Advance, onward.

The season seems to be moving on apace. After the gales a period of calm and warm, sometimes gloriously sunny weather. Then grey. Grey for the huge aurora. We could see it through the clouds, the night was bright, but that was all, a kind of brighter grey; hope all of you south (where the sky was clear) enjoyed it!

Flowering Marsh Marigold, very early, Dandelion, then Coltsfoot and Lesser Celandine,  spring is advancing.

Dandelion Taraxacum sp. (No, I'm not getting into taking these further...).

On the bird front there's a constant trickle of Redwings and Fieldfares heading back north and the Pink-feet are restless. For two days there were at least 16 Goldfinch on and around the feeders, the garden was full of birds. Woodpigeons increased to more than 30 for a couple of days, migration in action.

Goldfinch.

I managed my WeBS and was rewarded with a fly-by ringtail. These are probably my best Hen Harrier photos. Other folk here seem to photograph them often but as I mostly bird on foot or bike they give me a wide berth. The kitchen fly-bys are usually sudden, unexpected events, no camera to hand, by the time I'd fired it up it would have gone in any case.

Hen Harrier, female, taken from the car.

Part of the reason I've got behind with the blog is that I've been compiling an overview of the county Ichneumon records, the Ichneumonidae and the Braconidae. This will be published in the Orkney Field Club Bulletin. It was more work than I expected, even though there are relatively few species recorded for the islands. I went through the social media and chased those records, then the OWIARC database, to which I was kindly given a working link to the maps (it's no longer supposed to be up and running but BH had found a URL that worked). I then went through all the county iRecord entries for Hymenoptera, I didn't know how to filter it more narrowly so scrolled through nearly a thousand entries to pick out the species I was interested in. A few additional records appeared whilst I was in the process. I am very much a beginner with this Super Family, but interested, it was a job that needed doing, there's now a county list of accepted records and a list of additional species pairs, aggs, and genera. It's a start. 

Zele albiditarsis, a Braconidae that comes to light. Note the white hind tarsi. Thanks to JB for all the identifications. The first was in 2018 I then had two in 2019.

I must find time to go back through photographs and see if I've any that might be identifiable, some are from field images.

I managed to identify one of the two small beetles I found at Tentsmuir. Pleasingly it keyed out as a new one for me, and quite an uncommon thing.

Omalium rugulipenne, just 2.8mm, a wee beast.

BH popped round for a morning of looking for things. I think he was quite pleased with the Hawthorn Hedge and found a couple of lichens of interest.

Lichen species, hopefully BH will sort it out! (He has Evernia prunastri, thanks BH.)

Whilst we were rummaging about in the hedge the hound flushed a Water Rail and then when we headed up the burn BH flushed a Woodcock. A female Sparrowhawk put in an appearance.

A moss, actually a few species here I think. I took a few samples which I'll try and ID, help will be on hand if I can't do them (BH???!!!). Bryum capillare is the one with the capsules here, thanks BH, I should really know that species.

A stonefly was the only insect of interest, so far, I did take a couple of vegetation samples. I'll see if I can run this down at some point.

Stonefly to be identified.

South and back north.

We're travelling more frequently at the moment as we explore possible places to live south. Not the best time of year to do it, the wind the other day fortunately subsided just in time for our ferry to run. It was neat to hear and see Mistle Thrushes and Great Spotted Woodpeckers. Star of this trip away, aside from younger daughter's 21st birthday was this fabulous shield bug.

Dolycoris baccarum, Hairy Shieldbug.

I initially misidentified this as Brassy Shieldbug but the antennal markings set me right. Both are a similar colour dorsally in the winter. We visitied Tentsmuir NNR and I found the beast under some Peltigera lichen on inland dunes. Clearly dormant, photographed, I covered it back up again. Also a couple of beetles and a diptera sp from the tideline, not yet identified. The diptera shouldn't be too hard I suspect.

I probably ought to know what this is... perhaps it's Helcomyza ustulata, but perhaps not big enough?

The above ID is incorrect, IA (thank you) has suggested Heterocheila buccata which seems to fit much better.

Also, these cases made of bits of shell were quite common amongst the strandline seaweed that was washed up.

Case of some beast or other, probably a worm.

I haven't photographed the beetles yet, they were tiny from the tideline, hopefully of interest. Tentsmuir is a fabulous place but if you go by car to the main car park make sure you have 2x £1 coins for the barrier. The pancake hut is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so best go another day, the pancakes are good.

Back here in Orkney it is noisy time with the Oystercatchers suddenly arriving inland in force, well over 100 hanging around The Shunan now. Also the first Black-headed Gulls of the year. And an elusive Kestrel, seen once from the car but not again.

Oystercatchers.

You can't really do nocmig here because the sound recordings are so busy it takes hours to go through them, what with Oystercatcher, Curlew and Greylags calling and flying all night. It is a time of year I like very much, with the waders all returning and sorting out their territories.

An early flowering Marsh Marigold on 11/02/2023.

Marsh Marigold, flowering rather early.

I had a meeting with a Species on the Edge coordinator the other day. Chrysolina latecincta is one of the species however, I'm not sure what could be done to protect or encourage this fancy beetle. What was encouraging was that the brief might be wider than the listed species and that rare and much more fragile things like Hydrothassa hannovariana might get some attention.

I did finally manage to dissect out the paramere of the Anthocoris sp that I caught the other day, it does indeed seem to be Anthocoris confusus, which is new to me and I think for the county.

Paramere, Anthocoris confusus.

Turning over one of my favourite stones, there's nearly always something of interest beneath, it's at the top of the birdcrop field. A Catops, a big one.

Catops nigricans, NFM. It was all of 5mm+

And this from the kitchen window was identified as Lonchoptera sp. There are not many species but unfortunately it was on the inside of the kitchen window and I didn't catch it at the time, it has not reappeared.

Lonchoptera sp (thanks BM).

Moving on.

The time has come, after thirteen and a bit years to move on. Daughters are both south and we're rattling around in this lovely, but rather large house. It will be going on the market in the next couple of weeks, and we're hoping to find somewhere just as fascinating to live the other side of the Pentland Firth, plus a few hours, or so, down the A9.

 

Old Nisthouse, Harray, Orkney.

 The tidying up and sorting through stuff has taken a bit of an effort, and at the expense of time spent doing more interesting things, however, in the long run it will be worth it.

(Any interest in purchasing may be expressed through our agents, Lows in Kirkwall.)

I have found time to do some birding and whilst there's been nothing as stunning as the Yellowhammer and still no, much anticipated and hoped for, Little Bunting, things have been interesting. The earliest ever Oystercatcher on 31st Jan, early Shelducks and Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a pile of waders on the agricultural fields including 17 Dunlin. Blackbird numbers have fallen but Fieldfares and Redwings have started to move through, presumably heading back north. Pink-feet are more frequent, and Whoopers seem to be on the move.

Oystercatchers at Loch of Bosquoy.

Wigeon on The Shunan.

Whooper Swans going over, six came back east today.

The female Brambling that has been with us for some weeks has recently been joined by this smart male.

I offered to collect some moss and lichen samples that could be used in Poland for research into tardigrades. I duly collected and posted a few samples and these were then processed by JT in York prior to sending to Poland. JT found a few tardigrades in the samples. Following her instructions I looked for and found a couple of tardigrades including this monster at 0.4mm.

JT's photos can be found here - https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAr6Fh - they are excellent.

In the course of going through the vegetation sample I found some heteroptera, not my favourite things to identify. Two species were very common on lichen from the Wee Wood trees.

Anthocoris sp, possibly confusus but I need to dissect this male to find out, tricky dissection apparently.

Lygus sp, but I'm unsure, if so a very tricky genus to ID.

I've been ruminating on Common Gull behaviour. They seem to have two feeding strategies in the fields around us. A few birds hunt individually, flying low above the stubble fields and occasionally dropping on to prey.

Common Gull 2cy.

It seems a higher proportion of these are younger birds, like the 2cy above. I suspect that it is the same individuals each day deploying this strategy.

Other Common Gulls feed in small, or sometimes not so small, flocks in the grassland. These birds walk around feeding, always in a loose flock, coming and going together. Sometimes these birds are foot-paddling.

Common Gulls.

More questions than answers about these different feeding behaviours.

View from the garden, Tuesday evening.

Patchwork.

A lovely calm and sunny day on Thursday so I got the bike out and had a good tour around the patch. Main targets were Slavonian Grebe and Red-breasted Merganser but as so often happens in birding the target species were elusive. However, many ducks showed well and I had a good sort through various flocks of Tufted, Teal and Wigeon hoping for the usual suspects. I didn't find those, but a pair of Gadwall were welcome. Pied Wags can be quite tricky to see here in winter, but one was on the filter beds of the waterworks at Howaback, good start. However, the attentions of a Hen Harrier and then a Grey Heron meant that the regular Moorhens (this is a green list and I'd seen them but when using the car) were hiding. I ended up at the south-easterly extremity of the patch sorting through a large flock of Wigeon to no avail, however, there were five Redshank in amongst the Curlew and Lapwings. Then scanning further out on Loch of Harray there were three unexpected Red-throated Divers and finally a distant drake Red-breasted Merganser.

Goldeneyes.

The calm evening made a visit to the harrier and crow roost a plan. I used the car for this trip as I had other jobs enroute. The roost is difficult as looking west into moorland isn't ideal for seeing harriers coming to roost. I managed three Hen Harriers, including an adult male, there were two Shorties, and the usual Water Rail was heard. Rather good was a calling Red Grouse, not an easy bird to get. During this roost watch crows were heading south at regular intervals and I eventually sussed out where they were gathering. At the end of last year the crows were very elusive and hard to see because of the topography, however, on this occasion they sat out nicely. 256 was a really good count, unfortunately the light wasn't good enough to pick out Carrions or hybrids so all were counted as presumed Hoodies.

Friday was another calm day so another go for Moorhen and Slav Grebe was called for. On this occasion the Moorhens were undisturbed and a single Slavonian Grebe showed distantly off the waterworks.

A mooch about for some insects on Friday produced a couple of beasts under a favourite stone in the birdcrop field.

The tiny (1.9mm) Chrysomelid, a flea beetle, Longitarsus luridus, the dark form.

A mirid, at least I got that right, but help was required to get to Stenodema holsata, a common beast elsewhere in the UK but I've only found it once before here, although I might have ignored it to be honest. In summer they are more green.

I've been collecting samples for some tardigrade research in Poland. I've never seen a tardigrade, it should be possible with my microscope but I need to find out how to extract them from the mosses and lichens they tend to live in. In one of my lichen samples there were plenty of heteroptera, more identification challenges coming up.