NWA for 5/18/19
Scotland Loon Trifecta
Mary and I just returned from a two-week long 40th anniversary trip to northwestern Scotland, and we hit the loon trifecta, viewing great northern divers, red-throated divers, and black- throated divers. The Brits refer to loons as “divers,” so the great northern diver is no other than Gavia immer, our common loon.
Common loons don’t breed there, but winter in Scotland or migrate through on their way to Iceland, Norway, or Greenland. The red-throated and black-throated loons, however, do nest in northwestern Scotland, and we were thrilled to see them. We saw a group of six black-throated loons together on a coastal loch in Lewis on the Outer Hebrides where we spent most of our time.
The Outer Hebrides are at the 58th parallel, over 800 miles north of our latitude in the Minocqua area, but because of the Gulf Stream, the weather there is dramatically moderated. But then there’s the wind which gets a several thousand-mile long fetch across the Atlantic and meets very few trees when it reaches landfall. So, we were greeted with highs in the low 40’s, lows around freezing, and wind and more wind, weather that required every piece of clothing that we brought.
Scottish Eagles
On our first morning on the Hebrides, we joined a RSPB hike - Royal Society for the Protection of Birds - where we walked along a portion of their “Birds of Prey Trail.” We were in a mostly treeless landscape with large hills looming above us on either side cloaked in a mist. Beautiful, but not great for soaring raptors. Soon, however, we had our first of many golden eagle sightings, the eagle flying in and out of the mist. Not long after, we saw our first “sea eagle,” better known as a white-tailed eagle. Thank goodness for an experienced guide who was able to help us sort out the eagles even when they were quite distant!
The golden eagles are a race of our North American golden eagle, and are every bit as large and impressive in flight. They’re protected in Scotland now, but because they occasionally may take a lamb, they’ve been persecuted and are still shot illegally.
The white-tailed eagle was driven to extinction in Scotland in 1916, but a recent reintroduction program has successfully brought a small population back. A bird of coastlines, estuaries, marshes, and lochs, the “sea eagle” displays many similar behaviors to our bald eagle, opportunistically hunting from the surface of the water, stealing food from other birds of prey, killing gulls, ducks, and other birds, taking rabbits and other mammals, and eating carrion.
Seeing these eagles in Scotland is a big deal these days, and we were very blessed to see at least 6 golden eagles and 4 sea eagles.
Balranald RSPB
A few days later, we visited the Balranald RSPB Reserve on North Uist Island, a glorious 1600 acres of rocky shoreland, marshes, dunes, sandy beaches, and “machair,” unique coastal grasslands that are a defining feature of the Outer Hebrides. Machair was formed thousands of years ago from sand derived from abraded seashells that was blown ashore. The tiny shell fragments, rich in calcium, provide a well- drained soil that otherwise is impossible to find on these islands. The soil supports a diverse plant life, and the birds love it. A third of all the breeding dunlins and ringed plovers in Britain breed here. Over 9,000 pairs of wading birds nest on the machair of the islands of North and South Uist.
We followed a three-mile long nature trail around the headland where we were greeted by nesting Arctic terns, nesting lapwings, singing skylarks, large numbers of oystercatchers, and numerous shorebirds including turnstones. Unfortunately, we missed seeing corncrakes by a week or two. These secretive chicken-like birds are a specialty species that were extirpated from Wales and England, but have hung on in the Hebrides.
One of our favorite birds was the nondescript skylark. What it lacks in physical beauty, it makes up for with its songs. The skylark simply ascends into the air and begins singing, sometimes continuously for up to 15 minutes, often mimicking other birds, but most often it seemed just twittering away. What rationale is behind this oration I can’t say, but it’s quite remarkable.
Birds We Share With Scotland
Mary and I identified 72 species of birds on our trip, and a number of those were birds that also nest in our area. Winter wrens were common, though the Scots refer to them only as “wren.” We also saw “our” pine siskin, mallard, red-breasted mergansers, northern harrier, and snipe. Also common were house sparrows, an invasive species in the U.S., but a species in significant decline in Great Britain. Across Britain between 1974 and 1999, the species fell 62%, a decline that has now slowed. Still, there’s a half million pairs or more in Britain, so they’re hardly rare.
One bird sharing a negative lifestyle with our black-billed cuckoo is the British cuckoo, though unlike our cuckoo, it sings very loudly and conspicuously, and simply repeats “coo-cu” over and over, hence the origin of the cuckoo clock. Like our cuckoo, this cuckoo parasitizes other bird’s nests. The female selects a nest, takes an egg out of it in her bill, and then lays her own egg in place of it. She then flies away with the host’s egg and swallows it! She may lay up to 25 eggs during the breeding season, leaving the incubation and chick-rearing to the foster mothers. The hatched chick then instinctively pushes the other eggs or chicks out of the nest, so it gets all the food and attention, a pretty good gig if you can get it.
Blanket Bogs
A surprising percentage of far northern Scotland Is blanket bog, meaning just what it says - the bog blankets the land no matter if it’s hilltops, slopes, or depressions. Blanket bogs form in cool climates with consistently high rainfall - one source says they require rain more than 235 days a year! The ground is literally waterlogged for much of the year, permitting bog vegetation like sphagnum moss (peat) to develop. It’s a positive feedback system, because as the peat develops, it holds more water yet. 23% of Scotland is covered by blanket bog - 4.3 million acres.
Scotland’s climate changed about 3,000 years ago from a warmer drier climate to much colder and wetter. The peat began to develop and ancient people who had been farming successfully for centuries had to abandon their fields.
We visited the famous Callanish stones on the Isle of Lewis, a stone circle erected between 2900 and 2600 BC, long before the Egyptian pyramids. The land under and around the stones had been farmed for several thousand years, but once the climate changed, people abandoned the site about 800 BC. The stones still stuck above the peat, but in 1857, Sir James Matheson cleared the stones of peat to an average depth of 5 feet, so the stones now stand well above the earth.
Local Sightings
I could go on about Scotland - we visited more weavers than you can shake a stick at, and Mary was in paradise. but it’s spring in the Northwoods and folks have been sending me their sightings.
5/1: Dale Nixon in Tomahawk had a tufted titmouse, a species seldom seen up here, visit his feeders.
5/4: Several people reported yellow-rumped warblers visiting their feeders. Cherie Smith in Lake Tomahawk sent a fine photo of one at her feeders.
5/4: Bob Kovar heard two bitterns “pumper-lunking” along the shore of Wild Rice Lake in Manitowish Waters.
5/4: The ice went out on Lake Tomahawk today. Judith Bloom has been keeping track of this since 1997 - the ice during this period went out once in March, 17 times in April, and 5 times in May.
5/8: Baltimore Orioles were reported in Minocqua.
5/12: Rod Sharka near Land’O’Lakes reported an eastern towhee in his yard.
5/14: Spring ephemeral wildflowers are popped - catch them while they last.
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