Aigas Visit.

 We had two different cottages booked for our eight day stay in the area near to Matt and Emily. One, a very nicely equipped cottage and the other one that was really a wooden cabin in a private woodland, which was across the valley from the cottage. We were literally on our own in the woodland, just the single cabin and 280 hectares of woodland. It was really quite unique and exciting. In the sales brochure there was a picture of a Pine Marten on the decking, so we put the camera trap every night hoping!!

One night I was woken at 2am by the sound of paws running along the decking, I woke up Lisa and we both heard the sound as it ran back a little later. We both hoped it would be either a Pine Marten or possibly a Badger. We had actually seen a Badger earlier that night on our drive back from Matt and Emily's. Needless to say, we were extremely disappointed when we checked the footage and saw it was just a domestic cat!! Presumably from the nearest house some distance away.

Both properties were in the Aigas valley, and as Emily had worked for the Aigas Wildlife Field Centre she very kindly contacted the centre to see if they would let us look around the site. We were then given VIP treatment, as we were met by two of their wardens and shown around this impressive site. They also told us about the Scottish Wildcat breeding program, where several institutions around the country are involved with breeding suitable cats, for release back into the wild. There have already been several releases in the Cairngorms, and they are already breeding again in the wild. Each breeding cat is DNA tested to make sure it's 95% or higher for true Scottish Wildcat, as there has been breeding in the past with feral cats that ran the risk of the true Scottish Wildcat becoming extinct.

We were lucky to be shown a male cat that is now beyond breeding age. The cats being used for the breeding program are kept as far away from human contact as possible. Although I don't normally post photos of captive animals, I think I can safely post this one, as to see a true Scottish Wildcat in the wild would be almost impossible as they are so elusive and obviously rare!!

Male Scottish Wildcat.

Unfortunately, the weather on our day at Aigas was quite wet and dull, but we still had a great time there. Following on from the Wildcat, we were left to explore if we wished. With the rain continuing, we decided to sit in the Red Squirrel hide and hope for some good views of these delightful animals.

We didn't have long to wait before we were entertained by three different Red Squirrels. Often they chased each other, or ran off with a Hazelnut, to bury it somewhere safe.

Red Squirrels.

There were plenty of birds too using the feeders outside the hide. Mainly Coal Tit, but also Siskin, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chaffinch and Great-spotted Woodpecker.

The kindness shown to us by the Aigas Field Centre was absolutely fantastic. If only the weather had been as kind!!

Scotland Scenery and Fungi.

 With Matt now having successfully settled well near Inverness with Emily, I expect my visits to Scotland will become more frequent. Both Lisa and myself do enjoy our trips up there anyway, so Matt and Emily being there just gives us a great excuse to head up there!!

This time we had just under 2 weeks, with 8 days based in two locations near where Matt and Emily live. We had booked the trip before they had moved into their lovely home, but fortunately both of the properties we had booked, for 4 days in each, were both within 20 minutes of them. Our trip also coincided with Matt's birthday, so the Eade tradition of celebrating with a curry was possible!!

The scenery in the area was absolutely amazing with all the autumn colours. However, the wildlife was, in the early part of the trip a little disappointing. This was certainly partly due to the weather, as well as Lisa that had a bit of a bad back in the early part of the trip. Fortunately, this would improve in time for our mountain top visits near the end of the trip.

Our first property was looking across the Aigas valley, where each morning we were treated with a light mist covering the autumn coloured trees on the opposite side of the valley.

Mist covering the opposite woodland.

We were also very close to Glen Affric, and we visited this area several times during the eight days of being in the area. Our first sighting here was a lovely Dipper on the river. We assumed as we saw it straight away, that there must be good numbers here and we spent quite a bit of time on each visit hoping to see more. However, we failed to see any more dippers here, however, on our final morning in Scotland further south, our final wildlfie sighting of note was good views of at least three further dipper. Our visit to the Highlands coincided with the first snow of the winter on the mountain tops. This we really enjoyed seeing and photographing on the visits to Glen Affric.

Glen Affric.

Mass of Silver Birch.

Autumn Colours at Glen Affric.

Glen Affric.

The first snow on the mountain tops.

The mountain tops near Glen Affric.

On one of the days, instead of climbing high up a mountain, we took a more leisurely kind of day looking at Loch Ness. This was partly to make it easier for Lisa to improve her back. As it happened, we still walked several miles that day, but without so much of the heavier camera equipment. Several good viewpoints were seen, but at least we didn't have too much staggering up steep hillsides to do the sightseeing..

Lisa somewhere near Loch Ness.

Most of the scenery shots were taken on our mobiles, as we don't have wide angle lenses, but I still haven't sorted them yet, so all of the photos here were with the 100-400mm zoom. 

On our final morning in Scotland, we had moved further south, to be near Glenshee. After two long days on top of Glenshee, we had a morning along the river valley, before the long drive south for a one night stop over near Martin Mere. On the morning on the river valley we had those great views of the dippers. A fabulous finale to our Scotland trip. More of this on another post. However, I was also taken by the views along the valley with some beautiful shaped trees with the mountains behind. I couldn't resist taking a few shots of this.

Autumn around Glenshee.

As well as the beautiful autumnal colours of the trees, we also saw some nice fungi. with yellow/orange being the popular colour!! The Yellow Stagshorn were particularly numerous, and lovely to see, as was some Orange Peel Fungus.

Yellow Stagshorn.

Orange Peel Fungus.

I could have taken many photos of all the fungi, but I did stay with just the more unusual or colourful ones, however, this Hoof Fungus was quite impressive on a Birch tree.

Hoof Fungus.

Some of the wildlife memorable moments will follow on the next couple of posts.

Spiders and Fungi.

 Just before a superb trip to Scotland, I had a few local outings mainly searching for Fungi. However, my favourite trip was to Ashdown Forest with Pete and David, where we were pleasantly surprised to find good numbers of Raft Spider, a species I have seen many times before in the area, but not in such good numbers. I was also trying out a new lens that I was hoping would work well for close up photography, despite it being a 100-400 zoom lens. As it happened, the spiders were perfect for trying out the lens.

Raft Spider with prey.

Raft Spider finishing off its meal.

Raft Spider in hunting mode.

Another Raft Spider hunting.

In all we saw well over double figures of Raft Spider, and with many photographed with the new lens we headed to another location to look for the fungi. 

Several species were seen, but the best was found by David, a beautiful Upright Coral Fungus.

Upright Coral Fungus.

We also saw several Fly Agaric, although my best Fly Agaric specimen was found a few days later in a private woodland.

Fly Agaric.

The following week, Lisa and I went back to Ashdown Forest to search out the Raft Spiders again. Strangely, we found many more than I had seen the previous week, over 30 seen, although these were mostly juvenile, whereas with Pete and David, most were fully grown adults.

Lisa however, did spot a lovely example of the Pixie cup lichen.

Cladonia pyxidata.

On the 9th of October on a lovely day, I was walking on a circuit of my local patch, when I was very surprised to spot a fresh Adonis Blue.  This species always has a 2nd brood in August which can go into early September, but an individual in October is extremely unusual, and would point towards a 3rd brood individual. Of course, it is very unlikely to find a partner to mate with, so I expect it ended up dying without helping next years generation.

Probable 3rd brood Adonis Blue.

On the same walk I also saw a couple of Clouded Yellows. These were almost certainly British born individuals from eggs laid earlier in the summer. On a walk today, November 2nd, I spotted another Clouded Yellow flying in sunshine.

Male Clouded Yellow.

In the week leading up to the Scotland trip , I also had several vists in the garden from a lovely Green Woodpecker. It was really good at digging small holes in the lawn as it hunted for food. I expect that my lawn is productive for the bird as I let it go pretty wild each year!!

Green Woodpecker at home.

Birding to the East

 During the middle part of September we went over to the eastern end of Sussex to do a little birding. On the way to Rye Harbour we picked up David too. As Lisa has been living in Worthing for many years she has rarely visited this part of Sussex before. Walking around the reserve on such a brilliant day was difficult for birding, as there were so many people walking around the reserve that day. and for some time it was looking as though we would not be taking many photos. However, a stop off in one of the hides did produce close up views of a Little Grebe. Hardly a sought after bird, but still nice to see.

Little Grebe.

Walking further we had a lovely encounter with an egg laying Clouded Yellow, which Lisa and David spent some time photographing. However, at this point I had seen a couple of Wheatear on posts in the distance that appeared to be quite approachable. Through the binoculars I had seen dog walkers walking past the birds quite close without the birds flying away, so I left the other 2 and headed to where the Wheatears were settling. Lisa and David soon followed and we all had some lovely encounters with the birds. There were actually 5 or 6 Wheatear there, although only a couple were very approachable.

A sinister look from the Wheatear!

Wheatear.

David had just mentioned that it was strange that Rye Harbour never seemed to have Whinchats moving through, when I spotted one in with the Wheatears. This too was a little less wary than this species normally is, although it only settled on an unsightly fence. Still lovely seeing it reasonably close though.

Whinchat.

One week later Lisa and I had booked tickets to see the film 'Ocean' by David Attenborough at Rye Harbour. We decided that as we had visited Rye the week before, that we would try Dungeness during the day. This was to be Lisa's first visit to Dungeness. Having checked to see what birds were around online it wasn't looking as though we would see an awful lot, but it's always good going somewhere different, and there was a good chance of some Glossy Ibis as well as the usual Dungeness species.

As it was, we did get lucky at one of the hides, as just after we arrived a Glossy Ibis flew in. There was only one other person in the hide and he said he had been there for some time hoping for a Glossy Ibis so our timing was perfect. We watched it as it walked around the pool in front of us as it gradually got closer. Eventually it was as close as it was going to get, and as it took flight I got a couple of shots as it flew.

Glossy Ibis.

Walking further around the reserve we spotted some of the regular birds such as Marsh Harrier and Great White Egrets. The Bearded Tits though were not seen, although I did see a distant Stoat run across the track.

Eventually we made it around to the ARC pit, where we found the hide was closed for essential maintenance. However, we still lucked out when a Bittern flew in and landed in the reedbed, landing it seems on a post in the reedbed, as it remained in view above the reeds for several minutes.

Bittern in the Reedbed.

We kept focus on the bird all the time it was there, hoping it would fly along in front of us. However, when it did eventually fly, it flew slightly away from us so we didn't get the shot we were really hoping for. However, it was a very lucky break getting views rarely seen of this very elusive bird.

Bittern flying in the wrong direction.

Following this we departed and headed to Rye Harbour for the viewing of 'Ocean'. For anyone that hasn't seen this fabulous, hard hitting film, it really is worth seeing. It certainly makes one realise how badly humans treat the oceans around the World. If only the so called leaders would watch programs like this the planet would probably be in a much better place. However, with many of David Attenborough's excellent films there is optimism for the future, if only we give the oceans a chance to recover.

Just a Comma.

 With large numbers of 3rd brood Wall Brown flying from early September, I decided to do a Wall Brown count on a day that promised to be suitable. Well, it was at the start of the count, and numbers grew as I approached the 2 mile, halfway point of the walk. However, just after this it started to rain!!

Feeling a little frustrated I decided to wait for 15 minutes to see if the shower was going to be short lived. While I was waiting in a small wooded section, sheltering from the light drizzle, I spotted a very fresh Comma. Of course, in the rain it was not going anywhere either, and as it was posing so well I filled my boots. The resulting photos I feel are my best of the year.

Comma.

The day was now a very successful one, and the fact that the weather did improve again, and I also had my best ever 3rd brood Wall Brown count of 72 making it all very worthwhile.

Female Wall Brown.

The 3rd brood started on 23rd August, the earliest date I have seen the 3rd brood. The first 3rd brood that I saw was a female that was actually mating with a male from the 2nd brood. He was rather tatty and tired looking and even had a red mite attached to him, which only happens on older individuals. As I was following the pair down a slope near High and Over, I spotted a very nice Autumn Lady's Tresses orchid, which was too nice to ignore.

Autumn Lady's Tresses.

A couple of weeks later I was walking through Abbott's Wood with Chris, my eldest son, who was recovering from a minor operation. I didn't bother taking the camera as it was just a casual walk, but halfway around I spotted a superb Panther Cap fungi. The following day I decided to head back with the camera so I could photograph it properly. Of course, the fungi had opened fully, which is not quite so nice to photograph. However, as I had never photographed this species before I got a few shots of the main fungi and a smaller one nearby that was still growing.

Panther Cap.

Panther Cap.

After photographing these I walked further around the wood and came across some Devil's-bit Scabious that were being visited by 3 Comma and another female Wall Brown.

Comma on Devil's-bit Scabious.

Female Wall Brown on Devil's-bit Scabious.

Time Fades Away.

 After returning from the Dolomites, it was a busy old time with hunting local dragonflies and trying to catch up with the odd species that either myself or Lisa wanted to see.

A visit to Southwater Woods hoping to find a late season Purple Emperor proved lucky, as to start with we had great views of an egg laying Purple Hairstreak, this was followed by a White Admiral aberrant obliterae as well as the sought after species, with a female Purple Emperor on the track. All the butterflies were slightly past their best, but it was great to at least see them all.

White Admiral ab. obliterae

Female Purple Emperor.

One big surprise during the summer was seeing a Marbled White lay some eggs. This species is different from many of the brown family of butterflies that lay their eggs on the foodplant, as the Marbled White just drops them anywhere, scattering them as she flies. For that reason, I have never expected to find the eggs of this species. I was walking across the local meadow when I saw a female Marbled White fluttering about just above the grass, which made it obvious what she was up to. She then landed on a plant with cupped leaves. Suddenly 2 big white eggs dropped from her into the cupped leaves of the plant. Very bizarre and very unusual.

Marbled White ova.

Gary and David invited me to join them for an orchid day in the late summer, to hopefully see the Slender-lipped Helleborine, a species that I had never seen before. It was quite a long day out, as this rarity does not grown in this area. We had to head up to the North Downs. However, once at the site we did manage to find a reasonable number of this excellent plant.

Slender-lipped Helleborine.

Nearby was a few Yellow Birds-nest. This is not an orchid, but one of the parasitic plants that live in the darkness under the Beech trees.

Yellow Birds-nest.

My thanks to both Gary, the driver, and David for inviting me along.