Kittiwake breeding success - Arbroath Cliffs

Plan A failed, the Cory's Shearwater stayed in the Forth instead of continuing up the coast. Today it was seen heading north past the Isle of May but at 1345 there are no reports from Fife.

I still went down to Arbroath Cliffs and these are some the birds and insects I saw.  

Six Spot Burnet Moth pushed off a thistle by a White-tailed Bumblebee, click here for video

Kittiwakes nesting with almost fledged young, noisy, click here

Common Tern nest site in Montrose, distant, click here

At last a single Kittiwake in a place where I could get a photo

Same Kittiwake, it seemed a bit distracted, or maybe just tired

Juvenile Herring Gull, quite a number on the low rocks demanding to be fed

I like the detail on the wings of young gulls

I watched as the adults brought in a number of starfish, probably easy to find at low tide

Juvenile Kittiwake

Too close for a 400mm less

Kittiwake breeding seems to have been a success this year with many just about to fledge and more on the low rocks and out at sea

Six Spot Burnet Moth being bullied off a thistle by a White-tailed Bumblebee

Six Spot Burnet Moth

This massive tower has been around off the Arbroath coast for many years now, measuring wind conditions for the Seagreen Wind Farm that is now going ahead. Not sure when.

War of the World's - Conservation versus Extermination

The chances of anyone being caught are a million to one he said
The chances of anyone being convicted from Moors and still they kill!

A nod to Jeff Wayne's lyrics in the opening of War of the World's

Not a lot to post as I've not been out, then I read this extract from Raptor Persecution Scotland in a third blog post about the poisoned White-tailed Eagle on Donside. Nobody has EVER been convicted of killing an Eagle in Scotland despite the evidence as detailed in this SNH Report. There are a couple of photos below the text from Montrose Basin.

https://raptorpersecutionscotland.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/analyses-of-the-fates-of-satellite-tracked-golden-eagles-in-scotland.pdf  

The extract; "the chances of the culprit actually being caught is still disproportionately minuscule in comparison to the weight of the sentence.

In fact, there has never been a successful prosecution for the illegal killing of an eagle in Scotland. Ever. Even though scores of them have been found illegally shot, poisoned or trapped over the years, and scores more have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances (confirmed by a Government-commissioned report), not one single eagle-killer has ever been held to account.

Not one.

Why not? Because the evidence required to convict is almost impossible to attain. For example, ten years ago three golden eagles were found dead on a prestigious grouse-shooting estate in Sutherland. They were found within days of each other and all three had been poisoned with banned chemicals. The police raided the estate and found a stash of 10kg of Carbofuran (a banned pesticide) inside a locked shed. This was the biggest cache of carbofuran ever found in the UK and was described as being ‘enough to wipe out the entire Scottish golden eagle and red kite populations several times over’. They also found poisoned baits laid out on the hill. At least one of those eagles died with the poisoned bait still in its beak – that’s how potent and fast-acting some of these poisons can be.

An estate employee was charged and the case went to court. However, he was only convicted for having possession of the banned poison. He wasn’t even charged with poisoning those eagles simply because there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that he had laid the bait that killed those eagles.

So when the Scottish Government tells us that the maximum sentence for poisoning an eagle has been increased to a five-year custodial sentence, in this context it’s totally meaningless because the poisoner will evade ever being brought to justice."

Lapwing

Very distant Little Ringed Plover, was with a second bird thought to be a juvenile which may be proved if I can get a frame from a video I took

To Bee or not to Bee - Moss Carder

Latest Bee photos which I still can't say with any certainty that they are Common Carder or Moss Carder, although I'm favouring Moss Carder. That simply could be that I want them to be the rarer species!  

Hopefully a Moss Carder Bee

Some of the only flowers Olive could get during lockdown, they're eventually doing Ok but don't attract any insects, the snails love them though

White Grass Moth on the rock armour at Ferryden lower car park

Buddleia Critters!

From Saturday July 25th. Washed out again at the basin after a bit of garden safari looking for interesting and colourful butterflies and insects.

Common Sandpiper in the shadows at the Old Harbour at Montrose Basin. A Little Egret was also there with a Greenshank and 3 more sandpipers. Minutes after this the heavens opened and I had to abandon yet again at the basin, the third downpour in three visits

Now that my Buddleia is flowering I'm looking forward to some butterflies and other insects, if the wind would just stop. Marmalade Hoverfly, common in my garden and elsewhere

Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly, upperwing

Same butterfly, underwing

Small White Butterfly, and with a fair bit of wear and tear

This photo showing its long tongue

Little Tern and other Terns

From July 24th, the day after my first sighting of a Little Tern, and this is likely it sitting on the beach near Annat Bank. It was impossible to get a decent photo of such a small bird and not helped by the wind and me only taking a 300mm lens. Also mankind finds a new way of disturbing wildlife.........
A late bit of similar news, someone has been seen, and often "chasing" the dolphins around at Montrose in the area from the harbour and out to sea. Apparently many videos have been posted of the dolphins on Facebook - it's a bit like Wallace and Grommit, " Daddy created him for good, but he's turned out evil"





A very distant Little Tern at Montrose Beach, just east of the north perimeter of Glaxo. Looks to have a yellow flag on its right leg?
I've reported the Sandwich Tern with the yellow ring KTJ and another with green EC8




Sitting on the sand dead centre, much smaller than the Common Terns

Common Tern

Common Terns nesting on a building in Barrack Road Montrose and viewed from the Fire Station in Garrison Road. Safe from all ground predators but surrounded by nesting Herring Gulls on every available roof. The nest area can be seen on Google Maps, satellite view

Sandwich Tern

The Tern roost on the beach flushed again by dogs, people, gulls and wait for it, this guy in the photo below who had also been circling over the basin

I wonder if you need training and a licence to fly these, and maybe a bit of guidance regarding the effects on wildlife of low flying

  

 Scurdie Ness Lighthouse from Sandy Braes to the south

Speckled Wood Butterfly - in Angus

I will be trying to find out more about Speckled Wood Butterflies in Angus, I've never seen one there before but it's unlikely in most years that I'd be in the habitat they favour, instead I'd be on the coast or higher ground. I've posted a few photos as I doubt I'll see another for a long time. 4K UHD videos at the links below;

House Mice competing for access to one of my bird feeders, click here for close up video   

Speckled Wood Butterfly, click here for video  

Speckled Wood Butterfly at the Old Harbour car park at the start of the Lurgies path

I've decided that this is NOT a Wood Mouse, just a House Mouse. I got a good view of its underside which isn't white or very pale, and it's far too big, as well as the scaly tail and grey in its coat. Video I have yet to edit shows these features and photos online which are never definitive enough suggest the same. Unless I'm wrong again.........

Common Terns at distance from the Lurgies path

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head (B J Thomas)

Saturday morning tidy up. 

Little Egret fishing in the South Esk, at the Slunks, click here for video  

Common Sandpiper at the Old Harbour, click here for video  

Greenshank at Montrose Basin, click here for video  

How I suffer to get material for this blog! click here for evidence  

Billy Joe "B. J." Thomas - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, click here 

One of the giant (10mm) froglets which have been entertaining grandkids in my garden pond recently. These are the later tranche after adults deposited spawn over a period of about a month during early spring

A Green-veined White resting in a rain shower at the Lurgies on a humid evening

I found this grub and others in my empty nest box where the Tree Bumblebees had nested. It's a Wax Moth grub which is a known pest in bee hives and common in Tree Bumblebee nests, they eat the wax of the cells and the colony can fail. I can't tell if that was the case here or if it was just the time the new queens leave the nest

Little Egret on the same showery night at the Lurgies

The one in the video doesn't have the long crest

Meadow Brown underwing (for Lorna)

and upperwing

Eat grit, lead, expire?

An extract from RPUK, part of a blog post showing responses from  Mairi Gougeon, Environment Minister and Joe Fitzpatrick, Minister for Public Health, Sport & Well-being, to questions lodged by Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell. The questions relate to Flubendazole, the active ingredient in medicated grit left out on grouse moors for red grouse, and the use of lead ammunition.

I hope Mark Ruskell follows up these unsatisfactory replies which to me seem un-informed at the least. Would anyone seriously eat game not knowing if or how much medicinal chemicals or highly toxic lead was on their plate!

Raptor Persecution UK blog post, click here (more detail than I can post here)

"Rather than take the Veterinary Medicines Directorate’s word for it (because the VMD has previously proven itself to be undeniably crap at its job – see here), I thought I’d have a look at the number of red grouse that have actually been tested for anthelmintics since 2016 to see how representative the sampling effort has been. The VMD publishes annual databases on the number and type of sampling it has undertaken. Here’s what I found:

2016: 6 x red grouse tested

2017: 8 x red grouse tested

2018: 3 x red grouse tested

2019: 6 x red grouse tested


So in four years of testing, the VMD has managed to test a grand total of 23 red grouse for residues of the drug Flubendazole. When you consider that an estimated 750,000 red grouse are shot in the UK each year, it’s no wonder the VMD can say with confidence that it hasn’t detected any drug residues above the maximum permitted limit, because it’s hardly tested any samples at all!"

and

"Again, rather than trust what the VMD says, I wanted to look at the actual data myself. How many gamebirds have actually been tested for toxic lead contamination since 2015? Here’s what I found:

2015: 6 x partridge; 6 x pheasant; 0 x red grouse

2016: 7 x partridge; 7 x pheasant; 0 x red grouse

2017: 6 x partridge; 7 x pheasant; 0 x red grouse

2018: 5 x partridge; 5 x pheasant; 0 x red grouse

2019: 6 x partridge; 6 x pheasant; 0 x red grouse


So in five years of testing for toxic lead residues in game bird meat, the VMD has examined 30 x partridge and 31 x pheasant and 0 x red grouse. That’s a total of 61 samples out of a possible 90 million shot partridge and pheasant (conservatively estimated 57 million released each year, multiply by five (years) and divide by 1/3 believed to be shot each year = 90 million shot of 285 million released)."

"Lead is a highly poisonous metal (whether inhaled or swallowed), affecting almost every organ and system in the human body."

Flubendazole information, click here

Brimstone Moth and Carder Bees

Back to gardening, I of course leave it to the birds and Olive, while I amuse myself trying to photograph insects. Currently all of the flowers the bees are using are tiny and they are only on each flower for 1-2 seconds, it's a nightmare.

Brimstone Moth

Unknown flower, it wasn't what was ordered apparently

One of around 30 House Sparrows being seen daily, I suspect there's many more than that and it's different ones coming in as previously found

I think this and those below are Moss Carder Bees, they're from a neighbours garden where they have built a pile of moss as a nest. He's put a large plastic flower pot over the nest and they seem un-phased by it, he's confident he's identified them correctly

I notice this one has a red mite, and it's not uncommon it seems as various other species have more than one

The only red clover flower in an entire lawn