The Old Scotch Road

In a recent Blog post I mentioned the fact that Gail has a passion for history, and she does, but I too love history. One of the subjects that fascinates me is that of droving, and the drovers that brought cattle across the border to markets in England.

There's a road that I like to drive along if I am going to Tebay, or more particularly Kennedy's Fine Chocolates in Orton, that is called the 'Old Scotch Road'. I leave the M6 at junction 37 and head east towards Sedbergh, but turn immediately left on to the Old Scotch Road. The reason I like to drive it is for the cracking views of the Howgills, and because of its history. It runs along and above the M6 heading north for perhaps a mile, and then veers away from that noisy, concrete, hellish arterial route!

Looking towards the Howgills from the Old Scotch Road

Sections of the road along this stretch are wide and have deep verges (more on this later), which is evidence that the Old Scotch Road was an old droving road. However, there is more evidence as this road has been marked on maps since the 1800s to the present day as Old Scotch Road.


This ancient route was known as the Galwaithgate (the Galloway Road), and it was referred to by that name in the 12th century. Most of the cattle were from Galloway or further north in Scotland, even the Highlands, and they were black like the current Galloway breed.

A large proportion of the cattle had the same drovers for the full journey to the south of England, and the Highlander in their plaid would have been a common sight on the Galwaithgate. When the Lancaster to Carlisle railway opened in 1846, it ensured that by 1855 cattle droving on the Old Scotch Road was no more.

 Galwaithgate

I'll come back to the Old Scotch Road shortly, but for now I want to have a quick rewind to first light Wednesday morning when I carried out my second bird survey at one of my plantation woodland sites underneath the shadow of Blencathra.

I set out under full cloud cover with a light ENE wind and good visibility. It would seem that generally speaking, or for a number of passerines, that it has been a good breeding season this year, and there was plenty of evidence for this during my survey. At the start of my survey in the first compartment I had a large Tit flock move through the trees and it contained at least 19 Great Tits and 21 Blue Tits!

A calling Cuckoo towards Blencathra was a welcome sound, and let's hope that they have had a good breeding season too. Other bits and pieces encountered during my survey included eleven Lesser Redpolls, six Siskins, a Sedge Warbler, a Mistle Thrush, a Reed Bunting, two singing Blackcaps, three Willow Warblers, a Goldcrest, two Grey Wagtails and a pair of Pied Wagtails with five juveniles in tow.

Back to the Old Scotch Road. On my way home from the north Lakes I decided to stop off at the Old Scotch Road and walk a section. I headed north along the road with the noisy M6 to my left (west) and upland pasture to my right (east). A late displaying Curlew reminded me that I was in breeding wader country, despite the pastures being a tad over-grazed, and any sense of wildness removed by the close proximity of the motorway.

 M6

I saw a female Pied Wagtail perched on a wall with a bill full of invertebrates, and she was probably waiting for me to pass before she slipped in to a crevice between the stones to a nest full of youngsters. This was followed by a male Blackbird with a 'gob' full of food, and I watched him flying high from the east over the M6 to the west side of the motorway, and he dived straight into a conifer plantation. This was obviously where his nest was located and it just shows how far they fly to forage and provision their chicks!

 Blackbird nest site

The ever present noise from the motorway made it difficult to hear any birds calling from the vegetation in the wide roadside verges, in fact it was a bit of an assault on my auditory senses, but a visual delight with the profusion of wildflowers and views to the Howgills.

I'm no botanist, but a quick squint in the verge as I walked along produced Foxglove, Meadowsweet, Red Campion, Oxeye daisy, Wood cranesbill, Heath bedstraw, Forget-me-not sp., Yarrow, Yellow rattle, Vetch sp., Commom knapweed, Greater stitchwort, Red clover, Kidney vetch, Self-heal and Hawkbit sp. to name but a few.

 Oxeye daisies

Wood cranesbill

It was overcast and as such there was no butterfly activity, but I did have a number of the day flying Chimney Sweeper moths. It was a pleasant hours walk, and I will probably call again on my way home from the north. It's just a pity that the motorway couldn't be moved!

Post Holiday Mothing Session

The day after we got back from holiday I ran my garden moth trap, and this was the first time that I had run it for some time. I caught 33 moths of twelve species (more if I had counted the micros that rather embarrassingly I don't attempt to record!) as follows:

Heart and Dart - 20
Small Angle Shades - 1
Large Yellow Underwing - 2
Brimstone - 1
Dark Arches - 2
Flame Shoulder - 1
Buff Arches - 1
Green Pug - 1
Gothic - 1
Garden Carpet - 1
Marbled Beauty - 1
Bordered Sallow - 1

Bordered Sallow

 Buff Arches

Malt Whisky Country

Gail and I are just back from a week in Northeast Scotland. We stayed in a cottage close to the village of Aberchirder (pronounced Aberhirder) in Aberdeenshire. Everywhere we went when we were chatting to people, and they asked where we were staying, we would say "near Aberchirder", and they would say "oh near Foggieloan or Foggie"!

I decided that when I got back I would look up what Foggieloan means. A quick search on Google and I found www.foggieloan.co.uk On this excellent website I came across the following:

"When Alexander Gordon, the laird of Auchintoul, decided in 1764 to found a planned village he selected a spot at the south end of Auchintoul Moss. Here there was a fermtoun called Foggieloan (from two Gaelic words foidh (peat moss) and lòn (meadow), so Foggieloan means peaty or boggy meadow, so he gave his village the same name.

In 1799 the estate was bought by John Morison of Bognie, who renamed it Aberchirder after the Thanes of Aberkerdour who lived at Kinnairdy Castle overlooking the River Deveron in earlier times. However, the popular name of Foggieloan – often shortened to Foggie – has survived for over two centuries, and has been incorporated in the motto of the coat of arms".

So there you go, that's why it's still known as 'Foggieloan'!

The Moray area is known as malt whisky country, and driving around in a week over a relatively small area we passed no less than nineteen distilleries; Tullibardine, Glen Dronach, Glen Livet, Glenfiddich, Tormore, Cragganmore, Ballindalloh,Cardhu, Aberlour, Glen Grant, Speyside, Glentauchers, Chivas, Strathisla (visited this one and purchased a bottle of single malt!), Macduff, Glen Moray, Dallas Dhu, Benromach and Glendullan! We need to go back and sample more!

Our cottage was situated mainly within an arable area, with some permanent grassland, heather moorland, Gorse scrub and wet woodland. Typical of northeast Scotland. A short walk along the lane on our first evening produced a singing Sedge Warbler, a juv. Dipper along the burn, ten Sand Martins, four Yellowhammers and twelve Lesser Redpolls.

Sunday's are always a fuuny day on holiday so we had a mooch along the coast calling in at various fishing villages/town such as Banff and Portsoy. At Banff three Goosanders flew past the harbour, whilst ten Eiders were on the sea and two juvenile Rock Pipits on the shore.

 Some views from Banff (above &below)

Portsoy Harbour

There was a very healthy Sparrow population at the cottage and I had brought some seed with me, so I put some out every morning in the garden. The owners of the cottage lived in a cottage adjacent to ours and they maintained a well stocked bird table, so I knew that when we went home and stopped feeding they would be in good hands. The sparrow flock peaked at 28 House Sparrows and four Tree Sparrows, and the numbers were similar to this all week.

Most evenings at the cottage we had several bats flying around the garden and a couple of Tawny Owls calling from some nearby woodland.

We had an afternoon in part of Abernethy NNNR, Dell Wood in fact, near Nethy Bridge. We did about a five mile walk through the forest, but it was very quiet as woodlands are at this time of year. It was just fantastic being in Caledonian Forest with it's open Scot's Pine dominated structure and dwarf shrub field layer. We did have a few birds (but none of the Abernethy specialists) including six Goldcrests, a Garden Warbler, eight Coal Tits, a Chiffchaff, eight Willow Warblers, six Siskins, a Lesser Redpoll, three Treecreepers, a Jay, a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a female Bullfinch.

 Abernethy Forest

River Nethy

Below are just a few snaps taken during our week in northeast Scotland. Gail has a great passion for history so we usually spend most of our time looking round historic sites, as the pictures below testify!

Balvenie Castle

 Chanonry Point in the Moray Firth

 Corgarff Castle 

 Fort George (above & below)

 Fyvie Castle

 Huntly Castle

All Work And No Play

Gail and I have a week in northeast Scotland coming up, not too far from the Moray coast and the eastern Cairngorms for that matter, so we are looking forward to that. So I thought I would try and slip in a quick blog post before I get too busy with preparations for our holiday, but I'm afraid it's been all work and no play of late.

Other than carrying out the final round of checking our nest box scheme it's been work related bird surveys that's kept me out in the natural world, and given me my birding 'fix'. All the survey work has been in Cumbria, and it has been a bit of a mixed bag.

First up was one of my plantation woodland sites near Wigton, and it wasn't a bad morning weather-wise just over a week ago on the morning of my survey with just 3 oktas cloud cover, and a light southerly wind. For the official survey I use an amended Common Bird Census (CBC) methodology and record the species, number and activity of birds that are utilising the habitat found within the planted areas. In my notebook I just record the stuff that I think is of interest to me from within and outside the survey area.

So with this in mind my observations included three Chiffchaffs, two Blackcaps, eleven Stock Doves (an unusual Stock Dove featured at my next survey site), a Yellowhammer, a Song Thrush, two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, a Tree Sparrow, two Willow Warblers and a Goldcrest.

My second plantation woodland site was near Penrith and it was a tad quieter here with just nine Stock Doves and a Tree Sparrow of note. I've posted a couple of pictures below of one of the Stock Doves, and look closely at it's bill. The upper mandible is very long and down curved, probably as a result of the lower mandible virtually being non-existent. Whether this has been the case since it hatched, or perhaps a growth defect over time, or maybe even some kind of trauma I'm not sure.

 Stock Dove (above & below)

My final survey was in northwest Cumbria overlooking the Solway Firth. I've grown quite attached to this site as I surveyed it twice a month from October - March, and have just completed the second and final breeding bird survey.

Looking across the Solway Firth to Dumfries & Galloway

It was glorious day when I was here with just two oktas cloud cover and a light southeasterly breeze with views over to the Isle of Man, Ireland and Scotland.

I'll just jump straight in with a list of my observations; ten Skylarks, nine Linnets, 19 Meadow Pipits (two carrying food), 16 Whitethroats, 26 Goldfinches, four Stonechats (including one juv.), 317 Starlings, a Blackcap, three Song Thrushes (two juv.'s) two Willow Warblers and a male Kestrel.

There was quite a few spikes of Northern Marsh Orchid scattered about the site and a couple of Bee Orchids, always lovely to see.

 Northern Marsh Orchid

Last weekend Gail, Alice and Me carried out our last visit to our Pied Flycatcher nest box scheme. We just had two broods to ring and a few boxes to check on fledging. Sadly one of the broods of Pied Flys was down to just four chicks as two had died, probably as a result of all the preceding wet weather. In fact in a number of boxes where the chicks had successfully fledged the nest material was absolutely sodden!

We are going to try some mist netting at our nest box site throughout July and August in an area different to where our boxes are, so I am looking forward to that to see what we find. As always I'll keep you posted.

Quick Box Update

Yesterday Gail and I carried out another check of our boxes in the Hodder Valley in Bowland. We ringed six broods of Pied Flycatchers, totalling 45 pulli. We attempted to catch a few more males in the boxes without any success. Next week will probably be our last visit of the season as the two remaining broods should be ready to ring. Overall it has been a good season and fellow field workers like ourselves have been reporting similar good numbers.

Pied Flycatchers just hatching

 Pied Flycatcher chick ready to ring

Over on the right you will see that I have updated the ringing totals for Fylde Ringing Group up until the end of May. Three new species for the year were ringed during the month and these were Pied Flycatcher, Nuthatch and Lapwing. 

Below you will find the top four species ringed for the month and the top ten 'movers and shakers' for the year.

Top 4 Ringed in May

1. Great Tit - 43

2. Blue Tit - 27

3. Pied Flycatcher - 14

    Nuthatch - 14  

Top 10 Movers and Shakers for the Year

1. Lesser redpoll - 104 (same position)

2. Goldfinch - 70 (same position)

3. Linnet - 67 (same position)

4. Great tit - 61 (up from 6th)

5. Blue tit - 54 (down from 4th)

6. Chaffinch - 24 (down from 5th)

7. Siskin - 17 (same position)

    Blackcap - 17 (up from 8th)

9. Meadow Pipit - 15 (same position)

    Willow Warbler - 15 (up from 10th)   

North

I struggle sometimes to come up with a title for some of my blog postings, and today's post is a case in point. I sat staring at the template on Blogger without any inspiration, and my only thoughts were that I always seem to be heading north, and rarely south. I suppose with work it just depends where the job is, but it does often seem to be north, or if I want to stretch it a bit, in the north. So I thought 'North' would do as a Blog title, not very exciting, not very inspirational but probably a reflection of how I feel, or where I feel I should be in the world!

On Tuesday I had a survey of one of my woodland plantation sites in Cumbria, this time along the north shore of Morecambe Bay, and very much north of home. It's a quiet time of year now, bird-wise, with adults busy feeding young and migration more or less ground to a halt. Mind you, in just four weeks time it will be Autumn again! And this quietness was revealed in my survey results with just a female Reed Bunting, a Bullfinch, two singing Blackcaps, two singing Sedge Warblers, a Siskin and two Tree Sparrows of minimal interest to you dear reader.

When I am in this neck of the woods I like to call at the Cumbria Wildlife Trust reserve Foulshaw Moss, as it is a cracking reserve and I really love it there. The only slight downside, is the traffic noise from the A590, but you can't have everything! Foulshaw Moss is particularly important for it's invertebrate assemblage, mainly because it is an area of lowland raised bog. Other people will associate it with it's breeding Ospreys. But one thing is sure, it is a lovely reserve.

I was there straight after an early morning bird survey, so I wasn't really there at the optimum time to see lots of 'dragons' on the wing, but it was warm enough to encourage some to take flight. I encountered large numbers of Large Red Damselfly (I'm not sure what I really mean by 'large numbers', but I must have come across 20-30), a few Azure Damselflies and a few White-faced Darters (one of the reserve specialists) including a pair mating.

 Azure Damselflies

White-faced Darter

Some birds did put in an appearance including three Great Spotted Woodpeckers, five Willow Warblers, three Lesser Redpolls (including a ringed individual), five Reed Buntings, a Tree Pipit carrying food, four Sedge Warblers, an Osprey and two Blackcaps. I also had four Red Deer out on the bog.

Yesterday saw Gail and me completing a fourth Breeding Bird Survey at our site in North Lanarkshire, that started off under relatively clear skies, but finished with us having to abort the survey a few hours later due to persistent and heavy rain! Again we had good numbers of warblers including 30 Willow Warblers, eight Grasshopper Warblers, eight Sedge Warblers, thirteen Whitethroats, two Blackcaps and three Goldcrests.

We haven't as yet seen any Dragonflies at this site, even though there are a few pools that look suitable, but then again we are there very early when it is still rather cool. With the cloudy conditions we didn't have many butterflies other than a single Orange-tip hunkered down on a Cuckooflower.

 Orange-tip

I've just pulled an old notebook from the shelf, 1986 to be precise, that was a time I when was living in west Norfolk. I thought there wouldn't be anything of interest at this time of year in 1986, but I forgot about Nightjars! I used to visit a site close to where I lived, and I was usually there on my own, or with a mate who lived a couple of villages north of me. In fact looking back at my entries in May 1986 I was obviously a bit obsessed with visiting this site, based on the number of times I visited in late May! 

The geography of the site was perfect for viewing Nightjars, as the point where we watched from was slightly raised overlooking a clearing with lots of potential song perch's for churring males! The supporting cast of Cuckoo, Woodcock and Tawny Owl was not to be sniffed at. On this date (30th May) in 1986 I had three 'hooting' Tawny Owls, three Woodcocks and two 'churring' male Nightjars! As mentioned above I also spent a few other evenings there as follows:
- 24th May - four Woodcocks and one male Nightjar
- 25th May - four Woodcocks, a Cuckoo and two Nightjars
- 26th May - three Cuckoos, seven Woodcocks, two Tawny Owls and a male Nightjar
- 28th May - nine Woodcocks, a Cuckoo, two calling Tawny Owls and a male Nightjar
- 30th May - detailed previously

On a related topic, I was chatting with Ian on the phone yesterday about Turtle Dove now being classed as a rare breeding bird, and that data will now be collected annually by the rare Breeding Birds Panel. At a similar time to all the above Nightjar action, I was having up to five Turtle Doves in late May at one of my ringing sites, in fact I had the pleasure of ringing one on one occasion. They won't be at this site now!

It's checking boxes again at the weekend, so Gail and I are looking forward to that!

Boxes To Boxes

It's been a busy seven days with plenty of bird surveys and checking of nest boxes. In fact this post will start with checking boxes and end with checking boxes, with a few highlights from various surveys sprinkled in between.

Last Saturday Gail and I made our third visit to our boxes in the Hodder Valley. We managed to ring two broods of Great Tits (18 chicks in total) and a single brood of Blue Tits, containing eight little 'n's! We also lifted another female Pied Flycatcher off the nest, leaving just two females from the nine pairs to lift; more on this later.

That evening I ran my moth trap for the first time in a while and managed to trap a new species for the garden in the form of an Iron Prominent. When I photograph the moths that I have caught in my moth trap on release, I like to place them on vegetation rather than take them against the background of the egg carton, as I think it makes a better photograph. So I placed the Iron Prominent on some vegetation and it dropped off the leaf I placed it on, out of sight, so I didn't get a photograph! Note to self..."photograph any new species for the garden on the egg carton to get a record shot, before placing said moth on vegetation to get a more natural shot"!

I trapped five moths of four species as follows; two Garden Carpets, a Heart and Dart, a Flame Shoulder and the aforementioned Iron Prominent.

On Monday Gail and I were in North Lanarkshire for our third breeding bird survey visit, and again it was warblers that dominated proceedings. We recorded seventeen Sedge Warblers, 21 Whitethroats, 32 Willow Warblers, three Blackcaps, seven Grasshopper Warblers, a Garden Warbler and two Goldcrests.

Other bits and pieces included six Lesser Redpolls, two Tree Pipits, six Song Thrushes, seven Coal Tits and two Siskins.

On Thursday I undertook one of my on-going hedgerow surveys for one of my client's in the Lune Valley in north Lancashire. First up as I was putting my wellies on in front of the barn was a late Whimbrel that flew low, but heading north, calling. On the barn there were at least three active House Martin nests and below is one of the adults in the process of nest construction.

 House Martin

The survey itself didn't produce anything notable other than a singing Lesser Whitethroat (is it me or are they a bit thin on the ground this year?), several pairs of Lapwings, Curlews and Oystercatchers (yes I know they aren't hedgerow birds), two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, a juvenile Song Thrush, two Blackcaps, a Garden Warbler and female Goosander and Common Sandpiper on the river during a coffee break.

 I snapped this confiding young Brown Hare whilst surveying one of the

hedges

Gail and I were at one of my plantation woodland survey sites in north Cumbria, near Wigton on Friday and it was quiet. We did record a few bits and pieces of relevance to the on-going project, but nothing too noteworthy to mention here. The survey was short and sweet so we headed north of the border to bird the Solway from the Scottish side near Annan. Oh, and to nip in to Tescos in Annan to procure some Orkney Brewery beers! I forgot to mention that on our way back from North Lanarkshire we stopped off in Moffat (well worth a visit if you haven't been) for lunch and purchased some beers from one of my favourite breweries, Sulwath. Anyway, I digress!

The scrub along the shore held six singing Willow warblers, six singing Whitethroats, two singing Sedge Warblers and we had two singing Grasshopper Warblers form some predominantly grassland habitat inland. It was quiet on the estuary other than 97 Shelducks, two male Goosanders and a surprising male Shoveler that dropped in. The only waders we had was a flock of twenty Dunlin and a handful of Curlews and Oystercatchers.

A number of butterflies were on the wing including Orange Tips, Walls, Small and Green-veined Whites. It was then time to purchase my beer!

This morning we made our fourth visit to our Pied Flycatcher nest box scheme in the Hodder Valley and had a great deal of success. We lifted the last two remaining females from the nest that we required, so we have now recorded all the females from the nine pairs of Pied Flycatchers occupying our boxes. We also used some traps in the boxes that had chicks in for the first time, in attempt to catch some of the males as part of a larger Retrapping Adults for Survival (RAS) project in Bowland, and managed to catch two of these spanking black and white birds!

 Male Pied Flycatcher

We ringed a brood of eight Pied Flycatchers, and a further four broods had hatched but were too small to ring. In addition to the Pied Flys we also ringed a brood of nine Blue Tits, a brood of seven Nutchatches and a brood of six Great Tits.

 Pied Flycatcher chicks

As always I am indebted to Gail for all of her help and company out in the field, and as such I had better sign off and pour her a large whisky! I might just have one or two of those Orkney beers too!