Attack of the Killer Bonxies

The last time I was on Mull, a weekend trip with Mrs L a deux, which if you are so inclined - and bored - you can read about here, we went for a walk on a nice headland. I took the scope with us, for I fancied that we might be able to see the sea, and generally the sea has seabirds on it. I felt certain I could get Mrs L to confidently see a Bonxie. It might be a dot in the scope, but it would be dark with white wing-flashes. I could brandish the Collins at her, and she could feel the happiness that only a tick could bring. In the event a Great Skua flew right over our heads as we walked along, which at the time felt quite unusual but I thought nothing further of it.

So when contemplating where to take Muffin for a boy's birding adventure, I idly wondered if a land-based Skua might not have been a breeding Skua. OK, so this is three years after the event but nothing ventured and all that. I vaguely remembered where this particular place was, so that's where we set off for. We dumped the car near a farmhouse, and set off for what looked like the headland I remembered, and bugger me if when we got to near the end there weren't a pair of Bonxies sat there. Whilst Muffin and I were extremely pleased to have stumbled upon them - exactly as per Mrs L's experience, what a great way to see a bird for the first time - the same could not be said of the Bonxies' feelings towards us. As we came over the brow, the male took off and circled around us, and as I tried to get the sun behind us, came straight for us before settling again. I nabbed a few photos, and we retreated to a safer distance.

Back in 2009, we must have been somewhere slightly different, as we only saw a bird in flight, and didn't get warned off. Consequently, although the views were superb, they were very brief. This time we got scope views that were nothing less than sensational. Up close, Bonxies are magnificent. Their beaks are pure evil, and rather than the usual impression of "dark", they proved to be very gingery and patterned. Great noises too, nasal grunts and cackles, decidedly wicked I thought. We watched for a while, during which time the Skuas did very little, and then went back the way we had come, at which point the male got up and attacked us again, despite the fact we were leaving. I very nearly regurgitated a litte piece of fish from the previous night's dinner, but the charge was half-hearted and so I am here and able to recount the tale and show you the photos - the bird sat down is the female, presumably on eggs, whereas the standing and in-flight ones are the male. I had no chance to see if the bird three years ago was ringed, but I expect it's the same pair, and that they breed on Mull every year. A brilliant experience.

Puffinathon

Lunga is magnificent, a Puffin-lover's dream. Puffins are cool. Even the name is cool. The cruise company, Turus Mara, advertise it as Puffin therapy. I can see what they mean. The girls wanted to take one home with them. They couldn't believe that you could just sit, and have a Puffin walk around in front of you. An amazing family experience, I am so glad we went and that the weather was calm. And the minute you get on the island there are Puffins. More Puffins than you can count. And they are close Puffins. Lunga is a photographer's dream. 

Between us, Muffin and I had three cameras, and took 1500 photos. This is going to be an unashamedly nerdy post. I am going to talk about focal lengths, apertures, and everything. The ideal lens to have on Lunga would be a 300mm f2.8. I didn't have one, so resorted to the 500mm, which was complete overkill. My salvation was my 'family walk' 70-200 f2.8 zoom which I plonked on the other body - can you tell which took which?! And can you tell which camera took which? One has 16mp, the other 10. I can't, makes me wonder why I upgraded. Anyhow....Muffin used a 300mm f4 - I wish I had nabbed it off him, but it wouldn't have been fair really (except that I paid for it.....). Bright sunlight makes taking photos of black and white birds a real pain. How do you not blow whites, but keep detail in the black? The human eye is so much more sophisticated than a camera. The advantage was that the intense light raised shutter speeds to levels I can normally only dream of. 1/4000th was a common one. I know what you're thinking - Gah!

I was so thrilled to be seeing birds silly close that I started taking pictures straight away. I should have waited, and it only dawned on my whilst leaving the island that the best thing to have done would have been to find some birds in the shade. Next time. Nonetheless, my absolute favourite photo was taken in full sun, and works for me, so perhaps it isn't so bad after all. An overcast day would have been brilliant though, but that's life, and the family enjoyed the sunshine and calm seas. Here are few that I like, and that I hope inspire you to take a similar cruise one day, especially if you've got kids.

Black Guillemots in Oban Harbour

We came up via Glasgow and alongside the shores of Loch Lomond, a great drive. At certain points in the road it becomes single file, controlled by lights. At one of these points I commented that the habitat looked excellent for Wood Warbler, and wound down the windows just in case. A Wood Warbler sang virtually immediately, and then the light turned green and off we went. I love it when that kind of thing happens. I would have loved to have stopped and had a wander, but in the interests of not missing our ferry to Mull we pressed on, and arrived in Oban with a couple of hours to spare. Muffin has been getting the birding bug recently, and Black Guillemot would be new for him – I know of no better place than Oban Harbour.

We left the car at the ferry terminal and wandered along the harbour wall. Up by the church is the best spot, and sure enough at least six Black Guillewigs (as our youngest had called them in the car) were really close in. All five of us admired them, charmed by their squeaks, thrilled by their red gapes and matching feet.  Pudding was particularly charmed, which boded well for our planned Puffin trip once on Mull. I set to work with the camera; it would have been rude not to. Here's a small collection. Puffins tomorrow.

Doing nothing on Mull

My usual style of holiday blog post tends to be day by day. Were I to do this for my recent family holiday to Mull, each day you would get to read about how I sat on a bench consuming liquid calories and admiring a wonderful view. It was a magnificent view, but reading about it for six days on the trot might make this blog even duller than usual, so I propose a slight change. For starters though, here is the view. Horrible isn’t it.

Although not much happened, the odd boat, the odd Gannet, the odd Eagle or Hen Harrier, I found myself transfixed, and this largely accounted for a holiday spent not doing a lot.  This was perfect, just what the doctor ordered. Birding holidays are knackering, and after Norway and Bulgaria in relatively quick succession, I needed a break. This was a proper holiday, with a proper lack of ambition. I am brilliant at doing nothing, and spent the week proving it.

Beyond sitting around doing zip, there were three things I wanted to do

1)      Hear Black Guillemots squeaking in Oban Harbour

2)      Take the family to see Puffins

3)      Go to Iona for Corncrakes

So let’s deal with the sitting around doing nothing part. I had booked a cottage on the basis of a single photo and some vague knowledge of where it was, and the setting turned out to be perfect for a lazy family holiday.  It was on the northern shore of Loch Tuath, with a view over to the isle of Ulva, and out west towards the Treshnish Isles and Tiree. If I wandered down to the shore and looked left I could see Ben More, the highest peak on the island, and if I looked right, out towards the open sea. From the cottage itself, the panorama was sensational. I wasted hours.

There were sheep in the “garden”, and across the road (fifteen cars a day? twenty?) a field with iris beds and a stream sloped gently down the shoreline. For the children this was extremely liberating, and we were perfectly happy for them to cross over and explore, and with the added security of two-way radio contact (which was generally used for bird reports rather than to advise of near drownings) we sometimes didn’t see them from one drink to the next. I had bins obviously, and caught glimpses of them now and again, but we could never do this in London. This is a real shame, as it would be wonderful to just kick them out onto the Flats after school and have them come in for dinner, tired, scuffed and muddy, when they were ready. This is of course how children used to grow up, and even though I am very very young compared to most birders, I remember being allowed out to play for hours and hours. Partly the difference is that I lived in a cul-de-sac in Cambridge, rather than in London, but mostly it’s a sign of the times. The greatest fear is of abduction, but there were probably just as many freaks and weirdos out there when I was a child as there are today, but now each and every case of a child disappearing makes the headlines, and as a result parents are far more reticent to let children out of their sight, and I’m not going to be the one to buck the trend. So few children are allowed out and about by themselves these days that the pool of potential targets, for want of a better phrase, is much reduced; ergo any children that are allowed out are at higher risk than would have been the case when there were loads of children running around all over the place   – that at least is my logical conclusion. Still, far more dangerous is the increased traffic, especially where I live, and the tendency – not precisely where I live, but certainly in surrounding areas - for mindless violence, even amongst children. This I think is different to when I was growing up, even if Cambridge was relatively genteel.

 

Today kids carry knives. In my day people punched each other, kicked each other. I got punched on the way home from school once. Yep, in middle class Cambridge. I remember it well, and so I hope does Daniel whatever-his-name-was – it was unpleasant, but survivable.  If you get stabbed, the outcome is more uncertain....   It sounds unlikely still, and so I ask myself, who would stab an eight year-old? And then I read in the paper about ten-year olds carrying knives. And I also read in the paper about material acquisition being the dominating factor in most children’s lives – playstations, x-boxes, mp3 players, mobile phones, tablets and so on. And with life getting tougher, the ability to acquire these essential and kudos-enhancing items in a legal and earnest manner also gets tougher. I got mugged; the kids - for that’s what they were, likely no more than sixteen - wanted my phone. I gave it to them, but they hit me anyway. It confirmed what I already knew, more than a few kids don’t look up to their elders any more. Although my children don’t (and won’t) carry phones etc, that fact alone is so unlikely that they would likely be hit anyway, or worse.

I had not meant this to turn into a moan about a society in decline and the rapid degradation of moral fibre. But now that I’m back, it means my children are once again confined to the garden after school. Show me any responsible London parents who operate differently. It’s very sad, but that’s just the way it is. Kids, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry – the world is not the rosy and carefree place that you believe it to be, and I will shield you from the reality of it for as long as I can.  But when it comes to telling it like it is, I won’t hold back. Anyhow, the metropolis of Ballygown on Mull suffers from none of these problems (or none that have hit the national press!) and I was delighted that the kids could finally have the freedom to roam that is denied them at home. On Iona we met a local family whilst our children played together on the beach. They confirmed that their children basically had the run of the island. It’s small and everyone knows everyone; dangers of the sea aside, it’s a safe place. Whilst their children were having what seemed like a fantastic childhood involving sandy beaches and no constraints, was it too isolated perhaps? There was no secondary school, so once they reach that age they have to board in Oban during the week, and that sounded miserable. Maybe you enjoy it while you can, and move at that point?

So the kids did what kids should be doing. Crabs were discovered in rockpools; a dead one became a prized possession for a while. Shells were collected, and hills and trees were climbed. Injuries were remarkably few and minor - some grazes, a couple of bruises, nettle stings and midge bites. We took it all in our stride, and enjoyed what the bay had to offer. Wheatears and Rock Pipits bred on the rocky shoreline, Common Sandpipers bobbed. Swallows were nesting in the barn next door, but remained unseen as it was locked. Far better were the House Martins on the side of the cottage constructing a new nest, or perhaps repairing an earlier structure. We watched them fly into the field, collecting mud at the stream, and come back to add it on. I tried waiting by the stream, but they simply chose another. Most days we saw a ringtail Hen Harrier quartering the iris beds, and Buzzards (Gah! Somebody shoot them!) were usually overhead. The piping of Oystercatchers was a constant feature in the landscape below the house, whilst the chimes of Willow Warblers were ever-present above. With glorious weather every day, the place was the closest I have come to idyllic in a long while. It took thirteen hours door to door, but once you’re there you forget about that bit, especially when you see a White-tailed Eagle on the crossing, and come face to face with Black Guillemots squeaking at you in Oban Harbour.

Hello from Mull

I am on Mull*, and it is lovely. In contrast to festive London, it has been shirt sleeves up here, and I have seen eagles. It gets better though, as from our cottage I can see breeding Wheatears. Yes, from the window I can see the fledglings. There are also breeding Swallows and House Martins. These are actually on the cottage. I had no idea about any of this when I booked it. The booking decision was a) it was still available, and b) it didn't have a telly. These two facts are likely related, but if you had told me there were breeding Wheatears I would have paid at least double. Mull property tycoons take note.

It was an extremely long drive, but it was worth every one of the 538 miles between here and Wanstead. I was woken up this morning by some urgent shouting: "Hen Harrier!!!" "Female Hen Harrier!!!" Mrs L, a noted bird enthusiast, lay fast asleep next to me, so who could it be? Hah! It was of course Muffin, and naturally** he was spot on. I staggered out of bed, and could see nothing. Then he called it again, and sure enough, banking over the irises no more than fifty yards away was a spanking ringtail.

We're up to fifty species now, at the end of our first day. Tomorrow we're off to Lunga, a seabird colony to the west. There are Puffins, and I might take my camera.

* no point burgling me, I have all the good shit with me

** he has a great teacher