2015 Scottish Odyssey (1) Mammals

We had a wonderful 'summer' holiday in Scotland. The weather was particularly mixed this year; but despite the cool temperatures, we had not expected to find spring primroses and bluebells and quite so much snow around in mid-June. It might even have been good weather for penguins!

Sign on the lovely Scottish island of Gigha

Snow around Kintail

Heading north through Glencoe

Insects were rather thin on the ground this time, but we saw quite a few birds (like the Arctic Terns in the photo below) and an interesting selection of animals.

Dunvegan, Skye      © David Gill 2015

I shall begin with my 2015 mammal list:

• Bottlenose Dolphin (from the ferry to Lochranza on Arran)
• Common/Harbour Seal (largely at Dunvegan on Skye)
• Grey Squirrel (Culzean)
• Hare (particularly at Kilmartin and on the way to the Mull of Kintyre)
• Otter (Skye and Argyll)
• Pine Marten (sadly no photograph, but a first for us)
• Rabbit (Skye)
• Red Deer (several locations)
• Red Squirrel (just one ... adjacent to Loch Awe)
• Roe Deer (several locations)
• Shrew (a nest, Attadale) 

Sadly we failed to see any of the Knapdale Beavers (the weather was particularly deluge-like that day), but we enjoyed looking. Their watery realm was straight out of a fairytale!

Beavers may have eluded us in 2015, but (despite a week on Mull last year), we had our best Otter sightings ever ...

First view: was it an Otter?

Definitely!

 

Last view before it disappeared into the water ...

Bluebells (and Primroses) on Midsummer's Day

Mustelidae (2): Baby Beavers in Britain

I'm sorry I don't have a photo of a real beaver!

Crinan Canal

Baby beavers - known as kits - have once again been born in the wild in Scotland. You can read about them on the Scottish Beaver Trial blog. This is really exciting news. Not surprisingly, the staff on the trial programme are hoping that members of the public will show sensitivity and respect for the beavers' current situation by avoiding the shoreline of the loch.

Many of us here in the UK only 'know' the beaver from wildlife parks or from The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis, as the species died out in this part of Scotland nearly half a millennium ago. Beavers were reintroduced as part of a recent conservation programme. The chosen area was Knapdale Forest near Lochilphead in Argyll - and the beavers who have given birth were rehabilitated here in 2009.

James Carron has written an excellent account here of his beaver spotting adventures in Knapdale Forest, not far from the Crinan Canal.

I have never seen beavers in the wild, but I remember walking in the area around Shapwick Heath on the Somerset Levels, where wild beavers roamed many moons ago. I wonder how many of you - like me - recall camp fire revels with the Brownies or Cubs. We always found ourselves singing Land of the silver birch, home of the beaver, a ballad which appeared in Folk Songs of Canada (1954) by Edith Fulton Fowke (Literary Editor) and Richard Johnston (Music Editor).

Only yesterday I blogged about the 'austerity' plans afoot to sell off national nature reserves. Success stories like this one of the beaver surely highlight the need to proceed with extreme caution ...