After seeing a large gathering of swallows on powerlines yesterday, this afternoon our garden has witnessed perhaps dozens of swallows and house martins in the sky above.
It has been a lovely summer’s afternoon spent mostly in a hammock or deckchair under our magnolia tree, listening to and watching the birds darting, chasing and circling above us. At one stage around ten swallows gathered on a TV aerial next door to noisily chatter to each other while a smaller group seemed more intent on heading southwards. The sky certainly has been busy with hirundines and perhaps some signs that summer of birds is drawing to a close.
However, we will still be left with our residents. The red kites and buzzards have been drifting over, crying out as they pass. A pair of ravens played in the breeze on their way up the valley. We also had a bullfinch drop buy, a bit of a rare site in our garden.
The weather has been much more like a good summer over the last few weeks and the next seven days look good too. So I’m hoping that the swallows and house martins stay a little longer and we can enjoy the sites and sounds of summer for a little while more.
We had a lovely country walk today, albeit one in rather gloomy and drizzly weather. As we finished and arrived back at the car, we came across a gathering of swallows on some village power lines.
We’ve just returned from a week’s stay in the Swedish countryside and during our stay I put out my camera trap for several nights. I usually place it in the forest behind the summer house but this time I placed it in the garden and put out some peanuts to see what might pay a visit.
On the first night we had this nervous looking brown hare…
After a couple of nights of no more than pigeons and blackbirds, I caught this badger snuffling up the peanuts…
…and on this last night, I caught this fox, again nervous around the camera.
These are lovely little snippets of life in the darkness outside while we slept. There were some mammals missing that I would love to catch on camera at the summer house. We didn’t see any red squirrels at all during our stay, despite them being very common, and we have caught a moose in the camera viewfinder out in the forest before. Most of all, I would like to snap a pine marten which have only been seen once from the house in the last few years that my family have been going there – maybe next year!
(Ignore the date stamp on the videos – I didn’t reset it when I inserted the new batteries).
We’ve just returned home from a week in Sweden and after seeing an adder while away we’ve just found this beauty of a grass snake on the sunny wall opposite our garden.
I have to admit, snakes aren’t my favourites of the animal world but it was a real treat to see this one so closely and to get some nice video and pictures of it.
Perhaps this will help with preparing me for what might be a much more snakey trip later in the year!
We’re in Sweden at the moment, visiting family and the lovely wilderness. On a walk this afternoon, we stumbled across this adder warming itself in the sun. We first thought it had eaten a big meal but, following a query on the image below from a friend, the snake might be a pregnant female with a belly full of youngsters. I, firstly, had no idea when adders give birth and, secondly, that they actually give birth, to live young. A bit of googling revealed all and this adder might be expecting her new arrivals in August or September.
Hopefully, I’ll be going another post or two on our Swedish travels.
I’ve been struggling to keep up my early morning wanders down the lane to the fields. I’m not quite sure why; I’m a creature of habit and I haven’t yet secured a walk into my morning routine.
This morning I pushed myself out of the door as it was such a lovely, bright and sunny dawn. I was rewarded with the sight of a fox trotting up the track towards me. We stood there for a few moments staring at each other and then it turned tail and scampered back down the track and off into what was the poppy field.
These are the kind of brief moments such walks are made of – I really must make them frequently.
Like many may have lately, we have looked at some of Dr Michael Mosely’s books. This morning I took one bit of his advice and headed out for an early walk down the lane and then around part of the village.
It was a cracking start to the day with not a single cloud in the sky and very little chill in the air. The bright sun intensified the colours of the scenery and the only sounds were of an array of birds and my feet treading on the sandy track and village tarmac.
I was rewarded with a very special moment. Walking up one of the little villages lanes, the ironstone church was lit up, almost orange in the sun. Flying and chasing around the steeple were ten or so swifts. At first they flew silently, sometimes slowly on their flickering wings and other times chasing in small packs circling the tower. Then came their screams; the sound I long for all winter and which lasts in our skies for far too few summer weeks. I stood there for a few minutes lost in the screams and effortless wings; a short spell cast by this perfect midsummer moment.
Anyone who has scrolled through the pages of my blog will know I spend time each year on Ramsey Island, the RSPB reserve off the northern coast of Pembrokeshire in Wales, and I have grown very fond with it. However, I have a general love of islands, both large and small, and will take most opportunities to visit them when I can. Earlier this month we had a week-long holiday on the Northumberland coast, which presented a couple of such opportunities; the Farnes and the Isle of May. This post focuses on the latter.
Our trip started at North Berwick, on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, with a fast RIB (rigid inflatable boat) ride booked through the Scottish Seabird Centre. The town was a nice bonus to our day; an old town with narrow streets lying behind two long sandy beaches split by a rocky outcrop build out further by the sheltered harbour. We arrived early and spent some time wandering the quiet streets and along one of the beaches in the increasingly lovely, sunny weather.
We headed out on the RIB after lunch. Partially enclosed, it provided a lot more weather protection to the passengers (and crew) than other, open RIBs I’ve been on before. Sitting at the back, I did get a little damp on the trip across but not enough to be at all bothered. The sea was relatively calm and with a following wind and waves flowing with us, the journey was pretty bump-free.
Before we arrived at our destination for the afternoon, we had an exciting stop on the way. Whilst on dry land, as we drove to North Berwick on our route to the coast, we started to get glimpses of a large mound in the distance. Eventually our view across the rolling countryside opened up and we could see the looming mass of Bass Rock. The 100m sheer cliffs stand abruptly in the sea, seemingly more cliff than island. On approaching the vertical sides in the boat, the Rock is a mix of light grey and white, the latter coming from its most famous inhabitants; the gannets belonging the the largest colony in the world. Before last year, ‘The Bass’ hosted more than 150,000 northern gannets but like so many of seabird colonies the population has been hugely hit by avian influenza and gannet numbers have dropped by around quarter in the past couple of years. However, the rock and its gannets still remain an impressive and unforgettable sight, especially as we peered up the looming cliffs from the boat below. There were gannets all around, those on the rock itself, others circling high above or coming into land, and some in and on the water around us. The noise was incredible with the thousands of birds raucous above our heads; pairs greeting each other amongst squabbles over nesting space. After a short stop floating by the gannets, we made our way to our main destination at the end of a 45 minute trip from North Berwick.
Lying towards the northern side of the Firth of Forth’s opening mouth, from a distance the Isle of May sits low in the water. It is a long, thin island, which is less than 2km in length, with the attached island of Rona, and less than 500m in width, running at an angle from broadly north-west to south-east. The 57 hectares aren’t flat with the land rising from the sea to a height of 50 metres. There are cliffs around much of the coast but the rise is more shallow on the western site from the beach and harbour. The island is a mix of grass on shallow soil, large areas of rock and jumbles of boulders, similar to so many exposed small islands at the edge of the UK.
As we landed, two more boats accompanied us, one of similar size to our RIB as well as a much larger boat carrying around 100 passengers, in all bringing around 120 people to the island for just under three hours.
We were welcomed by two of the island team, giving us a very brief safety message; keep to the paths, don’t stand on the puffins (or their burrows), keep away from the edge of cliffs and don’t step over the ropes, and, most importantly, don’t forget to return in time for the boat home!
Our trip came with a guide and as we hadn’t been to the Isle of May before we decided to take a trip with him and our other passengers around the paths of the island and up to the large central lighthouse.
The main reason to visit the Isle of May was for its seabirds and we had a brutal introduction with one of the first sights being a huge great black-backed gull, with blood around its bill, tucking into one of other residents, a puffin. As we moved on we found many of the other inhabitants including other gulls including kittiwakes, razorbills, guillemots, shags and plenty of nesting eiders. Out at the cliffs we had great views of all of the seabirds on their nest sites and they didn’t at all seem bothered by the human onlookers quite close by.
Like a number of other islands around our coasts, the Isle of May hosts a bird observatory. It was Scotland’s first and is celebrating its 90th birthday in 2024. Particularly during spring and autumn migration they and their fellow observatories record the passage of birds north and south and are some of the best places to seen rarities. We saw the Heligoland traps they use for humanely catching and then ringing the birds but unfortunately it was a quiet day for the migration.
There is interesting human history on the island, surrounding its monastic, royal, military and nautical past. Of most interest to me were its series of lighthouses including the currently operational one sitting centrally. As we finished the guided part of our walk around the island we were allowed up this Robert Stevenson-designed gothic marvel from 1816. It is so different from many of the lighthouses I’ve visited. No slender white cone of a structure but an unpainted stone, almost castle-like block with a square tower upon which the light itself sits. We went all the way to the top of the tower, up several floors via the open spiral staircase and then a steep ladder at the end. From the top, the view over the island and across the Firth was spectacular, a 360 degree vista of the Scottish coast of East Lothian and Fife, towards Edinburgh and out into the North Sea. With the weather so clear and bright, I could have stayed up there for hours.
We concluded our visit with a walk back south and more seabird cliffs with steep drops down to the rocks and sea beneath. There were more puffins, razorbills, guillemots, shags and kittiwakes, and again, very obliging in their general nonchalance towards visitors.
As always with an island visit, there is never enough time and it was soon the moment to step back onto the RIB for the fast 35 minute trip back to North Berwick. I would very much like to spend more time on the Isle of May and the guide did suggest learning more about the volunteering opportunities with team of conservationists. For me to volunteer there, I would have to give up my Ramsey Island volunteering week, and I not quite sure I ready to do that! However, the Isle of May really does have its attractions; the birds and other wildlife, the lighthouses, the history, the landscape and the views, and I definitely would like to return, and spending a week there would be incredible. I could easily see myself loving the Isle of May as much as I do Ramsey (well, almost, maybe).
I had a brief wander to the end of our lane at lunchtime to get a bit of respite from the computer screen. Usually such wanders are just down to the gate to the sheep fields to look at the view up the Brampton Valley. I didn’t stay long today as there was clearly rain on its way but I did come across these badger tracks in the mud.
Just a nice little moment in nature to take me out of work-mode and into the wild.
Daft Mumblings 