Winter Birds

Many thanks to Kilchoan Early Bird for these pictures of a young great northern diver - also called a great northern loon in North America - preening itself in the sea off Ardnamurchan.  He's making a thorough job of it....

...even if it means half rolling onto his side.  These birds, which are excellent underwater swimmers, catch anything that isn't too big for them, their diet including mackerel, herring, haddock, sprats, sand eels, prawns and crabs.

They're seen off the west coast of Scotland during the winter months, when their haunting cry can be heard, after which they set off for their breeding grounds in Iceland, Greenland and North America.

The Diary keeps informing The Raptor that bullfinches are not to be found in this part of the Highlands, and he keeps saying that he's seen them, even once maintaining that there was one flying around Ormsaigbeg.  Today he sent in these pictures of a bullfinch which he says he spotted at the junction of the Mingary road and the main B8007.

The Diary rather suspects he's been across to the east of Scotland and caught this very smart male there.

Many thanks to Kilchoan Early Bird and The Raptor for the pictures.

Ardnamurchan Wildcat Project

There was a time, some fifty or more years ago, when wildcats on Ardnamurchan and, for that matter, across large areas of the Highlands, were so common, and such a threat to poultry, that they were treated as vermin. Today, most visitors and locals know that they are here, but few have seen them - and that's because, for reasons that are complex, the wildcat population has plummeted. The grim fact is that the pure, unhybridised Scottish wildcat is teetering on the edge of extinction. Recent estimates put the number of true wildcats at around a hundred and perhaps as few as 35, making it one of the world's rarest cats.

Dr Paul O'Donoghue, a biologist at the University of Chester, has done a great deal of work on creating a genetic test to identify a pure-bred wildcat - see article here. But, as another BBC article here suggests, the emphasis on finding and preserving the Scottish wildcat has been concentrated in places like the Cairngorms National Park. The trouble is that, with the large number of domestic cats both within and around the park, and real problems with the numbers of feral cats, the National Park's wildcats are likely to be far from pure. As a result, Paul O'Donoghue has sent a team of veterinary surgeons to carry out fieldwork in places that are most likely to harbour true wildcats - which is why they're now working on Ardnamurchan and Morvern.

Tom Williams and James Cavanagh are veterinary surgeons who have been here on-and-off for some months, doing two things. Firstly, they have been going door-to-door finding all the domestic cats on Ardnamurchan and checking to see that they are not a threat to local breeding wildcats. What they have found has thrilled them. Ardnamurchan, thanks to the work of the local Cats' Protection League and the general support of residents, has few domestic cats that aren't neutered, and even fewer feral cats, which convinces him that the local wildcat population is likely to be amongst the purest in Scotland. James said, “It’s very clear people here really are responsible cat owners.”

Tom is passionate about the need to control feral cats. He says, "I predict that conservationists, scientists and government will wake up to the ecological threat of feral cats. This non native super predator living and breeding in the wild will go on to threaten other species as well as the wildcat. There will be a need to identify owned pets from feral cats and the only reliable practical way of doing this is with good quality microchips." So the team is offering to insert microchips, for free, into our domestic cats if the owner so wishes.

The second thing they have been doing is trying to find the remaining local wildcats. They've had successes, such as some very definite local reports, and they have evidence from scat - the faeces of wildcats. They, and others who have been helping them, have also been setting trail cameras in likely places, but these have, so far, recorded plenty of fox and pine martens, but no cats.

Now Tom and James and the rest of the team are appealing for local help. They want anyone whom they have not visited, but who has a cat, to contact them. We've done that and, as a bonus, Tom gave our ageing cats a quick health check - we now know that one of them has arthritis. But the emphasis is now on asking everyone to report any sightings of wildcats direct to them. They are also asking for any other evidence, such as scat (picture above), tracks and, if people have more success than they, clips from trail cams, to be logged with them. We're coming into the wildcats' breeding season, so everyone needs to act with care.

There's now a permanent box in the right-hand column of this blog with information about wildcats.

Tom Williams has agreed to act as the link to the Ardnamurchan community - please contact him on 07531 407 939 or trwilliams@hotmail.com

Photo of wildcat taken by Helen Haden at the British Wildlife Centre, and reproduced under the Creative Commons licence - for which, many thanks Helen. Her picture, and her Flickr photo stream, are here.

Jacobite Rounding the Light

Many thanks to Kilchoan Early Bird for these pictures of the creel fishing boat Jacobite rounding Ardnamurchan Point lighthouse in brisk weather a few minutes ago.

Readers shouldn't be misled by the cheerful blue sky: that's only arrived in the last couple of hours.  Since 8.00pm last night we've had a wet westerly blowing which has brought us just under 30mm of the wrong sort of Kilchoan sunshine.

These pictures also remind us of the sort of conditions our fisherman face in order to deliver fresh fish to our tables, though these Tobermory men will probably say it wasn't too bad a day today.

Another Stone Circle

I was out this morning in the wild and open moorland between Loch Mudle and Camas nan Geall with Allyson and Andrew Perkins to map the stone circle they've found.  It's about 10 metres in diameter and almost perfectly circular except on the northern side.  Andrew mapped it from a one-metre square grid on the ground created from lengths of rope.  It's hard work, but each time we do it the process becomes a little more refined.

This is the third stone circle which members of the Ardnamurchan Community Archaeology group have located and, more and more, we're beginning to think that they're the remains of Bronze Age huts, which makes them about 2,000 years old.  The stones formed a low wall from which branches were laid to form a conical roof, which was covered with reeds, heather and turfs.  This large hut may have been a communal one; there were signs of a second, much smaller circle nearby.

The weather continued grey with a stiff and chilly southeasterly, but there were signs of it clearing away to the north - this view looks across Loch Mudle to Eigg.

On the way back these two stags were resting near the road.  The one on the right has lost one of his antlers.

I stopped the car and sat very quietly to watch them, but some workmen were nearby and disturbed them.  They stood but didn't move off.

When the left stag turned away he, too, had lost an antler.  These may have been broken in the rut but it's also the time of year when they start to fall off naturally.

A Busy Day in the Sound

So we had a 'proper' sunrise this morning, the sun appearing above the Morvern horizon shortly after 7.50 and shining across a Sound which was hardly ruffled by a light breeze.  It's a pity the wind didn't blow the clouds away first as it's been a lovely but sunless day.

First light revealed this ship, the Bibby Tethra, a ship which has an unusual and supposedly very efficient hull design - details here.  She's one of five ships owned and operated by Osiris Projects which specialise in seabed surveys.  They say of themselves, "Since 1997, we have worked closely with clients from the oil and gas, offshore renewables, submarine cables, ports and harbours, aggregates and utilities industries to provide efficient and cost-effective survey services."

She has spent the day steaming back and forth between the Kilchoan's CalMac pier and Tobermory. Since oil and gas are unlikely to be found in the Sound of Mull, the only thing in the list that might be applicable is submarine cables.  Could it be that she's doing a survey for the high-speed broadband cable which is supposed to be coming through Kilchoan in about a year's time?

An unusual passer-by at this time of year was the yacht seen to the right of the picture.  Sadly, she didn't have AIS so we don't know her name.

Also in the Sound today was the Forth Guardsman, a multi-purpose workboat owned by Briggs Marine, website here.  One of her capabilities is to lay submarine cables - though her presence here at the same time as the Tethra must be a coincidence.

As the Forth Guardsman was moving down the Sound, she was passed by the Yeoman Bridge, heading in ballast for the quarry at Glensanda.  In the background are the snow-covered slopes of  Ben Talaidh.