A tale of joy and heartbreak- An unforgettable encounter in Orkney

A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to visit the Orkney islands off the North coast of Scotland. A patchwork of ancient sites, standing stones, wild seas and cattle farms, of jewelled wild flower meadows and moorland in bloom, where blue butterflies and bumblebees live only in sheltered hollows, where Neolithic villages and places of worship stand testimony to the ingenuity of our ancient ancestors, Orkney is a remote, and fascinating place.

One afternoon, I drove in the sunshine to the RSPB’s Cottascarth viewpoint, on the moors not far from Finstown.  While on the road I encountered, and photographed, very badly as it turned out, a beautiful Oystercatcher chick, in the company of a parent. The chick still had some down, though its adult feathers had begun to show, and it was nearly ready to take to the skies. Oystercatchers breed in substantial numbers in Orkney’s farmland. I took the narrow, twisting track through farm buildings to the viewpoint, where, green-roofed and windowed, but still clearly crafted from abandoned croft buildings, stood the RSPB hide.  Optimistic, I waited and enjoyed the surroundings, hoping to catch a glimpse of a Hen Harrier.  The occasional call of a Curlew echoed from the hills, or an Oystercatcher alarm call rose from the farmland and the flock of linnet which alighted briefly on the roof of the hide. A few sheep grazed.  After about an hour the Harrier appeared, a male, a smart, grey bird, with black, fingered wingtips, a grey ghost over the moorland, hanging on wings with the characteristic dihedral.  Hen Harriers hunt in part by hearing, and by sight, and prey on voles, as well as young ground nesting birds.   The male made a couple of passes, his attention fully focussed on the ground below, looking for voles or any unfortunate small birds, before disappearing over the ridge into the valley behind. I waited another few minutes, hoping this magnificent bird would reappear, but he did not, and I began to make my way back to the small car park ready to head back to my camp site.

As made my way back to the car I saw the male glide over the place I had just been standing. With some disappointment at missing out on this close view, enjoyed his majestic hunting through binoculars. I headed back down to the coast roads. Driving slowly on empty roads with my eyes open for birds, I became aware of the mother Oystercatcher I had encountered earlier. She was loudly and aggressively mobbing something in the field, down beyond a low brow hidden from sight. She’d break away bto chase off a passing Hooded Crow, though these birds did not seem to go far, then returning to her target on the ground, strafing with her sonic weapon, her passes low and frequent, her calls rhythmic but high and frantic. I slowed down, wondering what could possibly have enraged her like this. Then, just 15 metres or so from my window, I saw what had happened. On top of a sad, white lump with feathers, feet extended toward the sky, stood a female Hen Harrier. Her golden yellow eyes, set in a subtle facial disc recalling an owl, glanced to me, before, unconcerned by me or the distraught mobbing of the adult Oystercatcher, returning to plucking her prize.

My heart in my mouth, I silently reached for my camera and grabbed a few photos through the passenger window.  I watched the bird, predator, as she continued to remove the downy feathers from her prey, scattering them to the wind like dandelion seeds, calmly, yet so alert, eyes scanning in all directions.  The adult did not relent from calling.

Suddenly the bird was on the move, a grey shape emerging from the bushes. A farm cat burst out from cover toward the bird of prey. With her wings spread, her imposing size was apparent. She struggled into the air with her prize, but it was a little too heavy, and she dropped it. The dead Oystercatcher chick flopped limp to the ground. She swooped in on it again, and stood on it, bearing a steely look, extending her wings to protect her prize.  But the farm cat was determined. The next spring it made, the bird was off and flying, back toward the hills, and the Oystercatcher chick was clasped firmly in the jaws of the tabby.  It sloped off, toward some farm buildings to enjoy its prize. I considered some attempt to scare the cat off, in the hope the Harrier would return, but I figured even semi-feral mammals must eat, and a cat brave enough to take on an adult Hen Harrier, talons and all, must be very hungry indeed.

My heart still in my mouth, I sat for a while,  as a band of thick, grey cloud rolled in over the sea, and the cool rain began to fall.  A double rainbow arced from the horizon. A confused and angry adult Oystercatcher stood on a fence post, yelling at the wind.

Dark Green Fritillaries in an Undiscovered Dale.

I think this blog may be developing into a celebration of seasonal natural spectacles posted just a little too late for the reader to actually go out and enjoy them. Speaking of which, on the first of July, I visited, in the company of the Bee Girl, and a dear friend and Londoner with whom I studied Environmental Science in the capital, one of the less-visited Dales of the southern Peak District, in pursuit of a rather special butterfly.  

The Dark Green Fritillary is an unfamiliar butterfly to many of us, although it is probably the commonest large fritillary in the British Isles. I first met it, when, during a heatwave not dissimilar to this one, I was studying the Northern Brown Argus at Warton Crag in Lancashire. The adults were on the wing for a few days, until, in the words of the site’s RSPB warden “they melted in the heat.” I’d only seen the odd one or two to date, mostly in Cumbria, so when a member of local Natural History group on a popular social network reported counting 40 or so on the footpath into Long Dale and Gratton Dale, just off the Via Gellia, about fifteen minutes from my home, it seemed an opportunity not to be missed. We’d been running about for the past few days, finding the Londoner her first Dipper at Lathkill Dale and connecting with Treecreepers and Stone Circles on the Eastern Moors, so an evening visit turned out the best we could manage. We went with some apprehension that the advancing hour would preclude success, but our fears were unfounded. 

We were greeted just a hundred metres or so from the layby, by a single Dark Green fritillary. Its topside was a rich burnt orange orange in the high midsummer sun, intricately marked with blacks and browns, and when it closed its wings, the underside, which gives the species its name, was a deep pastel mid-green, jewelled in silver, lustrous and metallic when caught by the sun. A beautiful insect, bigger than a Comma, it was comparable in size to a Peacock or a Red Admiral. Walking a little further down the dale, we were surrounded by dozens of these magnificent insects, bright, fresh orange individuals, and more faded specimens bleached a little by a few days in the sun.  Big, bright males maintained small territories, chasing off any rival males which dared to nectar at their Thistles or deep purple Knapweed flowers, and would eagerly drive off any passing Meadow Browns or Ringlets, which were abundant, occasionally appearing even to fly directly at human observers, before swiftly changing course to pick their battles. One even hassled a large Aeshnid dragonfly.

Dark Green Fritillaries fly from late June until late July, reaching a peak in mid July, though the anecdotal evidence of the warden at Warton Crag suggests hot weather can shorted this flight period. They are univoltine, and overwinter as a young larva, eating only their own eggshell before entering hibernation, miniscule and vulnerable, among the decaying vegetation. In spring the larvae emerge to feed on the leaves of violets. The larvae are black and as they near maturity broadly resemble those of the large nymphalini.

The Dales had more surprises still.  Butterflies on the wing included vibrant Common Blues (Polyommatus icarus), a small cluster settling down to a communal roost, and more than a few of the local, univoltine race of Brown Argus (Aricia agestis), long considered Northern Brown Argus (A. artaxerxes) distinct from strikingly similar female Common Blues by a single missing spot on the forewing at rest.  The Bee Girl found Small Heath, (Coenonympha pamphilus) a small and unassuming, and particularly fluffy looking satyrid butterfly of the grasslands, thought to be a declining species.  Plenty of Burnet Moth (Zygaena spp.) were on the wing, as were a whole host of common butterflies, we counted 12 species in all.

Brown Argus (Aricia agestis) 

Though many of the grassland and scrubland birds have finished breeding by July and largely gone to ground, there were still a few about. The bushes were alive with fledgeling Willow Warbler, and a single hen Redstart was noted, darting away, a fleeting glimpse of that tell-tale orange tail for which the bird is named.  We heard a Raven cronking but unfortunately it did not reveal itself. Swallow fledglings with short streamers wheeled overhead and a single Brown Hare paused on the rocks above to look down at us with suspicion. These dales are stunning on a summers’ day and that day, the butterflies were the stars.  We walked out of the dale at about 8pm, and still the Fritillaries were active, busy and chasing.

Dartford Warblers at Arne

Dartford Warblers

Dartford Warblers (Sylvia undata) are among the scarcest and most enigmatic passerines to grace these islands, and surely among the most charming. When vast tracts of heathland covered much of Southern England, the species was not uncommon, and it is named for Dartford Heath in North Kent, from which it has been absent for decades.  Perhaps more at home in Mediterranean Europe, it is on the edge of its range in Great Britain. With the increasing development and fragmentation of this habitat, sitting as it does in desirable Surrey and Dorset, it underwent decades of decline.  It is also said to be particularly vulnerable to predation by domestic cats, which can exclude it from small scraps of habitat saved from housing developments. An exclusive insectivore, and largely sedentary species, its greatest enemy is the British winter, persistent snow can wipe a colony out, and a cold winter in the early 1960s nearly did for the British population entirely, just a few pairs appearing after the snow finally melted.  However, amid great conservation effort and with possibly a small helping hand from climate change, the species is beginning to recover. 

Dartford Warbler at Arne.

There are a few places where these birds can reliably be found. Arne, and surrounding fragments of heath, and Chobham Common in Surrey, where I first met the species, host good numbers year round. They are vulnerable to disturbance, and responsible birders do not go tramping through the heather at any time of year. Occasionally individuals turn up on the coast in Southern England, undertaking short movements to avoid the very worst of the weather.

A view from Arne.

It was at the RSPB’s magnificent pristine heathland reserve at Arne, near Wareham in Dorset, that I had my most recent, and most magical encounter with these gorgeous little passerines. A solo expedition to one of my favourite corners of the country in the hope of catching up with Nightjar (I did, but not enough to blog about), I camped near this magnificent spot, a large tract of Dorset coastal heath on Poole Harbour overlooking Brownsea Island, managed impeccably for conservation, and took a long stroll among its heathland rides.  Arne was abuzz with dragonflies and butterflies and hoverflies, and 90 common spotted orchids grew along the bank of one small pond which must have hosted half a dozen different Odonata, including an iridescent Downy Emerald and a striking pair of Emperors including an Ovipositing female. It was becoming a good day.

Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator) ovipositing at Arne. 

 It was the song of the Dartford Warbler that first caught my attention. Imagine the song of a Whitethroat (Sylvia communis), and consider the qualities and notes which ensure the song is often described as “scratchy.”   Now distil those scratchy qualities, concentrate that Sylvia scratchiness,  andyou will begin to imagine the song of the male Dartford Warbler.  The male caught my eye first too, a small, dark coloured bird, with a longish tail, proportions somewhere between a Cetti’s Warbler and a Long Tailed Tit. He alighted briefly at the top of the heather, sang a few notes, and dropped back into the thick tangle of waist high vegetation.  He reappeared and my eyes strained to see his features in the sun glare, his dark blue-grey back and wings contrasting little with his dark pink-red underparts, and he had an air of cultivated scruffiness.  Rooting in the gorse he popped up briefly with a beak full of spiders, before dropping down to stuff his spiders into the expectant mouth of a scruffy fledgling, brown and distinctly smaller than the adult, which had emerged from the vegetation.   The fledglings and the female never left the thick heather and gorse, appearing to my eye only briefly before returning to the shelter of the thick heather canopy, but the male returned to his commanding lookout and sang, re-stating his claim to this his fragment of the coastal heath, the precious resource upon which his family depend.  Perhaps by remaining in this prominent position he also provided a distraction display focussing the attention of birders, and any would-be predators, on him, allowing the more vulnerable youngsters to slip away.

It was a magical moment with these scruffy, charismatic little survivors, and conservation icons of the lowland heath.  It was heartening to know that, with many small birds finding their breeding cycles disrupted by the late snow this spring, at least some of this most cold-sensitive warblers had successfully fledged broods. This family appeared to be doing well.