A review of 2017. Nature stuff. Part 2 of 2

At the end of the previous installment of this post, Sue and I are in Scotland heading for week in the Cairngorms with my bird watching friends, Stuart, Trevor and Fran. Let us not however forget Dorothy - the redoubtable, never-waste-a-single-thing Dorothy -  the long suffering wife of Stuart. Dorothy brought along hot cross buns aplenty from her freezer, mostly at 10p for 6. Yes thats for 6 and not just one. She also brought homemade marmalade from I think as long ago as 1989. It was as black as treacle and tasted like something that gourmets would rave about. We ate well and frugally that week. Us chaps are all of a certain age and temperament that could be described as prone to bouts of grumpiness. Think Victor Meldrew. Sue coped with us all with great patience and humour.

Birding highlights? We had a double eagle species hour up the Findhorn Valley. The first eagle, a goldie, appeared just as Fran had started to recite a dirty limerick to keep the spirits up just as our patience was beginning to run out. Ten minutes later, waiting in vain for the goldie to reappear, Fran began the limerick again. "There once was a bishop from Birmingham...".
To our astonishment the reciting of this limerick, or merely the first line of it summoned a second eagle from the same place as the goldie. This time it was a White Tailed eagle, looking huge even though it was a mile away.
We also enjoyed a breeding Slavonian Grebe on Loch Ruthven and perhaps even better, a black throated diver at a lovely spot called Lochindorb. A place name that sounds distinctly fictional if ever there was one. A days walking on the Cairngorms plateau (without Sue) gave us terrific views of Ring Ouzel, Snow Bunting and Ptarmigan. All of these birds were much more adapted to this barren windswept place than me.

I wrote various haikus inspired by the week in the Cairngorms.

White-tail and Golden drop

on unseen carrion.

Beyond the hill top.

I like my rocks,

blemished by life forms,

quartz and all.

Large capers

can be found in jars.

Also rarely in forests

Trump hair tails.

Picnic aftermath.

Red squirrel cleaners.

Shadowed corries.

White paint splash of

 snow bunting male

Artificial homes

for goldeneye ducks.

Martens' snack shacks.

Guardians fret over 

prospects for

their yellow eared Slavs.

Lochindorb depths.

Black-throated divers,

fleetingly up.

The ptarmigan has

a silent pee.

But is otherwise quite loud

The reciting of

a dirty limerick

seems to summon raptors.

The unseen capercaillies

must be hiding behind 

the unseen twinflower.

His and hers long lenses.

She wants it to be known - 

they are on a par. 

Nest cam stars.

Named fish hawks.

Tragedies exposed.

Tufts erect on

silvery heads.

Sylvestris sprites.

Superstitious finches,

mandibles always

crossed for luck.

July and August are the peak months for moths. The above photos are all from this time. Note the migrant hawker dragonfly interloping the lepidoptera. The variation in form, colour and pattern of all our moth species never ceases to amaze me. All of these moths came from my garden with the exception of the magpie moth at the top left and the garden tiger on the bottom left. Those came from the Southern Lake District in the garden of a cottage. The garden tiger moths have declined considerably in Southern Areas of England, as have cuckoos that feed on the hairy caterpillars of this species. Not sure if these two declines are linked in any way. The canary shouldered thorn is the one that looks like a fluffy baby chicken. The bottom right is the charismatic male vapourer moth, a remarkable beast that is capable of detecting a flightless female from miles away. It was the discovery and rearing of a vapourer caterpiller when I was about 14 that helped me to develop a lifelong fascination for weird and wonderful creatures. Completing the set above are the maple button (representing micro moths as opposed to macro moths) an early thorn and an arty shot of a white satin moth.

The photos above from top left moving clockwise are
1. You can see that by October (top left) that all this birdwatching had got the better of poor Sue. This is an unposed photo on Cley Beach.
2. One of my most memorable days in the whole of 2017 was going out in August with a licenced ringer of barn owls, Charles Gunn. We were both astonished at how many occupied nest boxes we found and must have seen over 30 barn owls (including at least six adults) within one afternoon. Astonishing.
3. This moth - a pale prominent, looks almost as fed up as Sue.
4. A close up of a pebble hook tip moth wing.

Grumpiness seems to be a feature of this blog post. I must admit I was a bit grumpy about the fact that although 2016 was a poor year for moths in my garden, the total number of moth species in my garden was even lower in 2017. Heres to 2018 when I hope to see 200 plus moth species in my garden. My UK birding target was also by coincidence 200 species. I fell short by 8 species - a poor effort really.

Finally a montage of winter shots from various places around Peterborough. From top left moving clockwise 1. Southey Woods (a known dogging spot), 2. Morton's Leam, 3. the ice floes of Nene Park and 4. my garden in snow.