More Northbound Waders at Farmoor 17th May 2022

A bright, warm and sunny, late Spring morning found me strolling the causeway at Farmoor Reservoir. The benign weather conditions promised little to excite and I was expecting to draw an all too familiar blank as far as birds were concerned.

Certainly it was unlikely that any northbound waders would be touching down on the sun baked concrete edges of the reservoir but I was to be proved wrong and not for the first time.

For once it was not the central causeway that delivered the birds  but further around the periphery of the smaller of the two basins that comprise Farmoor Reservoir.

Four tiny bodies were strung along the water's edge busily feeding. Approaching closer and looking into the sun it was difficult to initially make out what they were but on getting even closer I could see that there were two each of Sanderling and Ringed Plover.

They were skittish, especially the Sanderling. The Ringed Plover were the more obliging, their more hesitant feeding technique rendering them more approachable while the Sanderling scuttled away as fast as their little black legs could carry them and that is pretty fast believe me!

The increased footfall on the reservoir, post pandemic, meant that the group of waders were regularly disturbed and they would take fright and fly out over the reservoir to land further along on the concrete shore.This happened frequently and in the end it proved too much and they departed for good. Maybe they would continue their long flight north or possibly find somewhere quieter, such as another reservoir not so far away. I would never know.

It seems such a shame that many of those now using the reservoir for relaxation are unaware of the presence of these birds as they walk by. Some do notice them or at least they notice people like me looking intently at the water's edge and stop to enquire what is so interesting and are invariably amazed to hear about these migrating birds, what they are and where they are going.

Below are some images of this attractive quartet,  gracing the reservoir as they took a short break from their long and perilous journey, one that will take them to separate northern breeding grounds.They still have a very long way to go and for now were happy to keep in each others company.

Yet again I stood in wonder at living proof, before my very eyes, of the almost miraculous feat of endurance that is bird migration.

Sanderling

Ringed Plover

Nightingale Time 12th May 2022

Mark (P) called to enquire if I was of a mind to go and look for the Nightingales that are found near Greenham Common in Berkshire.It is a known hot spot for them, although its location is hardly propitious, sandwiched as it is between a busy and consequently noisy road and a car park commandeered by numerous dog walkers, who fortunately eschew walking the woods, preferring to exercise their canine companions on the surrounding open space of common land.

The close proximity of a road and busy car park does perversely benefit the Nightingales by scaring off the deer that browse the wood's understorey, removing the dense underlying habitat where Nightingale's like to nest.The burgeoning deer population is now a major problem in Britain and a recognised contributory factor to the Nightingale's increasing scarcity in England.

On an early and sunny morning Mark parked the car and stepping out from the vehicle we instantly heard a Nightingale singing close to the road, only metres away in fact.Their song is unmistakeable and like no other. Astounded by both the loudness, the complexity and tonal variety of the notes that pour forth at high volume from such a small and unlikely source, you are compelled to stop and marvel at the hidden songster.

For hidden they always are, shy and shunning exposure they sing from deep in the cover of leaf and branch as if worried that the boldness of their song will attract unwelcome attention.In Europe they are far more prone to sing in the open but for some reason to see one away from a density of foliage in Britain is exceptional. We walked towards the invisible bird but held little hope of seeing it as they invariably see you before you see them and will immediately drop out of sight or fly to another more concealed perch.

We were lucky however, as within minutes we saw the bird singing on a bare branch but deep within the woodland. For a minute it carried on singing but then noticed us and fled and we heard it no more. Another was singing from the further side of the woodland and we followed the sound to find it perched deep within a willow, much obscured by branches and leaves but nonetheless satisfactorily viewable

We then heard two others, singing in a part of the wood bisected by a track that ran between the road and the dog walkers car park, a track hardly ever used and thus quiet and undisturbed. 

The track through the wood.The Nightingale 
sang from the tree on the right of the track

One bird was singing from deep within the impenetrable trees and scrub, totally invisible, totally inaccessible, but the other had chosen to sing very close to the track. Here was our best chance of seeing one well. At first we could not locate it. Perched tantalisingly close it poured forth those familiar notes. Scanning with our bins we eventually found it perched at head height on a slender bough.

I have never seen a bird that opens its bill so wide to sing as does a Nightingale. Possibly it does this to better broadcast those celebrated notes at such intensity, its lower mandible jigging up and down like a marionettte on a string, the feathers of its swelling throat distended with the effort, its body vibrating as it produces phrase after phrase of rich and liquid sound. The notes pour forth, melodious, gurgling, chugging and finally comes an extended plaintive high note of supreme purity. beseeching, imploring and repeated several times over, then brief silence follows until the next explosion of song.

Luck was again with us as this bird had not read the script about concealment and although never fully in the open was visible to such an extent we were able to see it very well. We spent quite some time standing quietly on the track and in so doing found it moved between two favoured small trees and had distinct preferred perches within the trees, from which it sang and if we waited long enough it would come to perch on one of  these and allow us to see it singing for extended periods.

They are larger than a robin and smaller than a thrush, satisfyingly robust with rich chestnut head and upperparts, an even brighter, broad chestnut tail, a greyish breast and otherwise buff white underparts..Unremarkable in appearance maybe but it is the incomparable song that elevates the bird from the commonplace to the exceptional.Immortal bird indeed!

Despite competition from two other melodious singers in the form of a nearby Garden Warbler and Blackcap, it dominated by the sheer power of its song and its delivery. Here, in a remnant of unexceptional woodland in southern England, it has brought, for the six short weeks it will sing, the mystical allure of the boundless tropical forests and jungles of equatorial Africa that are its home for most of the year.

Still only approaching 10am, Mark consulted his RBA App to discover a report of a female Red footed Falcon at a disused gravel pit near Woolhampton, which lay but six miles away from our current location. Mark had never seen a Red footed Falcon so it was obvious where we were going next.

This is a good bird to see, not just for Mark but for me too.They spend their winter in southern Africa and make a long migration to breed in eastern Europe and Asia and sadly, they too are in decline due to habitat loss and hunting. They are a rare but virtually annual vagrant to Britain, the majority of which are first summer individuals, somehow straying too far west from their usual migration route that lies well to the east of Britain. These first summer birds are in no hurry as they will not breed this year so often remain for a few days, replenishig their energy reserves before reorienting themselves eastwards.

After a somewhat circuitous route due to a temperamental satnav we finally found the location, a none too obvious layby on a narrow rural road with room for a few cars, that led to a gate and a track beyond that wound its way to the lake in question. We were fortunate that as we arrived  so did a local birder and he showed us the way.I doubt we would have found it so easily otherwise.

Eventually, after passing yet another singing Nightingale, we came to a very small gap in the trees which served as a restricted viewing area over the lake. Half a dozen birders were already ensconced there and looking at the falcon. Graciously some of them vacated their positions so we could view the bird. It was flying somewhat distantly above the lake, hawking for dragonflies, around and above two small islands. The falcon's mode of flying and hunting was similar to the more familiar Hobby that comes here for the summer and at one point was joined by one.

It was supremely agile on the wing, swooping and soaring. gliding and then increasing speed to intercept a high flying dragonfly, seizing the insect in its claws and then bringing its bunched feet up to its bill to consume the unfortunate ins.

The falcon flew constantly and effortlessly looking for its winged prey, sometimes coming low but most often remaining high in the sky and was on view virtually all the time we were there.

Females, such as this individual are to my mind more attractive than the males, which unlike the female are uniformly grey all over, whereas the female is an appealing combination of brownish grey, barred upperparts, a many barred tail and a white head  crowned pale orange with a black face mask. The underparts are orangy buff. The predominance of grey and orange plumage always pleasing on the eye.

We watched the falcon for around half an hour and then left for home.

This had been a good day.

Sanderling Redemption 10th May 2022

Farmoor Reservoir, on the western fringe of the City of Oxford is my local patch and during the pandemic has been my saviour, allowing, me for the most part, to ward off the worst of those joint demons, depression and anxiety that successive lockdowns and many people's deaths brought upon me and many others.

Its circular concrete perimeter and central causeway, already familiar from countless visits over many years became ever more so, as virtually daily, I became a human satellite orbiting the reservoir's three mile circumference or wandered up and down its central causeway.

The reservoir is an unlikely source of benediction, especially in the winter months when it appears birdless, souless even, in its stark functionality but on occasions in spring and autumn, but especially spring, it is transformed by the arrival of migrant birds.

Such are Sanderlings, small, highly sociable waders that forsake distant seashores in sunny southern climes or so I choose to think, to make flights of almost inconceivable endurance and distance to breed in equally far off northern lands such as Greenland and Siberia.

May is the month when I hope, in fact expect to encounter Sanderlings at Farmoor, although some years are better than others. Those Sanderling that arrive on the reservoir, often during a spell of inclement weather, are taking a short cut across Britain on their way northwest and put down alongside the central causeway to feed, before resuming their marathon flights.

In early May they are still to a greater extent in the pale frosted plumage of winter, an appearance not dissimilar to a sugar coating over the emerging chestnut breeding plumage. Later in the month they will be more colourful and varied in appearance, but for now they are predominantly white and grey.

Soon after the morning rain cleared, two Sanderlings had arrived with a quartet of Dunlins and were running with the precision of a mechanical toy along the concrete shelving at the water's edge. 

Dunlin

Sanderlings at Farmoor seem forever in a hurry, eschewing the more sedate picking up of morsels that is the way of the demure and slightly smaller Dunlins. Everything is a speed fest as if to slow down would be to their disadvantage and a denial of  the urgency that consumes them to complete their mission to breed at the far ends of the earth

For reasons which I cannot explain, many of the small waders such as the Sanderlings, Dunlins, Ringed Plovers  and Turnstones that spend a day or two here, are confiding in the extreme and provided they are not alarmed by an overtly incautious approach or taken by surprise, will allow one to come very close. Possibly they have had minimal contact with the human race since their birth last year in the arctic north and only by chance do they find themselves coming into brief contact with humans in a more populous part of the planet such as Farmoor.

So  close can they allow one, that sometimes their quiet conversational twittering can be heard, the birds conversing excitedly, like small children but more muted, as they trip along beside the water's edge on blurring black legs, like those of a racing cyclist pedalling at speed. Occasionally they take mild alarm when one or more of the many visitors who now use the reservoir for relaxation, post pandemic, walk blindly past them unheeding of their presence, but the birds only fly a short distance before resuming their feeding by the causeway

These two Sanderling are the first for me this year and another small part of the healing process after a horrible two years. It's still far from over for me yet but the lowest point has been passed and in a much better place now, a feeling of healing and restoration, of almost normality, has replaced the sense of loss and stagnation..

As  the initial  excitement at finding these new arrivals faded to one of quiet satisfaction and intense pleasure, I stood on the hard unforgiving concrete of the causeway, my mood one of  reflection at why these  tiny birds, pausing for a few hours in their frantic lives to feed here, are so totemic. Over the last two years during the worst of the pandemic, knowing that their lives are entirely separate from mine and really they do not need or care one iota about me, they have offered consolation in the knowledge and acceptance that they were free from my anxieties and uncertainties and carry on regardless of my human condition, and in that I gain immense solace.

I recently read a book  'Birdsong - in a time of silence' by Steven Lovat, which describes how he coped  during the worst of the pandemic by listening to birds and he quoted the following about birds from the British poet and writer Philip Edward Thomas

'it is their inhumanity that gives them their utmost fascination, the mysterious sense which they bear to us that the earth is something more than a human estate

How true.

Another Sort of Burgundy 8th May 2022

A Spring Sunday and a late start for once, as Mark and myself had arranged to meet in a farm shop cafe at Tring, in the late morning, for a coffee and chat before moving on to Bison Hill on Dunstable Downs to look for Duke of Burgundy butterflies. This would be our first butterfly foray of the year, searching for this now rare and localized, spring flying butterfly, that will be on the wing for just six or so weeks and then will become a memory until next year.

It is not really known why they are called Duke of Burgundy or were once considered to be a fritillary. In the latter case, probably it was the superficially similar patterning on their wings to that of other true fritillaries and the likeness gave rise to them being originally named Mr Vernon's Small Fritillary. Once it was discovered they were not a fritillary at all, but belonged in an entirely separate genus, the name was dropped but no one can point to why Duke or Burgundy were then thought appropriate for them, the two names being initially used separately before being combined into the name they now carry to this day. 

It was already unseasonably warm by the time we parked in a tiny layby at the side of the road ascending Bison Hill, a road beloved of serious cyclists, testing their limits of endurance as they pedal up the severe incline . Bison Hill forms part of the gently undulating Dunstable Downs and is so named because it is near Whipsnade Zoo and you can look down from the hill onto the zoo's bison enclosure over two hundred metres below. 

Bison Hill is ideal for the Duke of Burgundy, facing, as it does, northwest and consisting of short, chalk downland grass with lusher areas no longer heavily grazed, that allow cowslips, the butterfly's foodplant, to prosper. It is an ongoing task to manage this habitat and keep it  suitable, just as it is in other areas where this special and threatened butterfly is still present.

There were quite a number of people, walking the top of the downs, out to enjoy the warm sunshine but we had our mind on other matters and  followed a less frequented  track of hard, sun baked earth, winding its way across a lower part of Bison Hill.

The breeze carried the pungent, sickly aroma of emerging may blossom, a froth of white on leaves still shiny and new, like green gloss paint yet to dull with age. Profusions of cowslips formed  pale yellow shadows of colour across the varying shades of brightening green that covered the slopes. It really was an uplifting experience to be out on a day such as this.

A bank of Cowslips.Home for the Duke of Burgundy

But where were the dukes? If you are in the right area they should not be too hard to find as the males are highly territorial, defending a small select area, intercepting passing insects and in the process making themselves conspicuous. The problem is that they are now not nearly so abundant as in previous times and can only be found in small, widely scattered colonies. Hotspots if you like that require some searching for. Today we found just half a dozen in this area and all were males.

Cowslips being their larval foodplant, it seemed logical to concentrate our searching in areas where they were plentiful  but  we found our first Duke capriciously holding territory on a narrow track of bare earth, no more than a sheep track, winding an uncertain course through the grass.

I am taken aback every year at how small they are. A tiny, pugnacious and fast moving, superficially dark brown butterfly that can be hard to follow as it flies. When settled it sits on a blade of grass or bramble leaf, opening its wings to the  sun, embracing the warmth but is never still for long. Always there will be an insect or another of its kind that comes to upset it and away it goes in fast flying, helter skelter pursuit of the interloper to its territory.

You can seize the moment and crawl or walk right up to a Duke when it is still and get no discernible reaction, but make it quick, for it is forever frustrating as any passing insect causes it to fly up in investigation and one then has to search for it all over again, safe however in the knowledge it is always faithful to its small territory and will usually have settled somewhere not too distant. On occasions, if you are lucky it will even return to whence it departed

Once settled it can be seen how agreeably marked they are. A tiny dark jewell of an insect, a miracle of nature that unfailingly imparts a sense of innocent discovery and fulfilment when it is found and admired.

The open upperwings are chequered orange and brown whilst the hind underwings are beautifully patterned, similar to a fritillary, with two conspicuous bands of  irregular shaped, silver white panels.

Of course there were other butterflies on the wing and chief amongst these were Green Hairstreaks, flying hesitantly when disturbed and soon to drop into the short grass, where they wander along and examine thin grass stems with great deliberation, turning and twisting so that their emerald green underwings shimmer like burnished metal in the sun.

Green Hairstreak

Brown Argus, Grizzled and Dingy Skippers are another matter, all being much more active, their wings natural solar panels that energise them into their fast flight across the sward, testing one's patience and endurance on the steep slopes they patrol.

Brown Argus

Grizzled Skipper

Dingy Skipper

After an enjoyable three hours I was beginning to flag. A bank of cowslips adjacent to the car provided a suitable valedictory as we watched a spectacular, skyward spiralling tussle between a Duke and a Dingy Skipper. 

Birds on The Isle of Arran April 2022

In the Spring of most years we rent a cottage on the northwest side of Arran. We like this part of the island as it is quiet, beautiful and for the most part we have the surrounding coastline and rocky beaches to ourselves. This area of Arran is separated from the Kintyre peninsula to the west, by a stretch of sea called Kilbrannan Sound.

Here are some of the birds which provided a daily fascination and much pleasure as we sat on a seat outside our cottage overlooking the sea or wandered the shoreline.

Great Northern Diver

A good number of these magnificent birds spend their winter around Arran and many others also winter along the northwest coast of Scotland. For the most part they come from Iceland, where around 300 pairs breed, although others, in the minority, originate from Greenland.

In Catacol Bay where our cottage is situated, up to four are currently present, two in their second year of life and unlikely to breed this year or acquire adult breeding plumage, which only comes when they are in their third year of life. The other two are older, in one case still with a way to go to acquire full breeding plumage, whilst the other looks spectacular, transformed from the dull grey and white of winter into the magnificence of its black and white, lined and chequered patterning, all black head, bill and wine red eye that constitutes breeding plumage for an adult Great Northern Diver.

Second calendar year Great Northern Diver

Third calendar year Great Northern showing quite a late transition
to breeding plumage

Third calendar year or older Great Northern in full summer plumage prior to migrating north to breed
 

Coincidentally, on my local Farmoor Reservoir there is still an immature Great Northern Diver present, that arrived on the 12th December 2021 and shows no signs of departing but may well do so in May, although who can tell. It has certainly broken all records for a long staying diver in Oxfordshire, 138 days so far, but like other  immature birds may fly to Iceland, even though it is not going to breed this year. Call it a trial flight, learning the ropes so to speak, preparatory to the real thing next year, assuming it survives another winter.

Like the immature divers here on Arran it retains a predominantly, unremarkable grey and brown plumage and I look at the adult diver here and wish that the diver on the reservoir would remain for another year and by next Spring adopt the sumptious breeding plumage of an adult. I know this will not happen.It's a fantasy. Such a thing has never been recorded but..................

The divers at Catacol are also vocal and a stroll by the calm waters of Kilbrannan Sound of a late evening, as the sun sets the sky afire beyond Kintyre,  is sure to bring the eerie haunting cry of the divers, swimming far out in the sound. The calls create within me a minor emotional conflict. Precipitating a feeling of slight unease but also a fizz of excitement at hearing these haunting and so very strange cries. A disembodied, unearthly sound, an evocation of something primal and long lost to our senses, now so de-sensitised by contemporary human existence. 

One memorable evening, with no wind and another flaming sunset over Kintyre to the west, I walked with my wife by Kilbrannan Sound. On the way back with the sun now departed but leaving an orange glow behind the dark mass of Kintyre and with the smooth flat waters of the sound slowly turning to silver in the half light of dusk, we listened to two divers calling far out, the cries travelling across the water as if magnified. 

An Otter was fishing just offshore, caught a crab and brought it to a rock to eat. So still and quiet was the seashore we could hear the crunching of crab shell in the Otter's jaws as the divers continued their wailing. It is a memory that will serve to sustain me through the inevitable trials and tribulations of the coming months.

Photographing the divers is always fraught with difficulty as weather and tides can all have a deleterious effect but sometimes a window of opportunity presents itself and, with a little luck, combine to allow me to record something worth keeping.

The adult diver naturally drew most of my attention. Its spectacular and highly attractive patterning of white polkadots, black stripes and velvet smooth black head cannot fail but please, especially to one used to only seeing immature or winter plumaged individuals rather than such a bird in its breeding finery. Of the four individuals here it was the one that would venture closest to the shore, where you could watch it slide below the water to catch crabs and flat fish or snorkle a wayward path  on the sea's surface, before submerging once more. Supremely adapted to a life on and under water, their plumage sleeks down and is compressed as they dive and even when surfacing their head feathers remain compressed, looking for all the world as if the bird's head is covered by a wet suit.

Northern Wheatears

This being the month of April but so much further north, migrants that have for some weeks been arriving in southern Britain are only now  beginning to put in an appearance in Scotland, such as here on Arran.

It is my custom to rise early each morning and walk a mile or so along the road by the seashore when it is quiet and no one is about, not that there is ever anyone. This last week, for a couple of days I witnessed Northern Wheatears arriving from the sea and pitch onto the low rocks that guard the seashore in front of the row of cottages where we stay.

We have experienced truly exceptional sunny weather, every day for a fortnight, and such was the case on one particular morning, suffused with the gentle light of the sun rising over the hillside behind, when a wheatear arrived from Kilbrannan Sound, circling over my head. It cocked its head skywards as it flew and was joined by another. They circled together before pitching down onto the rocks in front of me. Always, when confronted by such an event, my mind goes into a gentle freefall of speculation as to where they had come from, for how long had they flown through the night and where were they bound for? Of course I will never have the answers but that does not prevent my innocent enjoyment of the romance of bird migration, especially when made so obvious.

The birds were male and female and perched for some minutes, spaced a few metres apart, each on their own particular piece of rock, encrusted with golden lichen, but ensuring they kept in visual contact. They were tired but still retained the jauntiness of their kind, alert enough to grab an unsuspecting insect from the rocks when the opportunity presented itself.

Female Northern Wheatear

Male Northern Wheatear

The colours of their plumage enhanced by the sun and with a background of blue sea, emphasised a pleasing robustness of form in such a small bird. Standing upright, they dipped on wire thin legs and flicked their wings, wary of these unfamiliar surroundings that constituted a first landfall. They have a pleasant habit of slowly lowering and then raising their tail back to the horizontal, the action seeming to involve the entire rear half of their body, a sensual and calming motion. The movement a displacement to settle their nervous spirit much as we scratch our head when uncertain.

For five or less minutes they remained but having safely made landfall there was no time to tarry.The impetus of Spring and urge to breed meant they soon disappeared and I saw them no more. Twenty minutes later another arrived, a lone female this time, but again remaining for only minutes, almost as if to catch her breath before she too flew northwards in a fast bounding flight, flashing a white rump and outer tail feathers.

The next day, in the early morning, in similar conditions another male flew in and perched on the same rocks as had the three yesterday. Again came speculation on my part. Where were they bound?Will they stay on Arran where some breed or move further north or even head for Greenland? The male yesterday certainly looked colourful enough to be of the Greenland race.

Black Guillemots

As I mentioned, the shoreline along this part of the island's coast is entirely rocky. Millions of stones cast up from centuries lie between the road and the sea. Much larger boulders are also scattered at random along the shore and it is these that form the attraction to Black Guillemots, which are now preparing to nest under them.

The mile of shoreline from our cottage at Catacol northwards to Lochranza is a summer home to at least a dozen Black Guillemots which have already formed pairs or are in the process of doing so. The guillemots spend the night out to sea but first thing in the morning they can be seen swimming close to the shore. 

Some, already paired, like to find a large rock on which to sit endearingly close to each other as if, like many a courting couple, they wish to be alone. Occasional mild conflicts arise when they are joined by an interloper which is usually repelled by mild vocal protest from the paired birds and flies off to try its luck elsewhere.

I cannot vouch for the confiding nature of Black Guillemots elsewhere but here on Arran, at this time of year, they are remarkably approachable and will tolerate me getting very close to them provided I do not rush the process, which involves walking gently over the stones to a pair sitting on a rock a metre or less offshore. Stopping every so often to re-assure the birds I eventually call a halt just three metres from them. They remain squatting on their red legs, showing mild interest in my presence but show far more concern at the regular passing of the adult Ravens that have a nest of four young to be fed on the cliff behind me. Their bond is strong and being further strengthened by sitting in harmony on their selected rock. Soon the female will seek a larger boulder further up the shore under which to lay her egg.

For now they squat, content but the tide is rising and the rock will soon become submerged by the gently lapping sea. As the water rises they become restless, the female raising her wings as she endeavours to move further up the rock.

The male, behind her, eventually struggles to a standing position. It is an ungainly pose, his legs, as with all birds that are adapted to an aquatic existence, are placed far back on his body so he has to lean forward to act as a counterbalance.

A minute later they both leave the now almost submerged rock and whirrr away on rapidly beating brown and white wings, low over the sea, to seek somewhere else to sit and wait.

Whimbrel

A number of these waders stop off  every year on Arran's shores as they make their way north from their winter home in West Africa. Slightly smaller but similar in colouring to a Curlew they can be identified by the black stripes on their head or, if unseen, the distinctive seven note tittering call they make when alarmed or keeping in contact with each other.

The birds here on Arran are probably bound for northern Scandinavia or are possibly even part of the small population that breeds on Shetland. Recent research has shown that some Whimbrel breeding in Iceland make an epic five day, six thousand mile plus crossing of the northern Atlantic, direct and non stop from West Africa.

Incidentally, a Whimbrel  was ringed on Arran with a coloured yellow flag (A2) in 2017 and has returned to the island each Spring for five successive years, to the same spot at Kildonan, as it makes its way north.This year it was seen at Porta Buidhe, Kildonan on 26th April.

Today we went to the Blackwater Bakehouse some miles south of Catacol to buy bread and the amazing pastries that are sold only between 1100 and1330.

Having availed ourselves of a cinnamon twirl each we walked a hundred metres down to the seashore to eat them, sitting on a bench looking out to sea. Ringed Plovers, Turnstones and Oystercatchers wandered amongst the seaweed and rocks with a pair of Sandwich Terns also resting there, while Gannets from  the just visible island of Ailsa Craig, fished offshore. 

Turnstone

Sandwich Tern

Oystercatcher

Sitting in the sun it was far from unpleasant and then came the distinctive calling of one or more Whimbrel, somewhere to my left along the shore. I could not see them but only hear their calls.

Blackwater is, unlike Catacol, a large village with a hotel, long sandy beach, village store and bakery and consequently is much more populated and beloved of visitors and dog walkers. I thought no more of the Whimbrel, assuming they had gone but they had obviously not departed as I heard them call again, presumably disturbed by people wandering along the shore. When they came into sight I could see there were two and they flew back towards us, circled and settled briefly on the rocks in front of us.There was no time to get set and I just grabbed the camera to record them before once again they were disturbed by a lady walking her dog.

They flew off, doubtless to try and find somewhere more peaceful to rest and feed after their long journey from West Africa. Such a shame they could not find rest here after all the effort of their still to be completed migration.

White Wagtails

At this same location, just below us on the beach lay a large patch of rotting seaweed. Not so desirable  to us maybe but for wagtails and pipits, along with the local sparrows, it provided a veritable cornucopia of flies and other invertebrates and they were intent on making the most of it.

There were up to five White Wagtails present amongst a similar number of Pied Wagtails with a couple of Rock Pipits for good measure. 

Rock Pipit

As ever the wagtails called constantly and cheerily, hyperactively leaping up to snatch flies, their reactions lightening fast, twisting and turning after their prey or chasing one another around at high speed. To my way of thinking they were not unlike those troupes of acrobats one used to see at a circus, that shout encouragement to each other as they perform various acobatic skills

White Wagtails are the continental version of our more familiar and native Pied Wagtail which is classed as a sub species of the White Wagtail. Male White Wagtails are very smart indeed in breeding plumage, their backs being a pure pale grey as opposed to the matt black of a Pied Wagtail.

White Wagtail

Their black bib and crown always seem more neatly defined from the white of their face than on 'our' Pied Wagtail.

Most will move north to breed in Scandinavia or Russia. having wintered in southern Europe but some will remain in northernmost Scotland to breed, while others will sometimes interbreed with a Pied Wagtail.

While watching the wagtails I idly scanned the gulls loafing around where the Blackwater Burn joined the sea. Apart from the customary Common and Herring Gulls there was an odd looking gull which could easily, and almost was, mistaken for something much rarer but was in fact a leucistic Herring Gull, virtually all white from head to wing tips. 

It was sporting a white plastic ring, inscribed with black numbers and letters on one leg and a metal ring on the other and further enquiries elicited the fact it had been ringed at Sliddery on Arran on 24th June 2018 and had previously been reported from Blackwater on 7th June 2021. 

Common Sandpiper

During our stay there was a general arrival of Common Sandpipers along the rocky shore between Catacol and Lochranza with up to three pairs establishing themselves. Their high pitched trilling and singing, along with wild  erratic display flights mimicking a piece of paper being caught by a delinquent gust of wind and blown every which way, became a common encounter towards the end of our stay.

I often see them stopping off on their migrations, north and south, at my local reservoir at Farmoor in Oxfordshire but of all the waders they are easily the wariest, never allowing you to get anywhere that could be called close. At Catacol however, they are much more approachable and will permit you to come relatively near to them.

One bird in particular even commenced running towards me over the boulders and rocks as if curious about me.This came as something of a shock having become so used to see them flying in the opposite direction at Farmoor Reservoir.

It eventually came to a teetering halt on a mess of bladderwrack and here too my blog comes to an end.