February | 2012 | Life since the office

Aren’t Ptarmigan brilliant!?

So, a more complete round-up of February’s events so far will feature in a future post, but for now I wanted to show off some photos that I managed to get today. I’d planned an early start for a walk up into the Cairngorms and down to Loch A’an, and this meant that I caught the best of the clear morning as I climbed beyond 1000m. At this point I spotted Mr Ptarmigan tucked into the rocks. He called a couple of times while I sat watching him, and minutes later, as I headed further along the top, I realised that the reply must have come from a female that was sitting on top of a large boulder, in the sun.

As I say, I’ll post more information and news from this month when I get the time (hopefully later in the week)

: Those of you who have never heard a Ptarmigan call before look it up, it’s a fantastic noise

: Lagopus Muta – meaning hare(like)-foot mute. But they’re not mute, they croak! Who gives out these names?

: When I loaded this onto my computer, I realised you can see him blinking

: She was clearly not bothered as I walked within a few metres of her

: A shot from the sunny side – demonstrating how unfortunate their ‘camouflage’ can be without snow.

26 February, 2012 | Categories: Travels | 2 Comments

January at RSPB Abernethy

The three of you that follow this blog will have noticed a minor slow down in posts recently. I’m afraid this situation might not get better any time soon. During my delve into nature this blog has been a great way to express my excitement over all the things that I see. However, as I’m keen to learn more and more about nature, habitats, species, the people who I meet and work with, and the work that we do, etc, the blog has fallen down the list of priorities. I finished my latest OU assignment yesterday, and so have an evening to write this up.

To bring things reasonably up to date I’m afraid I’m going to have to cram a whole month into one entry. I’ve seen some great things this month, as usual but, due to an ongoing lack of zoom functionality on my cameras, I’m unable to bring you pictures of a female hen harrier, male and female capercaillie, crested tit, pine marten, and widgeon and mallard on Loch Garton.

A major walk this month, was to the Water of Caiplich, and the amazing tundra like high altitude (for this country) landscape that I walked through to get there and back. Most of the rest of the photos are from a walk up the Nethy, at the point where it enters the forest from the Savannah. The waterway becomes a large gorge with sand banks on either side. It’s vaguely reminiscent of North West America, and it wouldn’t look out of place if there was a bear pulling salmon out of the river at the bottom of the gorge.

The rest of the month’s story will be explained through the medium of photographs: