Sea cliffs.

We walked at Marwick and the auks were on the cliffs, always a treat. I've a few places now where I can get reasonably close, relatively safely, as long as you don't stand up below an over-hang, ouch! With care, moving slowly, and not exclaming loudly when you bang your head, the birds seem ok about the approach. No Puffins yet, too early.

Guillemots, bridled and unbridled forms.

Razorbills.

The cliffs and the nesting Raven patrolling, they seem to have no trouble obtaining rabbits.

Fulmars, and Fulmar in-flight view of the cliffs, Kittiwake below.

Back at the ranch the Lesser Celandine are flowering. I'm making a real effort this year with botany, I should be able to record about 150 species for the Ikm sq around home I'm told. We'll see.

Lesser Celandine.

I'm going to try to photograph each species I find as it comes into flower.

Repris

 Some photos from last week that somehow didn't get on the last post.

Dunnock through the kitchen window.

Robin.

Aphodius sphecalatus

Catops (maybe chrysomeloides).

Sitona lepidus which is now called obsoletus. I was getting muddled with lineatus for a spell MG put me right, thanks Mark.

Brown Hare.

Frog spawn underwater.

There is frog spawn in every wee field flood.

First Marsh Marigold in bloom.

Looked under a stone, found four of these, NZ Flatworm.

There are still  up to 19 Pintail on The Shunan with good numbers of Teal, Wigeon and Mallard. New patch species for the year in the ast week or so have included Red-breasted Merganser and the first Meadow Pipits.

The Shunan.

I meant to post something but I got distracted...

 ... by James Yorkston's new album, Wide, Wide River by James Yorkston and The Second Hand Orchestra - https://www.jamesyorkston.co.uk/james-yorkston-and-the-second-hand-orchestra-the-wide-wide-river/

Alevin (just hatched Brown Trout).

At work we take part in a project, most years, raising Brown Trout from ova in the classroom. The Orkney Trout Fishing Association donate the ova, and this year helped us with some equipment, a glass door fridge. In the past the classroom part has involved a bit of a hike into the nether regions of the community part of the building where there is a route to a very cold, ground floor fire escape with space to put a small fish tank. Many thanks to MT and to the OTFA for all their help. This year, thanks to the fridge, the trout are in the classroom. They hatched yesterday and today, cute. https://trootintheshed.wordpress.com/

I've been writing other things, which is the main reason why there have been no posts here. A couple of pieces for the Orkney Field Club Bulletin. Also getting my rare bird descriptions done. Still trying to add data from 2020 to iRecord, and this year I'm already getting behind.

Common Quaker.

Depressaria radiella.

One night moth trapping produced, a Common Quaker in the trap and a Depressaria radiella on a wall of the house.

I've also been playing around with new kit, sound recording stuff. I thought I might have a bit of a go at this nocmig lark. The trouble here is that there are so many calling birds in spring, waders, wildfowl and corvids mostly. So I'm not sure how this is going to work, but I'll give it a try. I've bought a couple of relatively inexpensive bits of kit, a Tascam recorder and a Sennheiser microphone. Just waiting for a lead to come now. I have other uses for this stuff anyway, so nothing wasted and maybe something gained.

My job was advertised the other day, so any aspiring head teachers out there who fancy working with some excellent folk, and experiencing the northern isles should perhaps head over to - https://www.myjobscotland.gov.uk/councils/orkney-islands-council/jobs/head-teacher-dounby-community-school-211982 I am without doubt far too old to do it any longer, knackered, and ready to be put out to graze in the pleasant, but occasionally weather beaten, meadows of exploration (of Wild Things).

I'll let the Rooks have the last say....

Nisthouse rookery.

Moss and frogs.

 Thanks to Leif Bersweden for his #CouchTo10Mosses I've had a go at identifying a few. Possibly a bit easier than lichens, probably ignorance speaking there. 

Barbula unguiculata, the pale green one - rubbish photos I need to go and take them again.

The other moss there is Didymodon fallax apparently. I need to check the info on the BBS site. Many thanks to BH for help with this and some other moss IDs.

This is an easy hit for a few new species anyway and, having never looked carefully at these plants before, they are rather lovely.

Grimmia pulvinata.

Habitat shot.

Close up, Homalothecium sericeum.

Habitat.

Homalothecium sericeum, close up.

Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus, the moss found in lawns and grassland.

When we went for a walk at Northside I photographed a few maritime mosses. BH identified these for me, and JB chipped in, thanks chaps.

Grimmia pulvinata again, but by the sea this time, hopefully I do know this one.

Seaside Grimmia, Schistidium maritimum, in habo.

Schistidium maritimum, close up.

Tortula muralis, habo.

Tortula muralis, close up.

I'll have a bit of a poke about and see if I can find a few more. There are some very common and distinctive ones I've not figured out.

Before 2019, from 2009, no frogs. 2019 I found three frogs in the 1km sq, around the house, one of which crawled up my trouser leg when I was searching for inverts on the ground. Last year I found a further four or five and some frog spawn, just a clump in a shallow pool in the middle of a damp meadow. This year, quite a lot of frogs and 14 clumps of frog spawn. 

Frog spawn.

Rana temporaria.

So it looks like there is some population growth, despite the best efforts of the local Grey Herons, I watched a heron swallow a large frog on Saturday. The one above was by the side of our road on Sunday and apparently there was another this evening.

There is now considerable doubt around my identification of Sitona linealis from last week. MG very helpfully is suggesting that these are Sitona obsoletus. This is a species I can't find much information about, colloquially named Clover-root Weevil their occurrence in the trough would make sense, they appeared shortly after the ploughing of a clover rich grazing field. Looking in the same trough on Saturday, another specimen (as well as the abdomen of a Bembidion sp that requires further investigation) was found. I will try to take some better photos, higher resolution is required I think.

Sitona obsoletus maybe.

New beetles for the year this weekend.

Leistus fulvibarbis.

Nebria brevicollis, moving....

And under the same stones the Opilione, Nemastoma bimaculatum.

Like a very small alien.

Saturday found seven Shelduck on The Shunan, that might be a record. They were duelling and threatening and fairly soon the number went back to four, two pairs, it would be nice if they attempted to breed. Today there were five pairs of Pintail, pretty sure that's a record number as well. It's wonderfully noisy with Oystercatchers and Curlew all over the place, hundreds of Oysterdcatcher. Both Redshank and Lapwing are establishing territories. 

Birds feeding on the kitchen windowsill, fixed camera firing automatically.

Rooks collecting sticks on Monday, 08/03/2021.

Beetles.

If I'm not careful I'll have forgotten what I was going to say. An eventful week so far, as I think I resigned. Slightly vague, but anyway my job's getting advertised so I must have. I have some beast of a form to fill in to do it properly and finally. Relative poverty will be a relief.

More time to do the things that I really love doing, identifying stuff, taking photos and thinking; not enough time to think in the job. I've a list of books to read. Maybe I've got a book to write, but I probably won't get around to it.

A week when I finally found some beetles, pictures below. I caught a very tatty Acleris hyemana, which I'd not seen prior to last autumn. There was a bit of an aurora, but it was disappointing to view, it didn't meet the expectaions of the data.

Spring must be here as I saw a Rook carrying a stick fly across the garden on Monday. And there have been Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls on The Shunan.

Harpalus rufipes I hope, can just about make out the hairs on the dorsal surface of the tarsi.

 

Agonum fuliginosum - found under the same stone as the Harpalus.

Sitona linealis, now considered more likely to be obsoletus, Pea-leaf Clover-root Weevil, (thanks MG for re-identification) five of these were attempting to swim in the cattle trough.

I habitually check the various water troughs etc around the patch. Finding five S. linealis swimming in a trough was a surprise. I usually just find one or two of these a year in our flower garden or around the greenhouse. I fished them out, let three go and took the two home to check, they were in a state. In fridge, in water, in a tube, one at the bottom. A day later I take them out and look at them under the Celestron. The one at the bottom gradually comes around and walks off, impressive.

Moth trapping has not been very productive. At the weekend it was too clear and I caught no moths. I did however, catch an unfamiliar Sylvicola. There are four species and the one I usually catch hundreds of is easy as it has no dark tip to the wing apically, punctatus. Out of the trap at the weekend came one with a dark wing tip. Choice of three species that should be ok, no. Help online suggested it would be a female, pity as it is easy to identify males of one of the other three species. However, in Scotland two species are rare, or at least they were twenty or so years ago when Hancock wrote the key, might not be the case now. It probably is Sylvicola cinctus, it is just possible it isn't though and anyway I made a mess of extracting the genitalia, so I suspect I'll never know.

Sylvicola, cinctus but no dark mark in the middle of the hind tibia, not that I can see.

Acleris hyemana.

Having said I wouldn't trap for a week I did. In a hurry for work I emptied the trap in the kitchen and the one moth escaped. Fortunately I was wearing a white T-shirt which it liked. The first trapped moth of the year.

Elder daughter requested spider removal from the bathroom. A small (probable) Eratigena duellica which I misidentified initially was captured and removed to the garage.

Eratigena duellica.

Home and the rookery from down the hill.

 This week I have been enjoying Adam Curtis's extraordinary "Can't Get you out of My Head". A guide to understanding the world we live in. I'd not knowingly come across his work before, I had because he used to be a researcher for Esther Rantzen back in the early 80s. I will, once I've finished this quite long series (BBC iPlayer) be exploring his back catalogue, the film Hypernormalisation is also available on the iPlayer I think.

Again, listening to Don Letts - so start with UNKLE's latest single, "Do Yourself Some Good", follow it with The Teardrop Explodes ("Bless my cotton socks, I'm in the news.) and complete a time travelling trio with a song from 1967, Excerpt from a Teenage Opera by Keith West and Mark Wirtz, which I had not heard for a very long time. The Don also much enjoyed "Can't Get you Out of My Head" apparently.

Other recent listening includes - A Winged Victory for the Sullen and Nils Lofgren. 

It is tempting to comment on the Sturgeon/Salmond situation. The local FB "radical" group, recently taken over by Sturgeon supporting nationalists, it appears, is full of conspiracy theories; er, isn't that what Alec is alleging, a conspiracy? In defense of Nicola I don't feel inclined to believe someone who has taken a job with Putin's RT propoganda channel, a man of dubious integrity IMHO. I'm not a fan of nationalism but politicians rarely apologise; points in favour. Whether she will survive or not will be interesting, I suspect that she probably will, however, this is damaging SNP polling prior to a slightly significant election. In London a wide spectrum of polliticians will be rubbing their hands in glee and cheering this on with enthusiasm. Oddly, the SNP website crashed with the numbers attempting to join the party, perhaps that might be explained by this very good piece about the whole debacle here.