Blue-winged Teal

22nd March 2019

Monday 18^th March, 2019, was my birthday and we had decided to go out for the day with my good lady choosing Aultbea, a two hour excursion, but when you live remotely on the west coast, everywhere is a fair drive.In Mellon Charles there is a shallow reedy pool/lochan which had looked promising on a previous visit, so I decided to check it out. There is an access road and parking area nearby, providing an open view of the fringes of the lochan. As always, I was driving quietly with an eye on the water and saw the drake Blue-winged Teal with the naked eye before I had even stopped the car. It was one of these eureka moments and I suspect several unrepeatable expletives were uttered, before I manoeuvred the vehicle into a position where I could see the bird clearly with binoculars. Drake Blue-winged Teal, with their white crescent shaped markings on either side of a dark head and bill are almost unmistakeable, even moreso at distances of 30/40 metres. There was little need to consult a guidebook or take detailed notes. I have become an opportunist photographer for moments like this, and was amazed to find that in the ensuing 45 minutes I rattled off nearly 500 images. Because the car was used as a hide, the bird behaved quite naturally, dabbling and surface feeding, at one stage down to 15 metres before swimming to the far side of the lochan. There were other wildfowl on the loch including a female Shoveler, quite rare in the north west Highlands. Blue-winged Teal is a rare vagrant from North America and this is only the third record for the Highland area. A very happy birthday indeed.

THE BOOK

"A glorious little gem"

AMAZON

"A book such as this has to look backwards and the author does so succinctly, looking at the work of several of the pioneering naturalists before picking out the publications of JA Harvie-Brown and the Rev. Hugh Macpherson. I know this book fills a real gap in the information available for the Isle of Skye and it will surely sell well at local bookshops."

Andrew Currie Miscellany West Highland Free Press

"A total of 238 species have been recorded, with 14 of those 'red listed' as of high conservation concern ... another innovation has been the inclusion of Gaelic names for some birds. While this is not uncommon in a few other books, the addition of some regional Gaelic names is very unusual and very welcome."

Ray Collier Country Diary 'Up in the Skye' The Guardian

"Illustrated with beautiful photographs of current birdlife on the island, the publication also features sketches by Jean Thomas of The Little Gallery, Portnalong, stimulating the reader's interest further and allowing them to identify species they encounter on Skye."

The Hebridean