The jubilee celebrations are upon us, up at Tollie we have done our best to get into the spirit of the occasion. We of course have our Red kites, and now we have a pair of Blue tits in the nest box, we just need something white. There has been reports of a White-tailed Eagle in the area so it would be nice if that put in an appearance over the weekend of celebrations, then if we could arrange for them all to hang about until the Olympics are over.
Blue tit about to enter the nest box on the side of the visitor centre at Tollie.Rumours of a nest in the vicinity of the visitor centre have been around for a couple of weeks now, I can confirm that they are true and we think that our regular visitor to Tollie is the male bird of the pair, he is the one with the blue and pink tags with the black triangle, I will hopefully get this confirmed as soon as I can. I think it is about time this kite had a name as blue/pink with black triangle is a bit of a mouthful. So far three names have been put forward, Tollie, for obvious reasons, Tristan, the ‘tri’ being a reference to his triangle symbol and Ruaridh which means Red King. Please let me know what you think.
The soon to be named (I hope), Blue/Pink with Black Trinagle. Thanks to Ronald for this and the Blue tit photo.Apart from kites and blue tits, lots of other things are being seen around Tollie. The Osprey is putting a regular appearance overhead, Chiffchaff and Willow warblers are regularly calling from near by. I was up there the other day and heard my first Whitethroat of the year with its scratchy protesting call coming out of the gorse bushes by the track, you can hear what they sound like here. Reports of Pine marten have been received and we have been finding chewed cones in the woods so we may have squirrels in the area too.
Who chewed these? Thanks to Liz for finding the cones and the photo.I noticed on the sightings board that Phoenix and Dodo had been spotted at Tollie, I think we would need some photographic evidence before either of these can be added to the list. Should anybody get any photos of either of these two please do not tell anybody and contact me directly as I think there may be a couple of quid to be made with these photos.
That's terrible news! You said that the woodpeckers might get them when people weren't around. Poor little things, I hope the last one survives.
Disaster struck the nest box today when it was broken in to and the nest wrecked by a woodpecker . One chick survived the attack but it has been forced from the nest, the parents found it on the ground and are feeding it. I estimate it was a day or so from fledging so with a bit of luck the adult birds will see it through the night. It's in the long grass in front of the nest box, so if you visit Tollie over the next couple of days and notice the adult birds in the area please give them a bit of space and for the next couple of days please keep off the grass.
Another great blog Brad, thanks for all your information. I've had a quick look online about pine cones which have been eaten by red squirrels - they are apparently less ragged looking than the above cone remains and resemble smoothed off apple cores. I'm not convinced with the evidence, although I have seen red squirrels close to Tollie. Once we get a squirrel feeder up there we should see one if they are there!!
I prefer Tristan, as Ruaridh is difficult to spell and Tollie is a little too obvious.