Three little things
Quite often the Field Club receives little stories about wildlife or gets asked to help with an identification, etc. These always get answered, to the best of our abilities at least!
These little things might not at first sight look like they would make a story for this website or our Facebook page.
Here are three quick examples, all from 2023, that, when you put them together, combine to illustrate that the little things add up and are all part of the bigger picture.
Achnacarnin
First one is from April and the location is Achnacarnin. Stoats are amazing animals and can kill prey items much bigger than themselves. John Morgan has at least one regularly in his garden, and it seems to deal with a few of the local rabbits.
John was, as we all do! about to check his car’s fluid levels. When he lifted the bonnet, he was greeted by a dead rabbit lying along the top of the engine! There was evidence (fur) that the rabbit had been dragged up and over the engine, etc. and deposited where John found it. Looks like the stoat was hoping to get a cooked meal!
Clachtoll
The next one is from Clachtoll and came to us at the start of November. Dorell Pirrie took a photo of what she was sure was a Waxwing. The thing that was causing doubt however was the plumage on the bird’s head.
You’ll see from the photo that it had black and white stripes on its forehead. Waxwings normally have a prominent reddish-buff coloured crown, not even the juveniles have the black and white of this bird. There is another species of Waxwing that arrives very, very occasionally in the UK from North America. The Cedar Waxwing has a bit more white about its face than our normal visitor but nothing to the extent of Dorell’s bird.
We checked with the Highland Bird Recorder who came to the same conclusion as us. It could be a faulty moult with this bird or simply some other sort of plumage aberration.
Culkein Drumbeg
Our last example is another avian one, this time from Culkein Drumbeg. We have recorded sightings of a Grey Wagtail that seems to enjoy using my car as its own hotel and restaurant!
Last week I was looking out the kitchen window, mine not the bird’s! It had been raining the day before, but thankfully not on the looking out of the window day. If it had been then the muddy bird footprints planted squarely on the outside of the glass would have been washed off.
Its 99.9% likely that the prints were from the wagtail given their habit of ‘hovering’ at edges of things as they look for insects, etc. Spiders are a likely target this time of year.
Both the wagtail and its prints are still present at the time of writing (30 Nov. 2023)!
Three little things, but they are just as exciting and interesting as a ‘new’ species being recorded.
David Haines