22nd April 2014
On Loch Meodal on Skye's southerly Sleat Peninsula, Mallard junior (Anas platyrhynchos) gets lost amongst the reeds.
Spotting mam and sibling rivals already far away in the distance he presses the turbo engage button and webs it in hot pursuit, fueled by fear of the big world and anger at his family's callous attitude.
They're going to get a big telling off!
Late in the year for Whooper Swans (Cygnus cygnus) on Loch Meodal, resting on their journey back to Iceland. There seem to be two adults and four juveniles. The adults appear to have a slight brownish hue to the neck which is characteristic of spring-summer plumage.
This adult bird has a noticeably more orange, rather than yellow bill colour.
It also has a yellow leg ring, indicating, as one would expect, that it was ringed in the UK.
Arriving at the western shore of the Sleat Peninsula, looking across to Strathaird. I think the stretch of water is Loch Slappin, coming down from the north, though in reality it's sort of merged with Loch Eishort which descends from the north east.
We had expected to see quite a few birds in Tokavaig Woods but although we could hear them, they proved to be visually very elusive and this Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus; photo by David) was about all we spotted.
Then David saw something a little different, in fact a whole nest of them.
(Photo by David)
The following exchange then occurred:
26 Apr Steve - I sent your photo to Murdo at HBRG and this was the response:
Murdo - A male Andrena [Mining Bee] . There are several possibilities, so if you could grab one and send it to me it would be useful. A. ruficrus, clarkella and fucata would all be in the frame, and it would be good to get down to species, especially from Skye where we know little about the solitaries.
27/4 Steve - From David's excellent photo Murdo (HBRG) was able to say that it was a mining bee member of the Andrena genus. You can read more about them here: http://www.hbrg.org.uk/FoHW/SolBees/SolBees.html . He needs a specimen to put under the microscope before he can tell us what species it is. So this morning I returned to Tokavaig Wood, managed to re-find the location, and, to my relief, they were still there! A specimen is now sitting in my fridge! Having achieved my primary objective, I spent an hour collecting more botanical records and on the way back down the road spotted a Green Hairstreak! (see website for photo)
29/4 Steve - I'm sure you've all been dying to know - our bee turned out to be Andrena clarkella! Ours appears to be a first record for Skye! http://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=bee/andrenidae/andrena-clarkella
29/4 David - Brilliant, how cool is that. Christine has the first ever Red Rumped swallow and I get an Andrena Clarkella!
29/4 Yes, they should rename it Andrena hammondii tokavaigus!
Adrena clarkella (photo by David)
I am assuming that, having spent a night in Steve's fridge and a day under a microscope, all for the benefit of science, Clarky here was given tea and biscuits and chauffeur driven back to his nest with a fine souvenir photo album of his exploits to show to his grandchildren.
