No Such Thing as a Seagull

A ‘seagull’ is the common name for pretty much any kind of gull we see but we actually have five different species in this area. There’s the Black-Headed Gull, the Herring Gull, the Common Gull, the Lesser Black-Backed Gull and, the daddy of the all, the Great Black-Backed Gull - the biggest gull in the world. 

The Black-Headed gull actually has a chocolate brown head in the summer which is replaced by a dark-brown dot at the side of its head in winter time. It has a red beak and is fairly small, about the same size as the Common Gull - which is a plain looking bird with a yellowish beak and a light grey back. 

The Herring Gull, more common here when I was a boy, has a light-grey back, pink legs, and a characteristic red dot on its beak, a target  for chicks to peck at and force regurgitation.

The Great Black-Backed Gull is a rarer sight. With a jet black back and upper wings, it’s almost double the size of the others and often solitary. They can live for up to twenty years and due their size and power they are quite capable of hunting adults birds like puffins and grebes.

So, are they evil? Of course not. They just seem that way to us. Where as we mass produce chickens for butchering in private, gulls despense with the farm, the abattoir and the shop and will simply snatch a live duck chick from the river. Not so good if it happens to be in front of mum and the kids having a picnic, but they are most likely unaware that they’re offending anyone. Apart from maybe the duck family concerned.

They in turn are preyed upon by bigger bullies like giant skuas. The lesser black backed gull is on the amber list of endangered birds but the UK has about 40% of the European population. Herring gulls, really on the decline, are on the red list.

Will they attack people? Sometimes, and, in fact, these encounters are on the increase. You’re especially at risk if your eating a chippy or holding something tempting. They can sometimes strike you with their feet and cause injury. Apparently the best defense is to raise your arms in the hope of protecting your head. 

Able to drink fresh water and sea water, the majority of gulls stick to their staples - fish, insects, crustaceans, worms, seeds, berries, small mammals, eggs, chicks, and our rubbish. Still protected by law, ‘seagulls’ have been long-time residents on Clydeside. Their squawks and aerial antics are likely to be part of our tapestry for the foreseeable future.

Damsels and Dragons

If you were standing near what is now Clydeside 300 million years ago, there’s a good chance we would have ducked as a brightly coloured dragonfly about the size of a buzzard burred over your head. These days, the biggest your going to see is about 10 centimeters. 

The first of my pictures shows a Golden-Ringed Dragonfly. An aerial hunter, it catches and often eats other flying insects in mid-air. It was only when I got home and looked at the shot in detail that I noticed the wasp in the clutches of this big female. 

One of the fastest flying insects in the world, they can reach speeds of 30 miles an hour and can be found near ponds and rivers. This one was having its brunch near a small burn above Alexandria. Of course, the reason they are found near water is because they spend most of their lives under water as nymph feeding on worms, insects and even tadpoles. 

In the case of the Golden-Ringed Dragonfly, they will live underwater for up to five years, molting up to 14 times before pulling themselves up a reed and emerging as a beautiful adult. Once airborne, the cram a lot in. They hunt, mate and lay their eggs in a matter of a few weeks before dying. 

The Damselfly appeared on the scene about 260 million years ago, still a good 255 million years before us. Unlike the Dragonfly, who keeps its four wings outstretched while resting, the Damselfly folds its wings behind its back. Like many of the dragonflies, they are brightly coloured but a little smaller and more delicate. 

My second shot shows one of more common species in this area the Azur Damselfly. You’ll often see these beauties flying about, chasing each other until they link up in a mating wheel. Quite spectacular. 

It’s amazing to think that these damsels and dragons are probably the oldest surviving species to have inhabited this area, preceding and then outliving the dinosaurs, wooly mammoths and bears that once trod our portion of the planet. 

They belong to an ancient order of insects called the Odonata which means ‘toothed one’ in Greek. It probably refers to their mandibles having obvious jagged edges. 

With the ability to hover and fly backwards they are amazing mid-air hunters. 

They sometimes swarm and even migrate flying up to a hundred miles in one day. A species called a Globe Spinner holds the record for the insect with the longest known migration, covering 11,000 miles. 

Out of the 5500 species of dragonfly found globally, 29 species of have been recorded in Scotland. Most of my dragonfly sightings have been between May and August. 

For much more on these amazing creatures hit the link. https://british-dragonflies.org.uk/odonata/life-cycle-and-biology/

The Bad Boy in the Playground

So, why does the magpie have such bad press? Why have its numbers risen so much over recent years? And what makes this bird so fascinating?

Let’s start with our view of the magpie. Squawking loudly and cackling like a cheeky imposter in your garden, it’s hard not to notice a magpie when it’s around. I mean,  it has a reputation as a thief and a murderer. And if that’s not enough, it has all sorts of mythology around it, much of which is associated with bad luck.  

Most people I know don’t like them and many remark on how their numbers have risen. “We never used to see one when we were young, but now... Now they're everywhere!”

And of course, there’s the old rhyme - One for sorrow. Two for joy. Three for a girl. Four for a boy. Five for silver. Six for gold. Seven for a secret, never to be told. Eight for a wish. Nine for a kiss. Ten for a bird you must not miss. 

Wait a minute. Most of that is pretty upbeat, apart from number one. So, what’s the problem?

What about the thieving bit? Well, recent research in 2014, showed that magpies actually avoid sparkly things. This research implied they were scared of shiny objects. Mmm...? I’m not convinced on that because I know for a fact that various earrings and bits and bobs have been snatched by my black and white brigade. 

In springtime, they will attack and kill songbird chicks in the garden and that can be distressing to witness. Birds of prey do this all the time, kill things, that is, but just not within our ken. Out of sight and out of mind. Not right outside the back step. Songbird numbers have declined while the magpies have gained their old foothold.

You see, magpies were really common in Victorian times. They were popular with farmers as they ate rodents and harmful insects. Then, after the First World War, gamekeepers began blasting them and trapping them in their thousands. Then, slowly...as attitudes changed to shooting everything that moved, their numbers crept up again. Quadrupling between 1970 and now. Their numbers grew even quicker in urban and suburban areas where there was less chance of persecution and they weren’t frightened of nesting next to people. 

Other reasons for their growth have been put down to the greater numbers of cars on the road and by extrapolation, greater amounts of ‘road kill’ another of their favorite snacks. However, the magpie is also an great opportunist. Their beaks may be adapted for tearing flesh, but they will feed on anything from bread on bird tables to worms, berries and bugs. As part of the crow family, they are also very intelligent and quick learners. 

They are possibly one of the most intelligent animals on the planet, never mind Scotland. Their brain-to-body-mass ratio is outmatched only by that of humans and equals that of dolphins and apes. Magpies have shown the ability to make and use tools, imitate human speech and work in teams. When a magpie dies, a group will often  form around the corpse for a “funeral” of sorts where they’ll make a series of squawks and cries. 

They can also pass a thing called the “mirror test,” which proves an animal’s ability to recognize itself in a reflection. Worth Googling if you want the exact details on that. 

The magpie may look black and white from a distance but up close, their wing and tail feathers are full of iridescent blues and greens. Quite beautiful in their own way.

They may also seem more numerous because they don’t migrate. They stick around, rarely traveling more than 10k from where they were born. They have few natural enemies apart from us. Goshhawks prey on them in certain areas and the spotted cuckoo with target their nests in Spain...but that’s about it. 

Their nests are tatty looking affair but are actually well constructed often built with roofs and a front and back door. 

The population seems to have reached a kind of equilibrium around here, one of the most northerly and westerly strongholds in Scotland. So maybe it’s time to give the ‘bad boy in the playground’ a break. Appreciate them for what they are, warts and all. 

The Covid Tourist

Cuckoo

Well, these are very strange days indeed, but a few summer visitors have still made it to the shores of Loch Lomond despite lockdown. Standing in a WW2 creator made by a confused and probably terrified Luftwaffe pilot in the May of 1946, I feel sure the tourist I’m thinking about would have arrived on schedule despite the dangers back then too. 

The Cuckoo has been making its long pilgrimage for hundreds if not thousands of years to Carman Moor.

Wintering in the rainforests of the Congo they make their way back to our hills via the Sahara Desert, Spain and France, usually arriving here at the beginning of April. 

So, I decided to get myself up to the Stoneymollin to see if I could actually see one rather than simply hear it before it set off back south again. 

Meadow Pipit

However, the first bird I spotted was one of the Cuckoo’s would-be victims -  the Meadow Pipit. Easily confused with the Skylark, as it inhabits the same kind of terrain, it’s actually a bit smaller and not quite as vocal during its aeronautics. It’s still a stunning wee bird and the one I photographed had a beak crammed full of insects. 

There’s always an impatient, nervous thrill when you lock onto a bird in the wild. Will it disappear before you get it in focus, will it stay put and pose? Also, as you take more pictures, it’s not just a pose you want, you hope to get a bit more. Something that gives the viewer a little more insight into its behavior… Something you can capture and share. 

The Cuckoo is roughly the same shape as a dove but has the markings of a Sparrow Hawk, so a bit unusual. And I would hazard a guess that more people will have heard them than seen them. 

You’re probably familiar with the male’s “Cuck - Coo” call, but the female makes a different sound. Imitating the cry of a hawk she scares the Meadow Pipits away from their nest, and then slips in to lay her egg. Although much bigger, her egg is often very similar in colour to the Pipit’s and the smaller birds don’t seem to notice the difference. 

Inside the egg, Cuckoo chick is usually further developed than the Pipit’s so it often hatches first and then quickly kicks the other eggs out of the nest. Unfortunately, if the Pipit’s young are there already, they will still get the same treatment. ‘There can only be one’, must be the Cuckoo motto. 

The Pipits imprint on the Cuckoo chick and then spend all their time rearing the ‘wrong baby’. However, they sometimes get confused. They’ve actually been seen joining other birds mobbing the much bigger Cuckoo chick before seemingly having a change of heart. Moments later they’re back loving it and feeding it again.

By the end of June or early July, the adult Cuckoos have already left us, bound for Central Africa. Their big surrogate chicks fatten up for a bit longer on things like hairy caterpillars, usually left well alone by other birds. However, before long, the bulky Cuckoo chick is hot on the tail of mum and dad, heading down to the tropics for some winter sun. 

Just as I reached the gate near the forest paths, I heard a Cuckoo directly ahead of me. It was being chased by a Stonechat and as it lighted on a far off branch I managed to get a few long shots.

Everything considered, Meadow Pipit numbers seem to be holding up despite the Covid Tourists. 

Male Stonechat

The Stonechat is another wonderful wee bird. Like the Meadow Pipit, it’s an all year round resident in the area. 

I managed to get a few good shots of a male Stonechat on max zoom. If the sun is bright and I have time to do a manual focus, the quality is quite good. The male has a distinctive black head with a white collar and a rusty orange coloured breast.  The female, like so many birds, is less striking, camouflage higher on her list than showing off. 

As the name suggests it makes a call like two stones clicking together. I must have been close to the nest as the male repeatedly skirted around my position giving me the evil eye. I backed off as soon as I could. The last thing I want to do is upset the locals. 

Once thought to be a member of the Thrush family, it now seems that the Stonechat is related to the Flycatchers. Another set of birds I hope to snap later in the summer. Like the Cuckoos, they also overwinter in the African sun. 

Loch Lomond

The remaining pictures in my set of five are landscapes that give a flavour of the wonderful area where I was born and raised. I’ve never moved more than a mile from my first ever house in Levenvale. But then, looking at the fourth picture, Loch Lomond stretching out below me with its islands and the mountains in the distance, why would I?

The view from Camelot

The fifth shot is an interesting one. In the foreground I’ve caught the rocks that mark the centre point of the ancient Carman Fort, only revealed by arial photography in the 50’s. It’s actually linked to King Arthur and thought to be the real Camelot. Arthur, the King of the Strathclyde Britons, was said to have fought the Scots and the Picts here in the late 400’s AD. Carman fort dates to that period. Although the Britons covered the whole of the west of the UK, and spoke Welsh, by the way, Dumbarton was the hub of that particular empire. I mean, the town’s name means fort of the Britons... 

Anyway, there’s a bit more about all that in another podcast hosted by some Old Bloke. Here’s the link if you’re interested. 

Old Bloke Goes to Camelot

A Thousand Tiny Heartbeats

Thousand Tiny Heartbeats

So, welcome to another edition of Nature on the Hoof, a wee slice of life in and around the Vale of Leven. As usual, I’ll be walking and shooting wildlife, with a camera, of course... but this time, I’ll be looking down rather than up. 

I won’t go too far down into the soil itself because I’d have to up my number a bit if I did that...

In a mere square meter of soil you can find as much as a trillion bacteria, a billion protozoa (single called living organisms), 5 million nematodes (tiny worms), about a 100,000 mites, 50,000 springtails, 10,000 rotifiers (microscopic wheel animals that live in the film of water that surrounds soil particles) and the same number of tardigrades (known as water bears or moss piglets - they are also microscopic water dwellers but with eight legs)... What great name for a band - The Moss Piglets!

Anyway, I’ll stick to the things I can capture with a macro lens not a microscope... There will still be about 5,000 insects, myriapods, spiders and diplurans (blind, two-pronged bristle-tails with large antennae), in that square meter, and an additional 100 slugs, snails and earthworms... oh and maybe even a mole, vole or shrew...

But let me be even more specific or we could do a whole BBC nature series just on that... Mmm...? Come think of it...

I’m going to concentrate on two little guys. One found in cuckoo spit and the other more of an adventurer, who hitches rides on bumble bees. 

Meadow Froghopper Nymph

Let’s start with Cuckoo spit. Have you ever seen a little clump of bubbles on a blade of grass that looks a bit like someone has just...well you know, gobbed on the ground? Well, inside that cluster of white foam there’s a little insect. It’s the larval stage or nymph of a Froghopper. The one I’ve found, literally in my back garden, is the Meadow Froghopper. 

The tiny yellow nymph has produced this mass of wet bubbles around it to keep it moist and to hide it from predators. Ingenious. Under its protective shield it feeds on the juices of the grass using its rostrum, a kind of tubular mouthpart that is common to all members of its animal order - Hemiptera. Other members include aphids, shield bugs and, I’m afraid to say, Bed bugs. The soft Froghopper larva will eventually develop wings and a more robust little body before flying off to pastures new. 

Parasitellus fucorum - Bumble Bee Mite

The other little creature I want to talk about are bubble bee mites. Very difficult to photograph, because of their tiny size, and the speed of their carriers, I found this one when I rescued a drowning bumble bee from our pond. Clinging on for dear life, this orange mite was hanging on to a wing tip, like the last passenger of the Titanic. 

These mites use bumble bees like buses. They move from flower to flower on the backs of their winged chariots spreading their species all over the garden and even journeying into the bumble bee hives. They can get onto a bumble bee pretty quickly, in about three seconds in fact. They can’t afford to muck about. Then they’re off...and, as I said, sometimes go right into the hive. Bumble bees tend to nest under ground in burrows where a 100 or so tend to their queen and her young. 

The Mites don’t tend to do the colony any harm, mainly feeding on discarded bits of wax, detritus and the rubbish that litters the hive. They only become a problem when too many try to hitch a ride at the same time and restrict the bumble bee’s flying capabilities. 

A world within a world, or what?

Rhododendron stamens.

The third picture in this particular set reminds me of some sci-fi landscape but is actually the pollen producing stamens of a Rhododendron. The plant obviously depends on creatures like bumble bees to spread its pollen from flower to flower but there’ a twist in the tale here. The rhododendron nectar, the reward that temps the bees into the flower in the first place, is toxic. And it seems that only bumble bees are unaffected. Well, I say that, but there is some evidence that the nectar makes the bumble bees really keen on lots of repeat visits to the rhododendron flowers.

Normally, honey bees and even miner bees will be killed by the intoxicating nectar. It’s as if the plant has decided which species of bee it wants. 

As a wee aside, this poison, a bit like caffeine in structure was used as one of the worlds first ever biological warfare agents. 

When the Romans were invading what is now Turkey, King Mithridates VI of Pontus, an early experimentalist with natural poisons, put toxic honeycombs of bees that had been foraging on Rhododendron along the roadside in advance of the invading army of Pompey the Great. This was in 65BCE. The Roman garrison, not recognising the danger, enthusiastically scoffed the lot and unwittingly poisoned themselves in the process. 

Stupefied by the toxin, they were slaughtered by Mithridates who were lying in wait. 

Grey Sailor Beetle

The forth picture is of a Grey Sailor Beetle. The soldier beetle, a close relative, got its name after early entomologists decided its reddish wing covers reminded them of British Red Coats, so I reckon the Sailor beetles were named in a similar fashion, due to their more Navy-like attire. Both species feed on insect larvae and aphids but will also take nectar and pollen, so you’ll often find them in your garden. 

Tree Bumble Bee

The last picture in this set is of a Tree Bumble Bee feeding on Rhododendron nectar. So, a bit of a link to other stories. Tree Bumble bees are really quick at going from flower to flower. Less than three seconds, so I didn’t see as many mites on them, and they were a nightmare to focus in on. I only really homed in this one’s antennae but I love the overall shot. It has a faerie-like quality. 

For all these shots I used my Raynox DCR 250 macro attachment lens, that clips onto my camera in seconds. I generally use flash too, to sharpen the shots up. 

The Leaping Bambi

The Leaping Bambi

Paul Murdoch’s Nature on the Hoof - Part 1

So, welcome to this new blog which will also run as a podcast. You see, it’s all about the pictures and, probably more importantly, what’s in the shots. Nature and me go way back... Let me think...about 58 years, when I began asking - What’s that? what does it do? Why does it do that? Etc etc... I’m not a patient man, so hides and long stake outs aren’t my bag. All my shots are pretty much ‘on the hoof’, hence the title of the podcast.

My plan is to take some pictures and then talk about them. It might be a bird or an insect or even a specific view, all of which I’ve been posting on Facebook in sets of five. People have been asking to know more about the animals in the shots and even how I took the pictures, so here goes... 

Am I qualified to talk about this stuff..? Well, I do have an honors degree in Zoology but that was yonks ago. No, I’m going to rely on my 58 years of asking questions and of course you to put my right if I get it wrong, which I’m bound to do...hopefully not too often. But please feel free to add any extra info in the comments. We’re all learning.

The first set of pics I want to talk about are the ones I call my leaping Bambi set. They were taken on the 24th of May 2020, in and around Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire. 

The most stand out photo is probably the one of a buck Roe Deer caught in mid air about four or five feet off of the ground, but I’ll start with the first in the set which is a landscape shot with some yellow gorse in the foreground and Dumbarton Castle and the River Clyde in the distance.

I liked the way the top wire of the fence in the foreground forms a kind of v with the outline of the Clyde. It kinda tells your eye to focus on Dumbarton Rock in the distance. A good five miles away. The castle there dates back to 580 AD or so and was the capital of the Strathclyde Britons. However, I like this shot because it’s taken from one of my favourite spots.

The second picture is the puffed up young Dunnock. I thought it might have been a young Whitethroat at first, but the red tinge to its eye, the pink feet and the grey around the head meant I plumped for the Dunnock, which is also called the Hedge Sparrow, Hedge Accentor or even Hedge Warbler. It’s often misidentified as a female house sparrow but has a much more slender, pointed bill. I literally saw this bird out the side of my eye on my way down from the moor. Because it was a youngster, it wasn’t that afraid of me which meant I could get a few good shots from about fifteen feet away. It was also perched a bit higher than usual. Dunnocks like to feed low down, under the hedges or on the ground where they eat insects amongst the leaf litter. 

The buck Roe Deer, I spotted well ahead of me in a higher field. With the wind in my face, I suspected it would just be movement and sound that would give me away so I crept as close as I dared, behind a hedge. I judged the distance and adjusted my zoom and settings as I moved. Once I put the camera to my eye, the buck instantly saw me. 

He stayed put initially, staring me out, which gave me the initial shot and then he bellowed in annoyance and turned away, breaking into a series of leaps and runs. I had the camera set on multi-shot and one, lucky snap gave me that gazelle-like leap, in mid-air. I had no idea I’d captured it until I stopped later and took a quick squint at my shots. Lucky or what. Clear enough, it framed the animal nicely, all four legs bent and at about four feet off the ground. Maybe more. The beautifully clear, sunny morning helped too. 

The Roe Deer is native to Scotland along with the much bigger Red Deer. The Fallow, Sika and Reindeer have all been introduced. As a wee aside, Deer differ from Antelope in the way they annually shed and regrow their horns. Gazelles etc have theirs for life. Gazelles also tend to have single horns whereas Deer antlers are branched and more complex. The rapid and complex growth of the Roe Deer antler always amazes me and I often wonder if the biology involved might unravel a few secrets or even lead towards a cure for some disease. Oh, I forgot to say that I overthink stuff a lot. 

Finally, there is the Song Thrush. More common than the much bigger Mistle Thrush, it lets you know where it is with its fantastic song. Often perched high up, it will sing away, repeating tricky phrases. They will eat worms, insects and also snails. They will habitually come back to a certain stone and smash snail shells to get into the fleshy bit. These stones are known as Song Thrush Anvils and are pretty unique to the species. The Song Thrush population dipped by about 50% in the last few years but, personally I’m beginning to see and hear more of them again. I haven’t seen any Mistle Thrush since about February, which may mean our lot have travelled south for the summer.

The Song Thrush shot was at full optical zoom, X50, and on an advanced manual setting using a final manual focus. They won’t hang around if they see you but, like this one, they can sometimes be right into it. Mid-song, standing proud, temporally distracted by their own prowess. 

It’s always easier to get a good shot of a bird when it’s showing off. Displaying or singing. The trouble with this time of the year is that the leaves are pretty much all out, so singers and dancers may be well hidden. 

All these shots were taken about twenty minutes walk from my home and all within that first twenty minutes. I continually look and shoot. Much of the time it’s blurry nonsense, where a bird has already gone or an animal scarpered, but the more shots you take the ‘luckier’ you get. As I was about to snap the Song Thrush a Cuckoo raced over a gorse bush and nearly smashed straight into my face. It was being chased by a very angry Skylark. Now that would have been a great shot.

Hope you found all that a wee bit interesting. So, until next time... This is Paul Murdoch saying chow for now.

Links - for more info, bird recordings, equipment etc

RSPB site : https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/song-thrush/

My Camera : https://youtu.be/GjaiUp3mVXk

Other Podcasts : https://www.paulmurdoch.co.uk/old-bloke-goes-podcast

My website: www.paulmurdoch.co.uk