Flooding ahead or put your foot down?
Isle of Skye – Road Sign
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Isle of Skye – Bad Day/Great Day
My first full day on Skye was a mixture of frustration and brilliance!
I was up and out of the door before nine o’clock and went to see if there were any good spots nearby to look for estuary wildlife – waders, wildfowl and most importantly (for me) otters. I found a couple of good locations but it was close to high tide with little movement around, so I headed north into the Trotternish area of the Island (half expecting to see a yellow three-wheeled van on my way round). I thought I would easily cover the whole area by car in one day but there was so much to see, that I did little over half.
The frustration of the day came when I realised that my long camera lens had been damaged when I dropped it a few weeks ago and now it is firmly locked to my camera body and I think I’ll damage both even more if I try to part them. So after some nice shots yesterday (with the shorter lens) that’s it for photography this holiday – save for my phone.
However, everything was far more positive after that. This part of the island is truly epic in it’s beauty and has something of the Lord of the Rings about it, if hobbits lived in homes with white walls and grey roofs. My journey around Trotternish was slow as I stopped at so many places to take in the views and scan for wildlife – they are eagles in these parts! Uig, the gateway for the ferry to the Outer Hebrides, is just up the road from where I’m staying and had a selection of birds that, to me, are signs of the wild north – ravens, curlew and eider.
Pressing on, the landscape changed from moorland to large enclosed pastures, dotted with those white houses and long views out to the distant islands on the north-west edge of the British Isles. This was the one of the scenes I was expecting, and it was almost familiar, after being on Islay and Ardnamurchan in past years. I stopped in this area, at a small harbour near Bornesketaig, to have some lunch.
The best I was hoping for, while munching away on my sandwich, was maybe one or two divers (the feathered variety) or some more sea duck but I was given a display (albeit far off) of cetaceans, and one of the best I’ve had from land. First, there were harbour porpoises popping up all over the place, with gannets following their paths. Then in the distance was a solitary minke whale, making its way south somewhere between me and the Isle of Harris. However, the best was saved to last as in the even further distance, a large shape leapt clear of the water and returned with a big splash. At first, I thought it must be a porpoise but seeing one shortly afterwards and much closer, I realised the size was an order of magnitude larger and the dorsal fin was too big and a different shape – it can only have been an orca. This selection of views was well beyond anything I expected to have and certainly made up for the issues earlier in the day.
The rest of the day was pretty spectacular too but I’ve run out of time and energy to write more – in any case, I’ll be returning to the area later in the week (maybe even tomorrow). However, a couple of photos from later in the day…
Scottish Islands – Isle of Skye
I have a bit of a thing for islands, as anyone who has seen earlier posts on my blog will probably realise. One of the ways I want to feed my ‘thing’ is to visit all the main islands around the Scottish coast. So far, I’ve visited Arran, Islay, Jura and Mull, and this week I’m adding Skye to the list.
I drove to Glasgow yesterday evening after work and spent the night under the flight path to the airport – getting disturbed every so often throughout the night wasn’t exactly a relaxing start to my trip!
Setting off this morning, there was fog lying thick across the land and it was only as I reached Loch Lomond that it lifted to reveal a cloudless sky and that’s how it remained all day until after sunset.
I love long drives and the four hours to Mallaig were spectacular; some stretches were familiar, previously driven routes whilst the last stretch from Fort William to the port was all new to me.
As well as a liking for islands, I also love a nice ferry trip, so whilst I could have crossed to Skye via the bridge, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to catch the boat across. I wandered around Mallaig while I had a short wait for the ferry to come in; the weather making the port look particularly picturesque.
I’m staying for a week in a small cottage, about seven miles north of Portree, the main town on Skye. Up a small single-track side road, the cottage is very quiet and has a nice view to the distant coast.
Skye is a lot bigger than I thought and it takes quite a while to drive from the southern end at Armadale, where the Mallaig ferry arrives, to Portree and beyond. However, unlike some of the other islands I been to, the main roads are good standard single carriageways and the single-track roads are limited to the more remote areas of the island.
After a bit of unpacking, I headed off to do a bit of familiarisation and ended up at Claigan at sunset, walking along the coral beach – I just wish I’d got there earlier to take some more photos. Here’s hoping that the weather stays as good as it has been today for the coming week!
Autumn Wanderings
After ‘finding’ a local walk in the spring, one that is just two minutes from my front door but took 15 years to uncover, I haven’t done it for the past few months. At the weekend, when I had a spare hour, I had a quiet wander around the route. The walk goes out through some typical Cheshire dairy cow pastures; large fields of grass surrounded by high hawthorn hedges. Halfway around, the route drops down into a wooded valley with a small brook at its bottom; this is a local open space known as Joey The Swan.
There’s nothing particularly special about the walk but it’s just nice to have a bit of countryside on my doorstep. I didn’t think it would be particularly good for wildlife either but I’ve managed to record 37 species of bird over the course of half a dozen or so walks as well as rabbits and signs of badgers, there are foxes out there too, as well as a few cows!
Later that afternoon, I went on one of my more frequent walking routes – around Wybunbury Moss National Nature Reserve. A 45 minute walk, this starts in the village church yard and then out along the backs of the houses on the main street before heading down into the bowl in which the Moss sits. There’s a footpath all the way around the outside nature reserve as well as a permissive path that goes through the woodland immediately next to the Moss itself (the Moss is out of bounds to the public).
The view as I wandered around the path was full of autumn with the trees reaching their most colourful before the leaves all drop. There were also the sounds and smells of the season as the leaves that had already fallen rustled beneath my feet and the aroma of cider seemed to last long after I left behind the windfalls below a solitary apple tree.
As I wandered around, I added one more bird species to the list of 63 I had already got for the walk – there was the unmistakable sound of a water rail coming from just inside the trees on the edge of the Moss. Well, it was either a water rail or a squealing piglet but I know which is more likely.
Manchester Buildings
This may not be the most architecturally brilliant building but it has a lot more character than its neighbours
Manchester Buildings
Autumn colours in Albert Square…
Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers
I don’t normally blog about the local volunteering I do with Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers – not sure why – but I think it’s about time I started.
I’ve been volunteering with the group for four years, heading out into the South Cheshire countryside every other Sunday to do practical tasks for a number of different organisations.
Our tasks are varied and focused on helping to conserve or enhance particular habitats and environments. We often undertake similar tasks over several Sundays to enable us to complete larger jobs. Our tasks tend to follow the seasons with our cycle of chopping, burning, invasive species removal and meadow raking being very familiar to long serving volunteers. We also do some more obviously constructive tasks such as the bench installing and path building we did last weekend.
Over the course of each year we generally do tasks for Cheshire East Council Ranger Service, Cheshire Wildlife Trust and Natural England, although for a past couple of years we’ve also done some tasks for a private landowner.
The group doesn’t have an official motto but ‘Conservation & Conversation’ works pretty well – although something related to fire or biscuits could be just as apt!
The group moved into the 21st Century a couple of years ago with the launch of our own Facebook page and Twitter feed through which we keep follower up to date with our latest tasks.
As we move into the latter part of the year, my favourite kind of tasks start again – cutting down trees and setting fire to them! It may sound counter-intuitive to do this in the name of conservation but it is vital in helping to preserve some of the rarest habitats we have. Whilst I’m a believer in letting nature have its way, I also understand that if we did so without any management at all, we would end up losing some habitats that are now few and far between in the UK. That we have to do this at all is more than just a shame and entirely the fault of humans. Sometimes we need to take what would normally be odd action to help undo the harm we have done – if we don’t do something, some habitats may be lost forever.
Anyway, for me, there’s no better way to spend a chilly Sunday afternoon outside than chucking a few logs on a fire and spending a few hours poking it.
Manchester Buildings
I’ve not posted one of these for a while…
And the cradle will fall
I was working from home last Friday and noticed that there were lots of comings and goings from my house martin nest. I could see them constantly flying past my landing window and assumed that they had finally fledged. As a first brood, I was getting slightly concerned that I had yet to see the chicks fly – this being late in the year. I was relieved then when I saw them flying past.
However, as I left home in the afternoon I noticed something on my driveway – the nest!
The nest was from last year and perhaps, weakened over the winter, it could not withstand the weight of an almost fledging brood. Whatever the reason for its failure, it seems the chicks were forced to fledge whether they liked it or not. The birds were still flying up to where the nest had been, trying to cling on to what little remained of the mud home attached to the wall.
When I retuned home on Sunday, the birds were nowhere to be seen. I hope they’ve found somewhere else to roost overnight, particularly with the temperatures becoming more autumnal. Whether the chicks will have gained enough strength to migrate yet is another matter entirely. I’ve not seen many house martins in the area since I returned so maybe they have already moved on.
After giving up on the nest ever producing any chicks this year, I was very surprised and happy to hear and see a brood being nurtured high up on the side of my house in mid-August. Now that they’ve fledged, and hopefully begun their migration south, I have some renewed hope that I may be able to conduct the 2016 BTO House Martin Nest Study using a nest on my own house – I’ll just have to wait and see!
A short trip across Ramsey Sound
At the weekend I took the long route down to Pembrokeshire to pay a visit to Ramsey Island before it closes for the winter at the end of next month. After spending another couple of weeks volunteering there in June, I wanted to visit later on in the season, especially wanting to see the grey seals pupping on the beaches.
I tried to make the trip a couple of Septembers ago but poor weather on three consecutive days thwarted my attempt. This time I left my decision to visit to the last minute and with Saturday’s weather looking to be set fair, I set off down through Wales on Friday afternoon. The journey took longer than usual as I went via a different route, using country lanes through the heart of mid-Wales, eventually arriving in time to watch the rugby in the pub.
Having left my plans to the last minute, I couldn’t get a room in the B&B I used last time; the Coach House in the centre of St David’s. Instead, I booked into the sister property, Bwlch Carte, a cottage with a couple of B&B rooms on the edge of town but only about 10 minutes walk from the centre. I was glad I did as I woke to the view below – having left the curtains open, I woke to see mist across the heathland behind the cottage, with the hills poking out of the top – I’m glad I didn’t lie in!
The weather was perfect and the crossing to Ramsey about a calm as I’ve seen it. I spent the day wandering around the island, feeling like I should be getting on with some tasks, but instead just enjoying the scenery and sunshine. I had hoped that the heathland flowers would still be out but they had long faded and I will need to visit in late August to get them in their prime. However, just as photogenic, the drying grass and wilting bracken gave a rusty autumn tint to the land, showing that the fine weather was possibly just a last lingering flicker of the summer.
Most of the way around the island, where sounds could float up from the bays, I could hear seals, but it was only when I got to Aber Mawr, the largest bay on the island, that the importance of Ramsey Island for pupping could be seen. Ramsey is the largest breeding site for Atlantic grey seals in southern Britain and around 700 are born on its beaches every autumn. Aber Mawr had its fair share with cows and calves spread out across its sand, pebbles and rocks.
The bird life was a little quieter than when I was there in June; some of the summer visitors were still around but the cliff-nesting birds were all gone to sea for the winter. However, the autumn migration was well underway with waves of hirundines (swallows and martins) flying through on their passage south. Before the 4:00pm boat arrived to take the visitors back across the Sound, including me for once, I spent a little time looking for a wryneck in one of the bays but without any luck – I’ll have to wait longer for my first ever sighting.
It was with sadness that I drove home yesterday – it’ll probably be summer again before I make another trip to the Island – but the long journey was well worth it, even for a visit of just a few short hours.
Daft Mumblings 