Moth are one interest that you can carry out throughout the year. Although the numbers fall off in winter there are also specialities which we have recently trapped such as Pale November Moth and Winter Moth. 


There are always birds to be found so to test our fitness, we headed up and up on Thursday into Munro territory, After a bit of a struggle we found a pleasing 12 Ptarmigan. Their plumage is heading towards the winter plumage with the grey Autumn plumage still partly present. Like this male in the picture they were calling quite a lot, in fact the calling helped locate the feeding party of seven and the loafing party of five.

There have been a few highlights on the migration front over the past week or so.
 At the end of October there were Woodcock and Sparrowhawk flying in off the sea along the East coast, and even a Dusky Warbler found. The numbers of geese have been climbing, although there has been little good weather to photograph them at dawn or dusk. The Whooper Swans have started arriving, and just a couple of days ago a Firecrest took up residence in a coastal garden (see opposite). 
Amazingly there are still Red Admirals flying around.
Will we be getting Waxwings this year?

At last our trip targeting the passage of Cranes through Hungary has been and gone. With 90,000 in the area and around 30,000 roosting at the lake where I spent a cold night there were bound to be opportunities. Alas, the weather let us down at the lake but the picture opposite was taken on the first day where Cranes came to drink in the afternoon.

Other thrills were the roost of 30 Long-eared Owls in "our" village, the bickering of the Pygmy Cormorants, the stream of Hawfinches coming to drink and bathe and the three photo sighting of Sparrowhawk and the one Goshawk. More pictures can be found on our trips page.

Only really at the coast there is much happening and even there its is fairly normal stuff. In my bluebell woodland the Jays are full on collecting and storing acorn so I assist by giving them some extra nuts along with bath and drink water. They are visiting often. I think this is because my wood is having a good year for acorn production but not all woods locally are so good.

Bird are still changing over. The winter visitors are arriving - early swans and geese already but there are also birds that are more transient. On Wednesday we saw two adult Arctic Terns inland. 

Yesterday is was the turn of the Eastern coast and Gulls where we met up with both adult and young Mediterranean Gulls. As the name suggests their natural range is further south. Had they bred locally? I don't know although one adult was ringed. Anyway, it was an opportunity to photograph them in flight - previous only on terra firma.

The coast has been exciting lately with wader numbers increasing. Both Bar and Black tailed Godwits are congregating as well as flocks of Redshank with some much rarer Spotted Redshanks joining them. 

The poor weather of late might not be good for humans but it has resulted in good number of Curlew Sandpipers adding to the variety now, with some of the youngsters being very tolerant of humans!  See picture. Warblers are also moving along the coast just now, with Willow Warblers, Whitethroats, Blackcaps and Sedge Warblers all gathering in coastal bushes.

The Barry Buddon Open Day was held last weekend. At least 70 people attended this one opportunity to fully explore this interesting MOD site.

I opted to go with the birders group. Could I get a useful photo? Well yes; the answer was to ignore bird photography for the day and concentrate on macro work. I was pleased with the picture opposite. Despite being common enough I find Small White Butterfly to be difficult to get near. Furthermore, in bright conditions the white is not easy to control so I was pleased with this result.

Not long back from Brazil; just sorting out the images, the winners from the trash. Although Giant Anteater was the principal target we couldn't not show the Jaguar. We didn't find this one but later we did find our own. More than a dozen boat jostled for position and there was some tension. We were even accused of blocking another boat's view, however they are not cars and they usually settled into a position where everyone could see and appreciate the magnificence. A fuller slideshow of Brazil pictures can be found by clicking here: http://www.wildscot.co.uk/brazil---jaguars.html 

Its high summer so its bug hunting time in the rain! Butterflies and Dragonflies are the preferred targets but anything could provide interest.
 We’ve had a few outings lately for specific species and have been largely successful in finding our quarry.
  An outing in the Borders gave us our first Scottish views of both Large and Small Skipper butterflies and Banded Demoiselle damselfly on a rare warm sunny day. Thanks Barry.
  More locally we went on a hunt for two rather uncommon insects - Northern damselflies (see left) which we found in good numbers at an upland pond and Mountain Ringlets up on higher ground that we’d quite a lot of searching to do for.
  Our most recent outing to a nearby Moss provided views of the Large Heath butterflies (with underside spots unlike the Northern ones). Large Red Damsels, Common Hawkers and 4-Spot Chasers were the supporting cast.

An Outing last week with some bug experts or entomologists produced a sighting of an unusual beast. Bet you didn't think there were Scorpions in Scotland. Well you are right but we did uncover a false scorpion or pseudoscorpion. Just the same body plan but, fortunate for us, rather tiny, perhaps2-3 millimetres long. 

They live in undergrowth, leaf litter and the like and they are predators, tacking prey larger than them selves sometimes. The first picture opposite shows it dominated by a twenty pence piece. The lower picture has greater magnification 

Something new is usually exciting as this was.