Chiffchaff

Just in the last few days we've passed another of the waymarkers of spring, the arrival of the first warblers. I had it in my mind that this was usually the willow warblers, with their glorious song, the notes cascading downwards like a small waterfall, but this year it's definitely the chiffchaffs. Their call is very distinctive - chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff - and gives rise to their onomatopoeic name; and they've arrived in good numbers, so it's difficult to walk up into the forestry at the back of the house without hearing one or more almost constantly.

This little ball of feathers weighing a few grammes is a real traveller, spending its winters around the western Mediterranean coasts of Europe and North Africa and its summers with us. The birds we're hearing at the moment, from the top of a tree in the centre of their territory, are the males, who arrive two to three weeks before the females.

These moments when I hear or see the first of a returning species are becoming increasingly precious to me, for I cannot be certain that I will have them again. It's not just that I'm getting old but also that many of these species are facing a real crisis in our changing world, so we do have to accept that, come next March, we may not hear the call of the chiffchaff. Fortunately, this species is reported to be doing well.

Wet Birds

We, and the small birds coming to the feeders in front of the house, endured a truly miserable day yesterday, with rain almost all day which at times turned to sleet. The only positive thing that can be said about such weather is that it does drive the birds to the feeders, so we saw more siskins at one time - a total of five - than we've seen before.

Perhaps too it was the weather which encouraged this robin finally to work out how to gain purchase on the fat ball feeder.

We also had a visit from a single long-tailed tit. Previously we've seen three together. Usually these small birds go around in quite large groups so it looks as if there might be a bit of a tragedy unfolding. 

Down at the footbridge over the Golspie Burn a grey wagtail chose to display himself on a boulder next to the coltsfoot flowers we spotted the other day, while....  

....a pair of mallard paddled past him, the female so superbly camouflaged it's difficult to see her.

A Walk in the Woods

On a fine but windy morning today's walk took me through the mainly deciduous forestry on the Golspie side of Dunrobin Castle where the moss- and fern-covered remains of ancient walls, some still as much as five metres high, snake through the trees. It's an area in which we've seen roe deer before but not for several months so I was thrilled to spot....

....a hind which was equally aware of me but quite content to stand and watch me rather than take immediate flight. With her was....

....a buck which, from the way he followed close on her heels when she finally decided she's had enough of watching me watching her, may well have been last year's young.

The two deer had hardly disappeared before I spotted a tree creeper, a tiny bird with a long, down-turned bill which it uses to probe for insects in the bark of trees. They work their way up the trunk of a tree then fly down to the bottom of the next. As with the deer, it's some months since we last saw one of these - which isn't surprising as their size and superb camouflage make them difficult to spot.

My walk took me past the main site for scarlet elf cups where many of the earlier fruiting bodies are now dead but there are still plenty of new ones appearing. I also passed a second established site, just by the castle, where two are still visible. So the elf cups have done well this winter while many of the other fungi species seem not to have bothered to fruit at all - I didn't see a single one today. One wonders why.

I walked back along the coast path where the recent gales have, in places, buried it under shingle - the path runs just to the left of the bench. For the third year running the field behind the path, the Dairy Meadow, has been ploughed, the insects and worms in its rich sandy soil now being exploited by pigeons, crows, gulls and....

....a small flock of yellowhammers.

A Deserted Littleferry

We like going to Littleferry, partly because the beach there is usually deserted of humans, partly because there are miles of sand so we can really stretch our legs, and partly because, it being a National Nature Reserve, there's plenty of wildlife to see.... except there isn't. I am mystified as to why we could spend a couple of hours there yesterday and see nothing along the beach except a few gulls....

....this small flock of oystercatchers in the mouth of Loch Fleet and a couple of sanderling. No cormorants, no seals, no other ducks or waders, except....

....as we came to the first of the pools of the loch, a small flight of what might have been redshanks flew over. Usually, the gravelly spit visible in this picture has plenty of waders on it: there wasn't one. Usually there are birds swimming around, eider, goldeneye, mergansers, something.... there was nothing.

What's happening?

The only place we saw birds in any numbers was on the inner pool of the loch, where some fifty shelduck, most in pairs, were feeding along with some mallard and widgeon, neither in any great numbers and certainly far fewer than this time a year ago.

What's happening?

Two Birds

In amongst the many souvenirs which have followed us around on our travels is this little pair of birds. They're made of metal but in such a way as to bring out some beautiful colours in the metalwork. The piece is small, 40mm long, and finely detailed.

It came from Mrs MW's mother's family, and the story that came with it, as told by her Granny Mitchell, was that it had something to do with her Grandad who worked in RAF maintenance through the war, the suggestion being that someone there had made it - see earlier post here.

This seemed unlikely as there are letters and numbers stamped onto its base. The numbers are easy enough to read but the word, or words, are more difficult, but we finally came up with GESCHUTZ. However, when we put this into a search engine it corrected it to GESCHUTZT. A helpful website explained that the term is an abbreviation of gesetzlich geschutt, a German phrase that translates as "legally protected", "copyrighted" or "patented". Sadly, we couldn't find any reference to a number but this could be the copyright number or the factory item number.

The internet helped us further by featuring these three small birds, much the same size as ours, for sale at £275. They are described as, "19th century Geschutzt cold painted bronze group of three quail birds" coming from Austria. However, another site tells us that the Geschutzt system only came in in 1899 so these are unlikely to be "19th century", but we now know that the bird are quail, not, as we identified them before, partridges.

If we now know a little more about their origin we have no idea how Mrs MW's grandparents acquired them. Grandad came from a very modest background and, while some of Granny's family were well-off, her particular branch of the family weren't.

Many questions remain, and there's probably now no-one alive who can answer them. Does this make any difference? Well, to me, yes, because if something has been kept as a souvenir then it ceases to have purpose if its associated memories are lost.

There's more about the cold painted bronze process here.

Three Raptors

We walked in Balblair Woods this morning, along the track that follows the north shore of Loch Fleet where the tide was rising across the mudflats. These were very short of birds, the only ones visible being....

....an oystercatcher, a curlew and a black-headed gull.

We checked the osprey nest but found it empty. It's early for their return - last year we were in April when we had the first sighting - but a passer-by told us that, although the Loch Fleet ospreys aren't yet back, ospreys elsewhere in the local area have just arrived. So, instead, we had to make do with a pair of buzzards which were calling to each other as they circled overhead.

We spent a few minutes in the bird hide overlooking the loch where we found rather more waders, including redshank, curlew and sanderling along with shelduck and widgeon, after which we stopped to watch....

....a rather ragged skein of pink-footed geese pass over.

We walked on as far as the first place where we can get down to the shore and sat on the bank watching nothing except a single curlew which flew slowly across the scene. I can't help wondering whether there shouldn't be so much more in the way of bird life around the loch and, if so, what has happened in recent years to make it so scanty.

Happily, as we arrived home a pair of red kites were there to greet us, circling over the forestry at the back of the house.

Stormy Winds

A ship anchored in the firth is often a sign of bad weather, confirmed when I checked the identity of this vessel - the Esvagt Alba - where, on the Ships AIS site, its destination is given as, "shelter off Golspie". I don't blame the crew: the weather here is awful, its sunny intervals lulling one into a sense of security before it throws rain, sleet, even snow at us powered by gusts which are well above gale force.

The Esvagt Alba is a Danish vessel designed to service offshore wind farms. She offers on-board workshop, spare parts storage, a crane, and accommodation and re-creation facilities.

This lamb, the first we've seen this year, obviously didn't check the weather forecast before putting in an appearance in the field just along from our house.

Continuing on the recent theme of spring's yellow flowers, this is, I think, coltsfoot, but it's the first time I've seen it growing in a burn.

It was far too windy to walk along the sea shore this morning so I took to the woods, stopping to check the scarlet elf cups. Most are now looking rather sad but many are fresh, this one filled to the brim with nectar for the elves' delight.

I'm still no further forward in explaining why this particular fungus seems to be doing exceptionally well this year while all the others seem to have given up on us.

Ngalowa Experience

These are ngalowas, dug-out canoes with wooden stabilisers and elegant lateen sails. They are the one- or two-man fishing boats of the East African coast, sturdy enough to pass through the reef which runs parallel to the shore a mile or so out to fish in the deep and sometimes turbulent waters of the open ocean.

Each village along the coast had its ngalawas either anchored close offshore or pulled up onto the beach. As youngsters in Mombasa we used to hire one to take us out to the reef, a trip best done at an exceptionally low tide when the reef and the many occupants of the lagoon immediately behind it were exposed.

On our visit to Tanzania in 2010 I was anxious to have a trip in one again. When my request was put to the staff of the lodge where we were staying it was treated with some amazement: these days, I gathered, tourists don't go out in ngalowas - I assumed because they smelt of fish or, perhaps more likely, the staff were worried about whether they would be insured in case of an accident. I insisted, so....

....one was arranged at the neighbouring village for the next day.

When I arrived at the meeting place I have to say I was somewhat disappointed because the boat offered for my trip was more a mtumbwi than a proper ocean-going ngalowa so, as a boat used exclusively in the safer waters inside the reef, it didn't have the elegant lateen sail I had hoped to see used.

After I had paid, a process which, to be satisfying to all parties, had to include a bit of bargaining, I was finally sat in the boat and....

....being propelled with some enthusiasm out to sea.

It wasn't much of a trip as neither I nor the young man really knew what to do as it had obviously been made clear to him that he must not, on any account, take me too far out, and certainly not to the reef so, after we'd paddled round in a couple of circles, and with the sun threatening to boil my brain, we returned to the shore.

So I had been reminded of what an ngalowa trip out to the reef used to be like - exceedingly uncomfortable - and I had felt an idiot being paddled around a few metres off shore but at least I had had what these days seems to be called a 'tourist experience'.

Greens & Yellows

For the first time in some months we walked up into the forestry around the neighbouring crofting township of Backies to find some of the coniferous plantations badly damaged by the recent gales. The worst-hit areas seemed to be those which were thinned last summer rather than clear-felled.

These woodlands are some of the best locally for fungi but we saw none. March is a poor month for people like me who enjoy finding things on our walks, but at least now, with the equinox a couple of days away, Nature is beginning to stir.

In the more open glades, which include some with very ancient oaks, we found the first signs of the greening of spring, with some plants....

....such as the foxgloves (above), making an early start, but we saw few plants in flower, and all these - lesser celandine, dandelion and gorse - are yellow. Then, to add to the yellows, in just one sunny spot we found what, to me, is one of the milestones of the natural year....

....the first primrose flowers.

Birds

A pair of house sparrows enjoy a bath in the Golspie Burn as a blackbird politely waits his turn while....

....a carrion crow still finds something to eat in the barley field beyond the burn. There is still little sign of spring migrants - an occasional pied wagtail, one grey wagtail - and....

....the geese continue to pass overhead - these ones must be some of the hundreds of greylag and pink-footed which have wintered here as they're busy flying south, so are on their daily commute between overnight roosts and daytime feeding fields. The only real signs of spring are in....

....some of the resident cock birds which are, like this yellowhammer, suddenly and gloriously in full and spectacular mating colours.

Priority at the Feeder

I was standing by the sink doing the lunchtime washing up when I noticed two goldfinches on the sunflower seed feeder. I love goldfinches, they are such smart little birds and we don't see them often enough, but I was a bit puzzled that the one waiting didn't go onto the far side of the feeder - until I realised that it was already occupied, by a siskin. Siskins are a good bit smaller than a goldfinch but no-one argues with a siskin.

Three Weddings

I was recently sent three pictures of two weddings which might have been in Zanzibar in the hope that I would be able to identify some of the people. I wasn't able to help, and I wasn't even sure that they were in Zanzibar, though....

....the architecture certainly suggests tropical climes, as....

....in this wedding, does the shortage of parents of bride and groom.

This picture is of my parents' wedding in the Anglican cathedral in Zanzibar. None of their parents was present because it took place in 1940, during the war, but....

....I do know the names of all the people in the picture.

I rather treasure this picture as both my parents look so happy, and I know that they were surrounded by people for whom they had both love and respect. 

I am now left with the pictures of the other two couples. Very regretfully I will throw them away though I would love to have known who the people were, whether the pictures are of Zanzibar and, if not, then where, and, in particular, what happened to all the people. None of it has anything to do with me, and I suppose I really ought to mind my own business, but....