We spent
the week from Saturday 2 June at Fersit, roughly eight miles east of Spean Bridge,
north of Fort William. The main purpose of the visit
was to visit a few Chequered Skipper sites around Fort William
where it has its stronghold. In addition we rented a cottage that was in a
fairly remote area with its own largish area of garden so we could take the
butterflying sessions fairly leisurely in the middle of the day with a little
bit of ringing before and after the butterfly site visits.
Saturday 2 June 2012
Having had
a relatively traffic free journey up apart from a 2.7 mile crawl to end of the
dual carriageway on the A82 north of Glasgow we arrived at Forty William just
after six to find Morrisons virtually totally devoid of any fresh produce or
bread, as so often can be found at a holiday town supermarket late on a
Saturday. We then arrived at the cottage at Fersit at about half seven, finding
that it comes with resident Hobo family who live in a caravan joined to a self made
wooden hut.
There were already a couple of feeders in the garden with Siskin coming to them regularly, with quite a few Chaffinches, but the Lesser Redpolls were seen and heard overhead, but seemed to avoid using the feeders. The track down to the cottage had a Wheatear and quite a few Meadow Pipits in the open area. We set up a couple of extra feeders and put a single 20 feet net behind the feeder next to the cottage.
We caught
seven Siskin, one of which was already ringed, Y382054. This should have been a
‘yea – control!’ moment, but we began to have concerns that a local ringer
might be operating close by.
Strawberry
jam was put on a feeding post next to the conservatory for the Pine Marten that
is supposed to visit the garden. We did not expect a quick result and watched a
DVD from about an hour, during which time it came and scoffed the lot. We
should have read the visitors’ book before hand, as apparently it is very
regular between 10 and 10.20pm – when we were watching TV!
Catch: 12
(1)
Great Tit –
1
Chaffinch -
5
Siskin - 6
(1)
Sunday 3 June 2012
The day
started clear and bright, with a fairly brisk cool breeze, with the cloud
during the middle part of the day bunching up with a few periods of bright
sunshine, but by the end of the day there was not a cloud in the sky, and the
wind had dropped completely. We did a bit of ringing in the morning and late
afternoon. We re-captured Siskin Y382054.
Early
morning saw a couple of Raven fly over and a Cuckoo was in the area.
Late
morning we made a visit to Glen Loy mainly for Chequered Skipper, but with
little direct sunlight they were not easy to find, it was a while before I
found one, clinging for dear life in the stiff breeze, to a bluebell, then
Denise found another and at another spot we had another two, but they were mainly
resting with their wings closed. We saw three Green Hairstreaks and a single
Small Pearl-boarded Fritillary. Birds seen included three Whinchat, a couple of Tree
Pipits and three Buzzards, but we were unable to find any Dippers on the River
Loy.
Chequered Skipper
Small Pearl-boarded Fritillary
Green Hairstreak
Coal Tit
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Chaffinch
Catch: 40
(2)
Great
Spotted Woodpecker – 1
Robin - 2
Blackbird –
1
Blue Tit –
1
Great Tit -
3
Coat Tit -
3
Chaffinch –
14 (1)
Greenfinch
- 2
Siskin – 12
(1)
Monday 4 June 2012
The day was
reasonably bright with little wind. An early ringing session was had before
heading off to Glasdrum Wood. Denise found a Spotted Flycatcher in the birches
on the opposite side of the railway line and the Pine Marten unexpectedly
turned up around nine.
We arrived
mid-morning at Glasdrum Wood to a mixture of sunshine and cloud cover. We
managed to see at least ten Chequered Skippers along with eight Small
Pearl-boardered Fritillaries, a couple of Orange Tips and a Small Heath.
Chequered Skipper
Small Pearl-boarded Fritillary
Golden-ringed Dragonfly
Chequered Skipper
As we headed
back we stopped at Cuil, where there was supposed to be a colony of Marsh
Fritillaries. We were either too early or the colony had gone. In the bay was
an Eider with only a single ducking left. A Red-throated Diver flew in to feed,
four Common Sandpipers were seen along witch a family of Stonechats. A pair of
Teal were on a small fishing Loch.
Oystercatchers
Red-throated Diver
A stop to
look across the western end of Loch Leven
produced 11 Eider, a Goosander, four Arctic Terns and a Black Guillemot.
Upon returning
to Fersit we did some more early evening re-capturing Siskin Y382054 again. Surely
individuals of this nature are behind the old adage that mist netting,
considered to be a random catching method, catches more stupid birds and
therefore can not be representative. This evening the Pine Marten made an
appearance at a reasonable hour, turning up at about 10.30pm. It also likes
chocolate biscuit and peanut butter.
Pine Marten
Wren
Bullfinch
Siskin - 3J
Catch: 23 (4)
Wren -1
Blackbird -
2
Song Thrush
– 1
Greenfinch
- 1
Chaffinch -
5
Siskin – 12
(4)
Bullfinch -
1
Tuesday 5 June 2012
Again we
did our morning and early evening ringing split around skipper hunting.
We headed off
earlier today to another Chequered Skipper site at Allt Mhuic by Loch Arkaig.
When we got there it was sunny without any cloud cover. Chequered Skippers
seemed thin on the ground, but the five seen were on the wing showing little
interest in alighting. The only other butterfly seen was a couple of Small
Pearl-boarded Fritillaries. There was a singing Wood Warbler in the silver
birch and a couple of Tree Pipits.
Northern Emerald
Small Pearl-boarded Fritillary
Large Red Damselfly
Allt Mhuic and Loch Arkaig
Looking over
Loch Arkaig we had a couple of Greylag and four Red-breasted Margansers and at
Chia-aig a couple of Dipper on the river, one adult and a juvenile.
We then
stopped off at Clunes, another Chequered Skipper site, but had no success
though I did come across a singing Pied Flycatcher and a Grey Wagtail.
Four-spotted Chaser
Driving
along back towards Gairlochy we had a pair of Redstart on the roadside.
We then did
a second visit to Glen Loy, but by now it had become cloudy. We managed to find
four Chequered Skippers, two Small Pearl-boardered Fritillaries, two
Green-veined Whites, along with Orange Tip, Green Hairstreak and Peacocks.
Chequered Skipper
Small Pearl-boarded Fritillary
Denise
picked up the Spotted Flycatcher in the evening again, which was then found in
one of the nets. We also caught our first Willow Warbler which took a while
considering there are several in the garden singing. We captured Y382054 again.
A Woodcock flew over whilst doing the Pine Marten watch, which did not turn up
by 11.30pm so was not seen on this night.
Willow Warbler
Spotted Flycatcher
Catch: 34
(18)
Willow Warbler - 1
Blue Tit -
2
Great Tit –
1 (1)
Spotted
Flycatcher - 1
Greenfinch
- 3
Chaffinch –
9 (4)
Siskin – 17
(13)
Wednesday 6 June 2012
No morning
ringing was done as we were to head off to the Aviemore area. But, whilst doing
some updating of the log, the Pine Marten put in a brief appearance in the
morning. There was no food out so it departed swiftly across the railway line.
Pine Marten
As we
headed towards the Spey
Valley in a heavy low
clouded sky, the rain started to come down and remained with us more or less
all day in varying strength. This somewhat limited what we did around Aviemore,
and certainly put any thoughts of trekking up the Cairngorms towards Ben Macdui
out of the question as the tops were covered in low cloud.
On the way over to Spey Valley
we had a male Redstart at Mains of Glentruim, but we failed to find the area
where about 20 years ago we had Black Grouse, possibly as we were not looking
in the right spot. First visit was to Loch Garten, where we did manage a walk
in light drizzle before the remainder of the day was more or less constant
heavy rain. We managed to pick up the obligatory Osprey on the nest, six
Crested Tits including a family party of at least one adult and two juveniles,
three Spotted Flycatchers, four Common Sandpipers and a female Goldeneye. We
disturbed a Roe Deer in the woods and there was again the obligatory Red
Squirrel on the Osprey centre feeders.
We had a look at Tulloch Moor for Black Grouse
without any luck and had just three Whinchats and a few Tree Pipits. A stop off
at Loch Morlich, a site were previously we knew held Black-throated Diver
failed to produce any, but there was a male Wigeon, Tufted Dick, two Goldeneye
and a couple of Common Sandpipers. Whilst at the Loch Morlich café we had very
close views of a Red Squirrel that came to the feeders especially set up for
them. A visit to the car park at Coire na Ciste on Cairngorm and we managed to
pick up a singing male Ring Ouzel which also showed well across the other side
of a small gully. Final visit was to Loch Vaa, but we failed to find any Slavonian
Grebes here with just four Goldeneye and a male Red-breasted Merganser visible.
Upon our return we managed to get a short
period of evening ringing in. The midges were worse than ever and we found that
the re-traps outnumbered the new birds. There was definitely no need to worry
about treading on anyone else’s toes, although Y382054 was caught yet again,
there have been no further controls. We left two biscuits out for the Pine
Marten today, just to see if it comes at other times of the day. One had gone
and the other remained so now we pose ourselves the question ‘Was it the Pine
Marten or was it perhaps the hobos at the top of the hill?
Catch: 12 (9)
Greenfinch - 3J
Blue Tit – 0 (1)
Great Tit – 0 (1)
Chaffinch - 4
Greenfinch - 2
Siskin – 6 (7)
Thursday 7 June 2012
Today was a bit of tourist type day, we took
the steam train from Fort William to Mallaig, sadly on the hottest and only
sunny day of our last three days in Scotland. We had a hunt around
Mallaig for Otters without success but managed a few Manx Shearwaters, three
Shags, couple of Gannets and a lone Eider off the harbour.
Eigg & Rhum from Mallaig
In the morning I had some Common Crossbills fly
over the cottage and when we got back we did some morning/evening ringing.
Again re-traps dominated. And yes, Y382054 turned up, which by now was named ‘Dopey’.
Lesser Redpoll - 5 male
Catch: 11 (24)
Robin – 0 (1)
Blackbird – 0 (1)
Willow Warbler -1
Great Tit – 0 (1)
Greenfinch - 1
Chaffinch – 1 (7)
Siskin – 8 (14)
Lesser Redpoll - 1
Friday 8 June 2012
The weather again today was overcast and
though it did not rain, the temperature was rather low, with a brief sunny
period mid afternoon.
Today’s sortie was to two Glens around Fort William
in the hope of possibly picking up Golden Eagle. The first was Glen Roy, which
despite some hard effort to make the Buzzard that was about a mile away on the
top of a ridge a Golden Eagle, all we managed was four Buzzards, though we also
had three Ravens, three Wheatears, found two Ring Ouzel territories, with a
pair and a single female and a couple of Goosander flew up river.
Glen Roy
Next stop off was the far end of Glen Nevis,
which still did not give us the wanted Golden Eagle sighting, though there were
three singing Wood warblers along the path, two of which showed well, and a few
singing Tree Pipits.
On the lane on the way back to Fersit at
Inverlair we flushed a Redwing from the roadside.
Again the usual am/pm ringing session, which
was even more dominated by re-traps, but we did manage our only Mistle Thrush
of the week and our last visit from our Siskin control.
Siskin - 5 male
Mistle Thrush
Catch: 15 (28)
Robin - 1
Mistle Thrush - 1
Willow Warbler – 1
Great Tit - 1
Coal Tit – 0 (1)
Greenfinch - 1
Chaffinch – 1 (5)
Siskin – 9 (22)
Saturday 9 June 2012
Our only
quick session was as we cleared up to head home.
Catch: 10 (5)
Wren - 1
Blackbird - 1
Greenfinch – 2
Chaffinch – 0 (2)
Siskin – 6 (3)
On the way back we stopped off at Glen Coe for
a quick late scan for any Golden Eagles without success and also still failed
to pick up any obvious Red Grouse.
On Rannoch Moor at Loch Ba there were a couple
of singing Dunlin, but still no red Grouse, but I did not go across country in
an effort to find any.
Loch Ba, Rannoch Moor
Just left with a long drive home past the Olympic torch relay.