The last few days have felt more like summer than the whole of July and August put together! The sun has been shinning over Kinnordy and the wildlife has responded in appreciation of the much missed summer.
As a blog hasn't been written for a over a month, there is quite alot to catch up on. So where to start? Our marsh harrier family are still flying suavely over the reed beds - both juveniles were spotted this morning. Ospreys have been seen, still, regularly fishing over the loch - its great to initmately watch juvenile ospreys being taught how to catch fish by their parents . Swallows, swifts and martins (house and sand), although in small numbers now, are still around - there are a few swallows who still dart under gullery hide; which is where we know at least one or two nests were during breeding season. With all this activity, it does make me wonder when our summer visitors plan to leave us and migrate south?
During the summer, along with the harriers and the hirundines, our other usual summer residents were ever present - mallard groups, sometimes with numbers over 100, and mute swans, were always seen from all the hides. There was two mute swan families - one pair with 4 cygnets and one pair with 5 cygnets - as well as a group of around 18, who took a shine to hiding in some trees which were quite close to the path when they were moulting. I found this summer rather different to the summer I had last year with respect to the mallard and mute swans. Last year there were quite a few mallard broods seen clearly from the hides. Cute little mallard babies are one of my all time favourite things to see; however I found this year that I was not seeing many broods on the Loch! That's not to say mallard were not breeding this year, it's just they were more savvy with hiding their broods from me! In comparison, last year the only mute swan groups that were found on the loch were family groups; there was never a group of swans that reached double figures. But I've now realised that this years bigger group was comprised of adults and last years juveniles, who had never left Kinnordy.
Small groups of teal, wigeon, gadwall and tufted duck have been seen on the Loch at regular intervals during the summer; although I've noticed that their numbers have started to slowly increase and they seem to be around more frequently, making me think that it won't be long until autumn is upon us and more of our winter ducks will be turning up.
We now have a fully functioning "feeding frenzy" feeder area - where a few feeders, bird tables, and a well built bug-hotel are now on display. Almost seconds after the first stockpile of seed went out, the feeders were crawling with a mass of coal tits. It didn't take long for other birds to catch on, and now a range of birds from blue tits to great tits, and from chaffinch to bullfinch, cluster to the feeders. The same can also be said for our resident red squirrels; who realised very quickly when the squirrel boxes were being filled with peanuts.
I know that our 4 four-legged friends at the West end will be happy that we're finally getting some sun! The Konik ponies are still grazing happily at the west end, and I've already seen some positive effects of their grazing. Every time I go over to speak to the ponies I always flush, at least, up to 10 snipe! Theyre are almost as bad a pheasants - they only wait until the last second to fly off and scare the life out of me as I haven't realised they are there before I almost step on them! A nice big group of lapwing (over 100+) have also decided they like the nicely grazed west end and gather there - again, until I flush them when I go over the ponies with some apple or carrot treats. And it's nice to have the Highland cattle back with us - they have been off-site since the begining of July, but they have been sorely missed as the vegetation at the west end is now knee high, so I can't wait until they chomp the vegetation back down to a manageable height.
Were they Snipe or Jack Snipe? Snipe are easily flushed where as the Jack Snipe wait until you almost stand on them. I know we have had Jack Snipe in the middle part at the west end for quite a few years.