This week we finally hit May and looking back over April its safe to say that it has been our best month so far, in both daily counts and new species recorded. This was all due to the spring migration, which whilst this did see a few species leave us, has otherwise been a huge influx of birds coming to our climate in order to breed. This is something we expect to continue throughout May, so be on the lookout for birds in breeding plumage, local nesters, and maybe even some young birds.
Many species have very distinctive breeding plumages, such as the Red-throated Diver, where it gains its namesake colour. Whilst some do breed in Scotland, they are up at Arran, and more of them over in Iceland. There are a few on Loch Ryan right now at least, and they are certainly magnificent to look at if you can find them. They aren't the only diver about, we are still seeing some Great-northern Divers, up to 4 on one day!
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| A Gannet takes the plunge |
Whilst not divers by name, there are a lot of species of seabird which stoop into aerial dives and plunge into the water to fish. Largest of these are the Gannets, which breed locally on Ailsa Craig. Whilst they hunt all over the North Atlantic Ocean, we still see them daily over the Loch, with up 50 birds recorded in one day. Alongside them, we also get lots of the smaller terns. Sandwich Terns have been around for a while now and are the most numerous, having 107 seen on the Scar this week alone. Common Terns are about in ones and twos, and this week we finally had our first Arctic Tern of the spring! These birds have bred locally in the past, but normally we see them stopping over the Loch on their migration north.
The last seabird I want to mention is the Cormorant. Most days these can be seen either out on the loch fishing or sitting on the Scar sunning themselves. Whilst many of these are local birds we had a visitor from distant shores this week. The subspecies P. c. sinesis is native to western Europe and eastern Asia, however, given the widespread nature of the Great Cormorant (our local species), it is not uncommon to see these sub-races crop up from time to time.
If subspecies didn't make identifying birds hard enough, how about when two different species inter-breed? The resulting offspring are called hybrids and are seen in lots of species, including ducks and geese. Our local hybrids are from the corvid family, between Carrion and Hooded Crows. Often amongst regular Carrion Crows, we saw two of these such hybrids this week. Jackdaws and Rooks are common sightings around the Wig, and we rounded the week out with some Ravens as well.
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| Loch Connell as seen from the road |
Whilst a lot of our records come from around the Wig, another good local spot is Loch Connell. Located up the hill behind Kirkcolm, it is a small loch in the middle of some farmland. Whilst not much to look at, it does have some unique species that we don't really see elsewhere. In the winter the surrounding fields are host to hundreds of geese, most of which have since left us, yet at least three Greylag Geese still remain. Out on the water and there are many species of duck. This week Teal were out, alongside a family of Mallards with three little ducklings! Gulls are pretty much a staple species anywhere locally, but alongside large flocks of Herring Gulls, Loch Connell featured our only Lesser Black-backed Gull of the week. Birds aren't the only animals to see, as alongside Roe Deer in the fields we also had an Otter in the Loch as well. These are relatively easy to spot, you just have to be willing to get up early enough in the morning!
With all this animal activity, May certainly has got off to a strong start. Many of the migrant species have already settled in and have become staple records each week. Hopefully, this trend continues, and I'm sure we will see plenty of new species in the coming month!
[All photographs were taken by and belong to Stephen Grover, please ask for permission if you wish to use them.]
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