows are said to return to the places where they hatched and fledged; Crianlarich station has hosted nesting Swallows for as long as we have been visiting. They make nests on the tops of small pillars which are up close to the roof. Crianlarich station really isn’t busy and the Swallows will have hours without disturbance while they gorge themselves; there are always plenty of insects in the Highlands when the sun comes out. This image was taken in mid-June and the birds were definitely on eggs by then.
If Backwoodsman was a Swallow, he would head south through the UK while the weather was good, feeding up along the way, before starting on the long flight to South Africa. The EuroBirdPortal shows the Swallows clearing out of Europe almost completely around mid-November in 2023. The data for the UK is a bit confusing, but it is interesting to follow the timeline from the end of January, as the birds begin to show up on the Iberian peninsula, and then flood north and east through the rest of the landmass. Backwoodsman will be waiting.
Backwoodsman had the good fortune to return to the Vigiljoch which stands above Lana in the Sud Tirol. The mountain is really the first high point on a long ridge which extends many kilometers to the south-west. We stayed in a beautiful hotel (Vigilius Mountain Resort) which is reached fron the valley by cable car (Seilbahn); a chairlift (Sessellift) climbs from the hotel at 1486m to a spot height of 1814m.
The ridge is broad and undulating at that point with many well-marked tracks; those which head south-west climb steadily, reaching a spot height of 2608m at Naturnser Hochwart. We’ll return to this topic in a subsequent post.
Our first visit took place early in May in 2019 when much of the land was trying to cast off winter: it was dry and tawny in colour. By mid-June, the timing of the 2024 visit, a transformation had taken place; there were flower-strewn meadows, much noise from crickets and grasshoppers, and butterflies on the wing. Backwoodsman is always pleased to be able to capture images of butterflies; looming is prevented by the use of the long zoom (though depth-of-field suffers). If you don’t loom, the butterfly may sit for you and show you both upper and lower wing surfaces. Patrick Barkham describes this approach of remote viewing in The Butterfly Isles.
The Small Heath is not rare or unusual but it has settled on a Clover which makes for an attractive range of shades and tones in the image. Typically for this species, its wings are folded when feeding or at rest.
Strong light brought out the opulent colour of this Pearl-bordered Fritillary; the left hand wing and the body are in the same focal plane so the image is sharp, but the right hand wing is orthogonal to that plane. Backwoodsman is far from being a butterfly expert but believes the identification is correct; it is based on the pattern of black markings on the upper surface, and of white and yellow on the lower.
Backwoodsman has never set eyes on a Chequered Skipper before; this one posed very nicely, using a wild Clematis as a prop to show off the underwing. The depth-of-field in this image of the upper surface is quite good.
The meadow in front of the hotel yielded a couple of Blues, but Backwoodsman had to be very careful while prowling about here because of proximity to the buildings. The prospect of being mistaken for a papparazo was not pleasing, and might have led to a scene. Head down and be careful where you point that thing! This Small Blue is just showing the brown upper wing surface allowing the identification, but what is this second chap?
Backwoodsman’s money is on a Common Blue – this next one is definitely a Common Blue but please note the very strong pattern of spots on the lower wing surface. Could the strong light through the wing fade out that strong pattern of spots in the mystery species?
Finally, a female Silver-Studded Blue – little doubt about this one. The dusting of the body and wing bases is really quite something.
Backwoodsman was taunted by Clouded Yellows (shades of Omis again) – they would not settle. There were a few moments of exhilaration when an ochre creature flitted into view and settled but they were Speckled Yellow moths each time. One day, we’ll get a Clouded Yellow in the lens and focused.
Backwoodsman thought he had done quite well with this range of species but then, alas, he read a Naturetrek Tour Report from July 2018 and was well and truly put in his place. So many species! However, it is the case that groups of naturalists banged up together for a few days can get quite competitive, possibly imaginative even. On a visit to Shetland, we encountered a wildlife tour party lead by Iolo Williams from the BBC’s Seasonwatch operation, dining at the Sumburgh Hotel. “So, how many species have we seen today, then, look you, a hundred and seventeen wasn’t it?” intoned Iolo in ultra- lugubrious mode. “Don’t forget the Hobby”, said one of his clients. “Oh yes” he said “a hundred and eighteen then.” We were surprised, thinking a Merlin more likely given the northerly extremity. Anyway, everyone was definitely up for one more tick on the list, no matter how improbable.
So “where are the birds?” you bellow, “get to it you busker!”
A hit list travelled to the Sud Tirol with Backwoodsman, because we had done astonishingly well last time. We had a one-off sighting of Spotted Nutcrackers in 2019. Snow came during our vist and there was some poor light; through the gloom, we saw a group of corvid-sized birds feeding on the ground in a woodland clearing. Perhaps the snow had brought some cones to the ground for them.
They were much in evidence this time, always right at the tops of trees, and noisy with it, but quite camera-shy. This one was photographed from the Sessellift in excellent light. The Wikipedia entry refers to their cacheing of pine nuts and their excellent memories of cache locations.
Various Woodpeckers flitted about; we caught a glimpse of the Black Woodpecker, an unmistakeable bird. Just a glimpse though, no time to photograph them. Great-spotted woodpeckers were about too, but not to be photographed. Backwoodsman made a recording of the Great-spotted which will turn up elsewhere; he also made this recording.
There is an interesting comparison of the two species drumming on the same tree on YouTube, along with separate recordings of the Black and Great-spotted on the excellent xeno-canto site. So what do you think? Backwoodsman thinks that the drumming in the recording seems more like that of the Black Woodpecker. I fear we’ll never know for sure.
There is less ambiguity about the next Woodpecker species. On the way to the hotel meadow, Backwoodsman saw what he took for a distant Thrush lift off from the track and land on a branch in full sun, briefly. As usual, he shot first and worried about it later. He was quite surprised by what he saw in the back of the camera later on – a Wryneck, and what a lovely thing.
The similarity between markings on the bird’s back and those on the branch is really surprising; Backwoodsman has often wondered how birds seem to know where to stand, the case of Golden Plovers providing one of the most remarkable examples. The Wryneck is sitting in a Silver Birch; no shortage of those in this mountain environment but what an amazing complementarity. The feet are impressive and Backwoodsman is very taken with the boots.
Another list bird was the Ring Ouzel; we were beating them off with sticks in 2019, but they were more elusive this time, failing to show up when the camera was around. Perhaps Backwoodsman will catch up with them again in Scotland.
The Black Redstarts were more biddable but kept their distance. We spotted an adult male in the distance up on the top of the hill and photographed him.
Then we returned from a trip to Merano to find an adult feeding a chick just outside the fire escape by our room. They were not to be photographed and Backwoodsman became pessimistic. He went outside to prowl and found a chick and an adult male; they liked a line of fence posts which descended a slope behind the hotel.
Things looked up on a subsequent walk in full sun. Redstarts are Chats, and like Robins, they do well around human habitation, and like Stonechats, they perch nicely. Here (second image) is a Stonechat from Barassie for postural comparison.
We detected some Redstart activity around a tarpaulin-covered woodpile near the fence of a house. The bars of the fence were sufficiently well-spaced for the camera to work at full zoom; things developed nicely on the other side of the fence as a chick appeared and was fed with morsels from the woodpile.
Crested tits were about and they were a tease. Backwoodsman managed a solitary image in poor light. There is a chance of catching up with these in Scotland, but it will take some work.
Finally, we spotted some parachute flight and very monotonous song, managing to trace it to this Water Pipit with the help of the Merlin App.
It was our first time to see this species; Rock and Meadow Pipits are more familiar from our Ayrshire and upland walks.
So that’s a short list but Backwoodsman hopes you find the images pleasing. There will be another post of flowers and landscapes once the processing is complete, probably in a couple of weeks. Until then, here’s Faye doing a bit of swinging (!) through the air at Eggerhof (we’ll be back there next time).
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