Barn Owl Tourists

Yesterday I confirmed the continuing presence of the Uig Wood Barn Owl, soon followed by a text from the Skye bird recorder asking if I'd mind showing it to him and his visiting friend. We agreed to meet at the cemetery car park this morning. Today was beautiful, clear blue skies and no wind although it was pretty damn chilly. Bob and Andy duly arrived a little after 11am and the owl behaved very well, allowing obscured but close views. Bob was chuffed, that's the main thing. In return, he piled me into his van and we all drove up to Kilmuir where he soon found the remnant wintering flock of Greenland White-fronted Geese grazing about half a mile out across croft land. One youngster was good to see, in recent years this flock has dwindled from 40 individuals down to the current seven and low breeding success appears to be the main reason for the decline. This is the first time I've seen Greenland White-fronts on Skye (these birds are the only ones that winter here) and is the 127th species of bird I've seen here during the 25 months that I've lived here. It'd be a lot more if I had a car! Bob is on a quite ridiculous 209 species for Skye, but he's been here a good while longer and is retired. Plus he has a car.

Bob dropped me back down in Uig and I immediately hit the Rubble Pile in search of beetles for my Challenge 2019. Here's a piccie of the pile, it may look rubbish but it's heaving with invert life

I reckon I've turned all of these at some time whilst in search of goodies

If anybody reading this has a burning desire to see Slug Mite then this is the spot. Lots of Tandonia budapestensis beneath these stones and they're positively crawling with 'em!

Anyway, the pile didn't let me down

This red and black beast is Othius punctulatus, one of the staphylinid (rove) beetles

This big carabid is the snail-eating Cychrus caraboides - it puffs and squeaks when handled!

Leaving the Rubble Pile behind I bumped into a noisy gaggle of folks blocking the path. Usually I hate it when this happens, but today it was Judy with her dog, Martin and Joy Lumb who I know well and Neil Roberts of Skye Nature Group fame with his wife Debbie who I'd not met before. Martin looked a tad dismayed that I'd taken others to see the Barn Owl after our failed attempt a couple of weeks back, I'll take him up there for another look soon though, I'd hate for him to miss out again.

So we all stood there blocking the path until I mentioned the Cychrus caraboides to Neil. His mouth fell open, his eyes glazed over, his hands started to tremble and he appeared to enter some sort of a trance. "I haven't seen one of those thingmies for thirty years..." he mumbled to nobody in particular. "Oh. Well it's just over there, I can show you if you like?" was my response. Needless to say it didn't take too much to persuade him to join me back by the Rubble Pile! Two minutes later and he was on his hands and knees, papping away with his camera and asking why they prey on snails but not slugs. It's a good question, I can only assume it's because a slug might crawl away or that there's just too much body area to tackle at once, whereas a snail retreats into its shell, thus sealing it's fate. I just don't know! 

I had a quick look out into the bay, 10 Wigeon, a dozen Mergs and a raft of about 30 Eider would have all been yearticks had I been yearlisting. But I'm not - 2019 is all about beetles, flies and bugs. Slow going so far (5 beetles, 1 fly, no bugs...) but it is the middle of winter, after all. 

Heading back to the hotel I noticed a small patch of Red Dead-nettles in flower. It's a good plant up here on Skye, to have one flowering at this time of year is especially delightful

That's my two days off done now, back to work tomorrow. Ripping out carpets with the boss and checking for beetles the central heating pipes beneath the floorboards, by all accounts. I'll let you know what we find.

Song time again, hmmm...ah!

Don't forget to check out my brand new Challenge 2019 blog at https://skyeinverts.blogspot.com/