Mouse

A bit of tree planting in the garden, more moth habitat, as I was given some willow whips today. Mulched them with some old haylage we had lying about.

 The Wood Mouse Apodemus sylvaticus was photographed under our feeders.

Star find so far this year, possibly new for county Bembidion bruxellense, extracted from wood and leaf litter in the garden. The specimen will go to the county recorder for verification (hopefully).

Bembidion bruxellense

Surf's up

A calm day so seaduck hunting on Wednesday. That's after watching an Otter family, female and two kits on Loch of Harray earlier on (not in the 1Km square though).

From distance I thought there were two Surf Scoter with a small group of Velvets so I parked up at Quanterness and walked down to the sea to confirm them. There was a nice Snow Bunting flock down there as well. Of note was a pack of more than 50 Great Northerns fishing together with perhaps 80 together in the bay.

The photo of the Surfies perhaps not that impressive.

In the evening I got a message, "Was I interested in a boat trip to get better views of the Surf Scoters?" 

Early this morning and I got Wood Mouse below the feeders, I must try to photograph that tomorrow. Out to Kirkwall to join the boat team. Unfortunately the light was poor and the wind was just a bit more than ideal. All the same, good views of the Surfies and a good number of Velvet Scoters were obtained. The GNDs seem to have disappeared. We grilled the Eider flock but could find nothing more.

Thanks to Tim Dean for organising this and PP for expert skippering.

The Eider flock, c700 all told.

Surfies

Grilling the Velvets to look for the other very rare but similar looking species.

Pale, winter Tystie.

New Year

First insect identified for the year was Bembidion tetracolum with three found under a stone in the Wee Wood.

Bembidion tetracolum, a common Carabid here.

I'm having a go at the 1000 species in a 1 Km sq challenge. I don't expect to get 1000 species, I reckon 600 would be pretty impressive. The rules do not allow for anything other than a square shaped area so I've got to work out if I can squeeze in all the best places around the house, I'm particularly keen to get the top track in the square but it might not be possible. 

Away to a reasonable start and then I headed down to Loch of Bosquoy.

Storm

Grey, windy, big sea, its December in Orkney.

Agonum muelleri

Some of the day spent working through the backlog in the fridge. These were from two different sites, quite a common Agonum nationally, one from Northside and one from the garden.

Common Dolphins

Common Dolphins Finstown

These had been around for a couple of days and I had a good opportunity to drop by on Xmas Eve. Initially I was confused to the identification which seemed to have been established without especially good images. I thought they looked too large and thought their steady cruising around was more typical of Bottle-nosed Dolphin. Their flank and head markings were very difficult to see in life and in some excellent movie footage by Raymond Besant. Some still photos were then posted that showed the required markings. I was very surprised how difficult the markings on these were to see, even through a scope. Key easily visible features were the dark edged and paler centred dorsal fins and a pale band over the beak. I've not often seen this species and when I have they've been super active, high speed, leaping out of the water, obviously slimmer than B-nD (which I've seen quite a lot of). So, highly educative and... don't trust size estimates (even comparing with nearby seals that were associate feeding misled).

Otter, the Shunan

As I headed off for the dolphins, I pulled up by The Shunan as I noticed a large lump where there shouldn't be one. It stood up and revealed itself. Only the 2nd time in nine years I've seen an Otter actually in The Shunan (which I drive or walk by a few times a day).

Flammulina velutipes, Wee Wood, Harray. (Thanks for the ID JB, which I had just about arrived at myself.)

Better include at least one half decent photo!

Calm

On holiday. No wind. Nice enough to sit outside.

I photographed some lichens on the hawthorn hedge on Friday. Had a go at identifying these, hopefully I've got somewhere close.

 Xanthoria parietina, the yellow one, and Ramilina fastigiata

 I think this is Ramalina farinacea.

 Ramalina fraxinea

 Usnea cornuta I think (subfloridana?)

Bryum sp (a moss).

Caloplaca maritima, this was at Palace, today (Saturday).

I stood by Mount Misery at Palace late morning today and the Snow Buntings were just flying around. I couldn't figure out what was causing them to be so unsettled. There were a couple of nice flybys, Oystercatcher panic, Peregrine stoop, but he missed the Snow Bunts.

There were piles of Rockits on the beach too, and some of the Snow Bunts were sheltering there later.

Next on to The Loons where there were 19 Greenland Whitefronts and two colour ringed Curlews. After a bit of an effort I managed to get pix so the rings could be read.

9X apparently

At Skaill I bumped in to the ringer of same Curlews who was quite pleased with the efforts. Unfortunately the hoped for Green-winged Teal did not put in an appearance and there were no WW gulls. However 328 Barnacle Geese were some compensation.

A quick walk around at home dug out some of the Goldfinch flock, there had been 10 yesterday, three Woodpigs, unusually, but notmuch else.

Rough weather, after the storm

Northerly weekend

The wind swung to the north so a quick seawatch on Saturday morning produced a couple of Little Auks and a GND. A flock of 60 Snow Buntings appeared late on, flying by and later settled on the Links, about 60 I reckoned.

On Sunday morning the moth trap was disappointingly empty, no insects, nothing. Another visit to Birsay, this time to the Whalebone found Otters in Skiba Geo. In nine years of watching I've not seen Otter before at this site so a bit of a turn-up. I'm guessing the northerly drove them out of their favoured spot. A female and her kit I thought.

Skiba Geo looking south