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Backwoodsman’s recent school report for photography has read “Has worked hard but could do better” or possibly “He could have been a good photographer but he lacked focus.” Backwoodsman loves a daft joke; one of his favourites from the distant past can be enjoyed here. As the main point of the site is the sharing of nice images, the recent history of underachievement has not encouraged him to post. Perhaps it is time to start again.

Backwoodsman’s “Jewels of North Glasgow” run often takes place on Sunday mornings. It first hits the Forth and Clyde Canal at the large basin just below Speirs Wharf. Of this area, the Inland Waterways Association writes “Although the Glasgow Arm to Speirs Wharf was re-opened as part of the Millennium Link project, the basins at Port Dundas were not.  A £5,700,000 project, planned by BW (British Waterways) Scotland and Glasgow City Council, to reconnect Port Dundas with the rest of the canal was completed and formally reopened in September 2006…  However, the new lock…has not been available for public use since then, and the potential to revitalise the area originally envisaged has yet to be realised.”

It is hard to imagine what was originally envisaged in the way of revitalisation, and what justified dropping £6M on such a venture; happily, apart from the insistent throb of the motorway, the basin remains a quiet place, undisturbed by narrow boats or paddleboarders (Backwoodsman thinks them foolish).

A dozen or so Tufted Duck came to the lower basin in the autumn and have wintered there for the first time in Backwoodsman’s memory. They have neither strayed up onto the Speirs Wharf stretch, nor eastward to Pinkston Basin. Tufted Duck seem to be very selective over which parts of the canal they populate and Backwoodsman wonders if a food source drives the selectivity. Tufted Duck also turn up regularly on the Westerton to Drumchapel section of the Main Branch as it heads down to the Clyde at Bowling, but Backwoodsman has rarely seen them between Maryhill and the city centre. The RSPB book states that they eat freshwater shrimp, caddis larvae and pondweed – the latter food source is abundant throughout the entire length of the canal (alas, rendering it unfishable).

Tufted Duck also eat Zebra mussel and Backwoodsman wonders if there are local infestations of this invasive species in the canal, though this is a wild speculation. The risk posed to Scottish waters by this tiny bivalve has been posited, but there there is ambiguity as to its presence or not. Backwoodsman should probably do some citizen science and see if any Zebra mussels can be collected but you never know what you’ll haul up from the bottom of the Forth and Clyde Canal City Branch. The odd body turns up in the canal from time to time. We’ll leave the citizen science job to the magnet fishermen.

Anyway, it’s been lovely to see the Tufties throughout the winter; the group has dispersed now, possibly to better breeding sites. It would be delightful to see ducklings but the chances are that the local gulls would see them first. Other good places to see Tufties around Glasgow include Hogganfield and Frankfield Lochs, both shallow and weedy bodies of water.

The “Jewels of North Glasgow” run heads past Pinkston Basin, taking in the Pear trees and the towpath Cowslips, which are now in bloom, crosses Pinkston Road and follows the railway cutting along the edge of the North Bridge estate, heading towards Fountainwell Road and Sighthill Cemetery. Wood Anemones here, planted beneath shrubs including a Corylopsis pauciflora and then more Cowslips.

It is a fragrant route, what with McGhees Bakery and Biffa Waste Management just across the railway, and usually good for corvids and lots of Starlings. The route turns right to follow Springburn Road, where someone must have had every young offender in Scotland on their knees planting thousands of Primula denticulata. Quite right! As one of Backwoodsman’s academic colleagues in Birmingham used to say, “they can be put to work.”

Right again past the car dealership and onto the main part of the estate passing the Rusty Bridge. There appears to be an interference pattern in this image!

The BBC recently ran a feature on this splendid installation and they managed to find all four people who use the new bridge to get across the M8. One of then gushed: “”I park here for free and I just commute to university,” she said. “It’s so much easier and better than paying for parking in the centre.”” Do you indeed! Students driving to their lectures at a university located next to a major bus station and five minutes from a rail terminus and the Subway. Backwoodsman guesses that’s the active transport the council is so keen on.

There are some splendid cherry trees atop the hill by the bridge; the sakura season has been thwarted in Glasgow this year, literally nipped in the bud, so some trees in full bloom are a highlight.

From there, it’s back to Pinkston and then home, greeting the Tufties in passing.

We have other Aythya species in the UK and Backwoodsman has been pleased to find Pochard (A. ferina) on Hogganfield Loch (male then female) and Scaup (A. marila) (male then female) at Slimbridge. Backwoodsman thinks the three species make a presentable bundle. Please enjoy the vermiculated feathers of the drakes and the splendid textures of the ducks.

Backwoodsman hopes to post more regularly again from now on.

You may recognise the view beyond Kinneil Lagoons and towards the Ineos site at Grangemouth on the Firth of Forth. You may also then know that it’s a great place for waterfowl, including Shelduck. As a symbol of our reliance on hydrocarbons, the refinery could also be taken to represent our energy past; Shelduck raise some of the issues arising from one way in which we might meet the energy needs of the future.

The Grangemouth refinery is expected to close and may do so as soon as 2025; the site will instead import refined hydrocarbon products from elsewhere. A BBC article by Douglas Fraser summarises much of the discussion arising from the proposed closure.

Backwoodsman is very fond of Shelduck and was delighted to find them in large numbers on our two recent visits to Kinneil (in September 2023 and January 2024). They were already familiar birds from many visits to Cardross but there were so many birds on the Firth of Forth. Initially, we saw them in rafts heading towards the shore beneath the refinery – following the direction of travel with the camera revealed many more. A rough count in this image reveals around 250 birds in a mere segment of arc of the shore.

The image above was taken on the September visit. Our visits were timed to allow our arrival at the top of the tide; we were hoping to get into position to look out over the mud and view birds as they left the lagoon to feed.

In the view below, there are large groups of Godwits, Lapwing and Redshanks in the distance across the lagoon.

The Shelduck were among the species to oblige and it was pleasing to see them on the wing, and then foraging. The spectacular green flash from the wings is revealed in the Featherbase entry for the species. These feathers are all tucked away in the swimming or walking bird but there is no hiding the sheen of the head and neck, if the light is right.

These wild birds really do not like the camera; at the sight of it, they will stand up and walk away through the sticky mud and then keep their distance.

However, it does seem possible to domesticate them. All the larger images were taken at WWT Martin Mere and Slimbridge reserves where the birds seemed unconcerned by passers-by. It was interesting to read an unsubstantiated allegation of wing-clipping or pinioning of birds at Slimbridge; Backwoodsman has wondered why the birds seem quite so relaxed on the WWT reserves; he attributed their tolerance of visitors to generous feeding. The WWT refuted the allegation of wing-clipping, something of a relief.

Adult males have a conspicuous basal knob on the red bill; the females share the colour but not the protruberance. The second bird in this image seems smaller – Backwoodsman wonders if it is a young bird just starting into adult plumage.

The RSPB book places the breeding season between April and May and then states that “Flight feathers are moulted simultaneously and adults are flightless for 25-31 days between July and October”, adding that “Thousands gather in the Heligoland Bight off the German coast [the north Wadden Sea]. Other moulting areas have recently been discovered on some British estuaries.” BTO reports identify the Mersey estuary and Bridgewater Bay (Somerset) as additional sites with the UK, and the south Wadden Sea as a site across the North Sea. The BTO carried out its own tracking studies and reviewed the literature data to show movement of UK wintering birds to the two Wadden Sea moulting sites. Backwoodsman has taken a graphic from one of the BTO publications and added red lines connecting the Firth of Forth site to the two Wadden Sea moulting areas. Anything blue on the graphic represents current or proposed offshore wind developments. The BTO reports discuss the timing and altitude of flight of Shelduck heading to and from their moulting grounds, attempting to assess the level of hazard and risk to this species posed by offshore wind developments.

To argue for the suspension of offshore wind projects because of potential disruption of Shelduck moult migration would be to try to make a difficult case. Attitudes to offshore wind may have changed since Jenny Turner’s 2012 piece “Among the Turbines” in the LRB and capacity has grown considerably over the intervening decade though there do seem to be issues going forward. In mid-September 2023, The Guardian reported that “… no additional offshore windfarms will go ahead in the UK after the latest government auction. No bids were made in the auction, after the government ignored warnings that offshore schemes were no longer economically viable under the current system.”

Possibly in response to this disappointment, in mid-November 2023, “The government…increased the maximum price for offshore wind projects in its flagship renewables scheme to further cement the UK as a world leader in clean energy.” The auction for 2025 will see if it got its prices right.

Much of the active discussion around UK energy policy seems to deal with pricing rather than methods of generation and efficient storage and deployment. An episode of the BBC programme The Briefing Room illustrates this point. However, there was some interesting news from the Joint European Torus fusion project (based near Oxford) on 8^th February 2024, and a short item on the PM programme describing their last and record-breaking fusion burn.

In the fusion reaction, tiny amounts of Deuterium and Tritium (the heavy isotopes of hydrogen) react together in a magnetically-confined plasma (an ionised gas) to make Helium, and releasing huge amounts of energy. There is no long-lived toxic and radioactive waste, nor a weapons angle. I quote from the government press release (see the link above): “In JET’s final deuterium-tritium experiments (DTE3), high fusion power was consistently produced for 5 seconds, resulting in a ground-breaking record of 69 MJ (megajoules) using a mere 0.2 mg (milligrams) of fuel.” According to another source “That’s about as much as burning two kilograms of coal”. A further source said: “It’s an important step …  If this energy could be captured and used to power a steam turbine, then the power station output would be about 4 MW, which is not much. I would describe it as a proof of concept, but there is a lot further to go.”

Early days then; there are other projects which use related approaches ongoing elsewhere in the world but JET will now be decommissioned. A strong UK presence in the next project which seeks to take the technology forward (ITER) would seem like a good thing, but the UK seems to be doing its own thing. Backwoodsman really would prefer us to be in there driving projects like this forward, rather than see us building leaky aircraft carriers. There is science money available in current budgets – for example, there would be a bob-or-two going if we stopped doing hubristic particle physics, research into space travel and telescope missions and redeployed the people and the funds to fix clean energy going forward. Oppenheimer managed something like this, though in an entirely destructive context.

Backwoodsman is getting very strong signals that this post is already far too long. Two final disturbing thoughts; one from Laura Kuenssberg who mused “Are the politics of climate change going out of fashion?” at the weekend, and one from Dieter Helm who argues that closing the Grangemouth refinery will not help the UK meet its net zero goals.

Never was duck-fancying so complicated, alas.

Backwoodsman visited RSPB Baron’s Haugh reserve recently, hoping to find something worth taking a photograph of. The Haugh was frozen and there wasn’t much about – a glance at the Facebook page reveals that others had been more fortunate but it is probably necessary to visit the reserve every day and Backwoodsman has other dances on his card. There was a large camo bloke with a bigger camera wedged in the corner of the Marsh hide with bggr all in front of him – he would be on watch for the Water Rail which seems to be appearing regularly. The Causeway hide was empty and Backwoodsman heard Wrens calling in stereo and settled down to wait. In time, one of the Wrens appeared in a good place and was enjoyed.

Backwoodsman then stoated about to no avail – after a couple of hours, enough was enough. At Airbles station, a commuter had emptied a bag of crisps on the platform and more birds came to eat than Backwoodsman had seen in a couple of hours at the Reserve. Just once, Backwoodsman will select a good day to visit Baron’s Haugh.

Alighting at Exhibition Centre around two o’clock, a frustrated Backwoodsman headed for the Kelvin at top speed. There is always Kingfisher chat from the Baron’s Haugh ‘bookers – the visit to the reserve had been made in the vain hope that a bird would turn up in front of a hide. The Kelvin has Kingfishers too. However, if Backwoodsman is on the river with the camera, the Kingfisher is not. This situation has prevailed since 2017 (when the image below, and the one at the top of the post were taken). Subsequent attempts to find the bird have been abandoned in the face of harassment by fellow residents.

The gear was unpacked and readied on the tables by InnDeep and Backwoodsman headed off upriver at top speed, head down, hat real low and hoping to discourage passers-by from telling him about Herons/Ducks/Moorhens.

It was quiet by the Old Flint Mill; Backwoodsman usually follows the path by the river but chose the Kelvin Walkway instead, and there, 20 metres along the channel was the little blue chap sitting on the stonework. Up went the camera, and off went the bird, but it went downriver towards the Flint Mill, into a smaller and secluded search area. Backwoodsman followed with all the stealth available to a part-frozen sexagenarian and there, on a pipe over a miserable looking culvert was the bird. So, at this point, the entire allocation of luck for the next year was probably burned but the bird stayed put, and did some fishing, returning to the perch with three-spined sticklebacks and performed the whole number of sitting there saying “who’s a pretty boy, then?”, bashing the fish on the head and then tossing it into the air and into the open bill. And still, no-one in a woolly hat came by and bellowed “Have you seen the Kingfisher??”, unprecedented.

The bird then flew through the culvert and Backwoodsman followed and finally ran into a couple of numpties jabbering on about Otters. They did a bit of shouting and the bird headed upriver. Backwoodsman followed, with more shouting and arm waving from the numpties. No further contact was made with the bird that day – quelle surprise.

A word about the light – it was pure rotten. Backwoodsman doesn’t usually bother to process anything taken at ISO25600 but the de-noising software (DxO PureRaw) has achieved miracles with these images. Slowing the shutter was attempted but the bird was in dynamic motion; when it wasn’t hammering the fish against the perch, it was bobbing forward, so it was back to 1/1000^th with the shutter.

So, the end of a six year quest? Not entirely  – better light the next morning drew Backwoodsman out again. Same drill, camera ready, head down (still three reports of Herons to be fended off) and then a very slow prowl up the river from the narrows to the Belmont Bridge. Nothing yet, but the Kingfisher was half concealed under the Botanic Gardens bridge, without a gallery. Off he went upriver but not far; he seemed to like to perch on the metal rail around the big new drain outfall, so “thank you” to Scottish Water for the infrastructure.

Backwoodsman stayed quiet and very still and enjoyed  him for quite a while. Finally, the bird headed off upriver, calling, and Backwoodsman headed downriver (another 2017 image follows) and home, rather quietly, feeling humbled by his extremely good fortune.

Apart from the rather obvious fish-catching agility of these birds, the headline would seem to be the brilliant colour – no other UK bird comes close for overall brightness. Backwoodsman did a little digging and found some nice overviews (two links here) of iridescence and an open access review and journal articles. The image below is borrowed from the review and is explained rather well here.

“Structural colour, which is seen in some bird feathers, butterfly wings or insects, is not caused by pigments or dyes, but internal structure alone. The appearance of the colour, whether matt or iridescent, will depend on how the structures are arranged at the nanoscale. Ordered, or crystalline, structures result in iridescent colours, which change when viewed from different angles. Disordered, or correlated, structures result in angle-independent matt colours, which look the same from any viewing angle.”

Many structural elements in different size domains are in play to produce this extraordinary effect and current science seems to be making considerable progress in explaining their interplay. Reading slightly more closely, Backwoodsman found this:

“Kingfisher feathers reflect light in a way that scientists describe as semi-iridescent. The feathers of peacocks and birds of paradise are truly iridescent. Iridescence is produced by the ways in which layers of material are perfectly aligned and repeated periodically to achieve a shimmer effect. Semi-iridescence is produced when the layers are not quite perfectly aligned but slightly disrupted, thus causing a smaller span of iridescent colour.”

In decent light, a Kingfisher looks brilliantly blue from any angle but there are bird colours which seem to depend strongly on the angle of observation. In these posts, Backwoodsman came up against the problem with the Teal speculum, something he attributed to photographic artefact, with the colour toggling between green and blue. Perhaps this arises from an intermediate level of order somewhere between the Kingfisher and the species which display shimmery iridescence (pigeons, for example)? Please note the different angles of incidence in the two images.

A glance at the Featherbase website reveals some striking differences in levels of blueness and brilliance between the different types of feathers worn by the Kingfisher.

Backwoodsman would like to add that there is an international page for posting Kingfisher sightings; it’s quite competitive but there is some really belting stuff on it, some of it of birds in motion, captured on cameras which take a lot of frames per second.

Backwoodsman may now move on to the Kelvin Otters of popular legend. They probably have their own Insta by now and the timing of photographic missions will require some cunning. Watch this space (but please don’t hold your breath).

PS Backwoodsman likes a woodcut and found a delightful Kingfisher by Richard Allen.

A glittering morning start to 2024 saw us heading for the Forth and Clyde Canal at Speirs Wharf where some unusually relaxed Goosanders were basking in some brilliant light. Backwoodsman posted on this species a long time ago but sharing these images seems irresistible. These birds rarely tolerate the camera; perhaps they were making a special introductory offer for the new year. The background of the glassy canal surface and patches of reflected boat livery set the birds off nicely.

I even caught the drake having a drink. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of meeting Goosanders; a project for 2024 is catching Goosander chicks taking a ride on the back of a parent (there is a related project involving Great-crested Grebes).

On into the Hamiltonhill Claypits LNR and a good look at the trees behind the Scottish Canals building. There were a couple of birds busy in some catkins – what could they be? Finally, one emerged into space and showed us a brilliant red thumbprint above the bill.

The percentage call is Linnet (male); Backwoodsman would love it to be a Redpoll but fears the pleasure of that encounter may have to wait.

The walk through the Claypits was uneventful, though there was some excitement at the end. Emerging from the boardwalk just below Panmure Gate, we spotted something delicate and olive-coloured flitting through the brambles. “Goldcrest!”, we exalted. It had just about settled in front of the lens when more punters than I have ever seen on foot in North Glasgow came steaming up the ramp and off went the bird. There was a shot of sorts to be had from distance – Chiffchaff, I’d say.

That area is a territory; many of Backwoodsman’s summer runs were enlivened by a calling Chiffchaff somewhere in the Alder trees by the canal. We headed across Panmure Street into Ruchill Park and climbed up the steep way past the school, hoping to find a Treecreeper on the way up, or some thrushes on the grass at the top of the hill. None alas, but there were Redwings on the stand of Cotoneasters towards the west side of the park. They were very hard to find in the camera, but were a joyous sight nonetheless.

We retraced our steps; it was busy by now and there wasn’t much about. A Cormorant in excellent light was good value but that was it until we regained the Scottish Canals building.

There we saw three Roe deer picking their way through the trees. When running, Backwoodsman has surprised and been surprised by deer in the Claypits but it has always been a bit earlier in the day, and in poorer light, so this was a bit of a treat.

We were interrupted by a raptor doing a fly over – only a second to get a shot off. Kestrel perhaps?

A nice way to end the walk anyway, and a good start to the new year and new folders on the hard and expansion drives.

Our first real sighting of Golden Plovers came out in East Lothian in the winter. We’d taken the train to Longniddry then walked to the shore and headed east towards Aberlady, picking our way carefully around the hostile territory of Kilspindie Golf Course.

At Aberlady Point, we sat down for some tea from the Thermos and something unforgettable happened. Hundreds of birds seemed to drop as if shot from a clear sky to sit on the sand in front of us. They were of the order of a hundred metres away but we could identify them through the birdscope – Golden Plovers, they had to be. They faced us in ranks, jostling slightly. From time to time, a bird would be nudged from the end of the rank and fly around to the other side. This went on for some time until a Peregrine flew towards us fast from the west and up and away went the Plovers.

The second time was in Islay in the summer. We were heading for Machir Bay on bicycles and a small flock of birds in breeding plumage skimmed over our heads and dropped into a field. Backwoodsman pretty much fell off the bicycle and scrambled towards a nearby gate to get sight of these wonderful things but they had vanished behind a rise.

Subsequent vists to Aberlady, and to the North Ayrshire coast have provided opportunities for photographs. Our visit to Barassie Rocks at the end  of November reprised the Aberlady sighting – a clear blue sky was full of Golden Plovers which circled, and gradually worked their way closer and closer, with some attempting to land on the already busy Rocks. The better photographs of birds on the wing were had using manual focus because autofocus was pure hopeless; the trajectory of the flock was perfect for Backwoodsman to spin the camera around the monopod and stay in touch with the birds with only a small focal adjustment.

Golden Plover can be shot in Scotland between the first of September and the last day of January according to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation  website. Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal became Patron of BASC in October 2022, succeeding her father HRH Prince Philip The Duke of Edinburgh in the role. A like for like replacement then.

Backwoodsman has never actually ever seen a Golden Plover eating but then they do mostly exist on tiny fragments of gold leaf eroded from ecclesiastical and municipal statuary, it is known. They eat the odd beetle or worm when the nine carat stuff can’t be had. It is hard to see them becoming agricultural pests and requiring control in the interests of conservation from the BASC. Backwoodsman says “more Golden Plovers, fewer royals, thank you.” Backwoodsman’s republican spite has been especially piqued just the now by the recently published Truss honours list.

Getting close to the little chaps (Golden Plovers, not royals) requires good luck and patience. Backwoodsman found a small flock on the Ballast Bank at Troon some years ago. It is not obvious why they were sitting about on the rocks well after high tide but there they were, and they allowed Backwoodsman to inch his way across the shingle towards them. They hopped a wee bit but didn’t take off, and Backwoodsman filled his boots and then retreated across the beach to leave them in peace.

How do birds know what they look like? Golden Plovers always seem to pick barnacled rocks for their resting places. This photograph from Aberlady shows two species apparently selecting backgrounds against which they will blend well. Backwoodsman thinks that the distant background is Leith.

Two wader postings in rapid succession? Well, the Dunlin is known as the Plover’s page, so the Dunlin came before, announcing the arrival of these gilded creatures, which seems right and proper. Genuine national treasure.

Backwoodsman seized the opportunity presented by a rare sunny day on Tuesday December 5^th to take the train to Stepps; Frankfield Loch and Hogganfield Loch are easily accessible from this station. Cold days are good for visits to these Lochs; when they are part-frozen, close approach to waterfowl is possible and some good images have been had on previous visits.

The walking route from the station passes the Cardowan Colliery monument;  Cardowan Colliery was Lanarkshire’s last working pit, closing in 1983. Margaret Hilda must have allowed herself an extra treble when it shut. It was strange to read about the colliery and think back to the nineteen-eighties with the ink still drying on reports of Starmer’s praise for MHT’s “vision”. The section of episode four of the BBC radio series Alexei Sayle’s Imaginary Sandwich Bar starting at 08:34 came to mind.

The walk proceeded quietly. Frankfield Loch was completely frozen and bereft of birds, apart from a pair of Mute Swans and a few Black-headed Gulls waiting for better things. The surrounding woodland was silent too. Backwoodsman emerged from its shade onto Hogganfield Loch to be greeted with a dispiriting sight – ice as far as the eye could see. The perimeter path was much quieter than usual; its coating of ice had deterred many of the dog walkers and all the roller bladers (yes, really). Backwoodsman started on a clockwise lap and intercepted some Long-tailed Tits flitting and calling.

The ice began to slacken its grip nearer the coffee stand where there was a nice family group of Whooper Swans, and some pretty Black-headed Gulls, all basking in warm low-angle winter sunlight.

Backwoodsman completed the lap, and was heading back towards Cardowan Moss when he heard a call that he had been hoping to hear. There was a Fieldfare perching in full light and sounds of others from the surrounding area – Backwoodsman’s first sight of these birds this year.

The Fieldfare flew off across the Moss and Backwoodsman carried on walking, hoping to catch up with one or more birds. One walking route skirts the sports fields belonging to the University of Strathclyde and there were Fieldfares foraging on the grass. While these incomers from Fennoscandia are said to favour berries, they are thrushes and are therefore probably pretty good at finding worms and other food on the ground. The light on this patch of grass was undistinguished – oh to have found the Fieldfares in the sunlight which had graced the Loch – so the colours don’t sing. There was the added problem of the University’s rather extra fencing; Backwoodsman is standing back away from the fence, aiming the camera through a gap between bars and waiting for a Fieldfare to hop into clear space, which one of them duly did.

In the irruption year of 2017, it was Fieldfares and not Waxwings which filled the skies of North Glasgow. Certainly some Waxwings had travelled with them but Fieldfares were the main species Backwoodsman saw. All the 2017 sightings were on very dark days and the photographs do not justify reproduction.

Backwoodsman caught up with Fieldfares again at Barons Haugh in 2019 (a slightly better image), and then in January this year when a group were sitting in a tall tree outside the school in St Peter’s Street and flying to a large and well-laden Cotoneaster in Gladstone Street (it wasn’t possible to get close so there is grain).

The pose in this image is characteristic; the trailing wing tips remind Backwoodsman of a gunslinger twitching his fingers above his six-shooters.

The colours sported by Fieldfares are subtle but glorious. Backwoodsman is particularly taken with the arrow-head markings on the breast; presumably these are the feathers responsible.

Friday’s run was routed to take in the Gladstone Street tree on the outward leg; a pair of Fieldfares were squabbling over the berries. On to Pinkston Basin and two dozen Fieldfares were looking unsettled, rising from the trees and circling before landing again. On the return trip, the birds were under the Pear trees which have sheltered Backwoodsman on his Roach fishing trips. They rose from the gloom showing pale underwings as the runner passed them; presumably they had been eating what remained of the windfalls. Later on, there were a dozen Waxwings at Speirs Wharf, devouring rosehips from a briar. Backwoodsman stopped running for a while on the basis that they were worth getting cold for, and ran home feeling very fortunate indeed.

Our friends Nigel and Janet took us for a day out in Doune near Stirling. There were four items on the agenda – a trip to the castle, a pub lunch, a look at the antiques centre and a visit to Argaty Kites. I had glimpsed a brown road sign for Argaty Kites on a previous trip to Doune. I was not aware of the castle. It was used in the film Monty Python in the Holy Grail. King Arthur was taunted , most memorably, at the foot of the East wall; I mean, who can beat “Your mother was a Hamster and your father smelt of Elderberries”? The castle was also used extensively in Outlander, which I have never seen, and in Game of Thrones, which I have (several times over, every bit). For shame, I didn’t recognise the place as Winterfell, home of house Stark. It was an interesting visit; I was particularly taken with the punishment pit below a trapdoor  in the Lord’s Hall; ah, the economy of the archaic judicial system, trial to sentence to confinement in a matter of metres at the say of one powerful individual. None of those inconvenient appeals or human rights conventions, eh?

Lunch was had at the Woodside where they served a beer called Cairngorm which I could get well used to.

On to the Kites; the Bowser family have run the farm since 1916 and are deeply involved in agritourism. The farm would be a good place to spend a day because of the wide range of wildlife watching opportunities on offer besides the Red Kites. Red squirrels can be viewed from hides and Beavers have been introduced.

Despite all the wildlife, this livestock farm is a going agricultural concern according to Niall Bowser, who provided a commentary before the Kite feeding and then headed out with a bucket of deer offal to kick things off.

I’d already heard the Kites calling around the farm as we mustered outside the visitor centre for the short walk up to the hide, and seen them starting to circle. As the offal hit the turf, the kites jumped in, seeming to tumble out of the air.

They were really hard to photograph from the hide and I have to express some disappointment in the quality of what I’m posting. These are enormous birds and shouldn’t be hard to capture at really high resolution. The light was initially good, though it went off a bit while we were waiting for some chumps who’d contrived to be late.

The problem is this: I have almost no experience of tracking birds with unpredictable flight paths using a camera. Panning across a beach while a flock of waders fly along the surf line is one thing, but these agile Kites are something else. The former scenario is a two-dimensional problem which the autofocus or manual adjustment both have chances of solving. The latter involves a third dimension and I found the autofocus struggling, even when holding the back button in on the AF.C setting (this is what Pentax call it), which makes continuous adjustments to the focus, and I’m not quick enough to succeed with a manual approach. It was a chastening experience. I did better on my knees in the car park with the camera on the monopod, tracking birds across the sky in shallower arcs. I’m not sure how I would do things differently when faced with this situation again.

There were about three waves of Kites; by the time the last one ended, they had uplifted all the offal. Unsurprisingly, Mr Bowser’s bounty had attracted some Magpies and they were smart enough to keep still when the Kites swooped in. Mr Bowser told us that the quantity of food was calculated to attract multiple birds but not to sate them. The farm seems to be holding around fifteen birds which ensures a good show for visitors.

Red Kites are a glorious and extraordinary shape. Even an unaided sighting will pick up the tail against the sky, but a view through the long axis of the bird shows the mobility of this part of the flight surface (twelve rectrices in the tail) and its role as a rudder. The ten primaries which make up the very tips of the wings remind me of Vultures, which I’ve only seen once  (in Mallorca).

The view of the bird above me was surprising – I don’t think I was really expecting the white face.

This view makes me think of Eagles, but while these Kites soar and glide beautifully, they are no killing machines. Despite their size (wingspans approaching two metres), their diet is made up of carrion and small prey – earthworms, voles, small birds, lizards and snakes in foreign. We are told that Red Kites lack the talon strength to puncture larger prey to subdue it, and then lift it from the ground and carry it away. While Mr Bowser commented that tales of Red Kites carrying away lambs were apocryphal, he speculated that a Red Kite might chance its arm with a Pomeranian; I’d pay money to see that. I found a paper in Nature which looked at the relationship between talon morphology and diet for a set of 21 raptors.

In the principal component analysis plots, the single Kite species in the study (Milvus migrans, the Black Kite) lay closest to the Vultures, which make up the “couldn’t kill a Tunnocks teacake” contingent.  A two-metre wingspan and you’re picking on earthworms and voles, for shame.

My first sighting of a Red Kite was from a train some years ago when I was travelling from Birmingham to give a research talk somewhere out west. It turns out that some of the householders of Greater Reading have taken to feeding Red Kites in their gardens and have affected the local population (positively, bravo). As they will also be feeding rats and foxes, one imagines that there has been a corresponding rise in suburban strife.

For those of you wishing to enjoy a wider range of better quality images, I can recommend those in a magnificent tome (close to 400 pages)  entitled “The Red Kite. Biology and Conservation” by Arroyo et al. which also has much to say about the biology of the species (studied in Spain).

The Red Kites were a thrilling site and we are grateful to Nigel and Janet for taking us to see them.

It has been quite a week. First, the most corrosive Home Secretary for a while (we must not forget the Prittster though) was ejected from the Cabinet. Scarcely had her trail of scorching bile been scrubbed from the Downing Street cobbles when the Supreme Court threw out the Rwanda wheeze. The celebrity deathmatch between the PM and the former HS continues as this post goes up. Backwoodsman hasn’t laughed so much in ages.

No-one sane can be exactly cheered by the sight of the bedraggled disembarkations from small boats on the Kentish coast but the migrants Backwoodsman encountered very recently were a joyous sight. A walk to Screwfix in Possil (it’s a glamorous life being retired) was interrupted by a clamour of wings above the big junction between the St Georges and Garscube Roads. Redwings perhaps, or Fieldfares? But no – Waxwings (the Bohemian variety)! Comin’ over ‘ere, eatin’ our berries!! Hundreds of them and very restless indeed. A veritable hurricane (pace Suella). They didn’t seem to mind people too much but they did not like traffic noise or movement one bit. When the lights changed releasing the flow along the Garscube Road, up went the Waxwings to circle, and then settle briefly in the Rowan trees by Cedar Court. Ironically, there were twitchers present who admitted to driving around Glasgow all morning chasing the birds, led by a couple of Twitter/X feeds.

Backwoodsman, who was without camera, headed to the Saracen Point shops alternately marvelling at the sight of the birds, and cursing at the lack of kit. However, he was persuaded out after lunch, with the camera, to try to find them. Astonishingly, they were still in the same area, perched in some tall trees and making feeding raids across the junction.

Backwoodsman followed. There was no-one around to upset so Backwoodsman deployed to an advanced sniper position behind an ideally-located and large traffic signal control box and the shooting began while the Waxwings gorged on Rowan berries and squabbled.

Is that the tail folded under the bird in the image above? It is an unexpected posture.

The advice under circumstances when the bird is sillhoueted against a pale sky, is to overexpose by a stop or two to bleach out the background. Data loss is a consequence so it is likely that the DxO PureRAW software is helping out considerably with these images, which still have their limitations.

Eventually, the Waxwings decided to move on, took to the wing, circled for a long time and then headed towards Maryhill. I like the way the yellow tail fringe echoes the colour on the tower block.

As usual, the BTO is a source of good stuff: “Waxwings come to the UK in search of berries when crops run low closer to their breeding grounds in Fennoscandia and western Russia…[they] can turn up at anytime during the winter and in varying numbers. This behaviour is known as ‘irruptive’ as, if berries remain plentiful in northern Europe very few Waxwings, if any, will move. The Waxwing’s favoured berry is that of the Rowan and during ‘Waxwing winters’, they can gather in large flocks at just a few Rowan trees. Waxwings can turn up anywhere in the UK, but are less commonly reported in western regions than further east.” All our local and known Rowan trees have been stripped of their berries but there are quite a few Cotoneasters bearing a rich crop. Perhaps they will be left for the Redwings and Fieldfares when they come to spend the winter with us?

There is an excellent image on the Featherbase site which shows that the bright red pink colours arise from spurs projecting from the ends of quite large feathers, rather than just being pigmented regions of normal feathers (like the patches of yellow colouration). The spurs can be seen in some of the images in this post, with two to four spurs per wing seeming common.

There is a modest amount of writing about these spurs. For example: “Both cedar and Bohemian waxwings derive their common names from the red, waxy tips of some of their secondary feathers. The colour of this wax is due to the presence of the pigment astaxanthin. Ornithologists used to theorise that these red tips protected the feathers from wear and tear, but this has not been borne out in studies. What has been established is that the red appendages increase in both number and size with a bird’s age. Immature birds usually have between zero and six waxy tips. Older birds have more than nine. The number of tips appears to function as a signal of age and status in mate selection; individuals within these two age categories choose each other as mates. Pairs of older birds (with high numbers of red tips) tend to nest earlier and have larger clutches than younger birds.” The relevant citation for this research may be here.

There is a particularly informative image of the relevant part of the Bohemian waxwing plumage here, with some useful writing about the related Cedar Waxwings from the US.

As an organic chemist by training, Backwoodsman was interested to look up the structure of astaxanthin and find that it is fairly widespread, and makes it way into Flamingos via their intake of algae. It is used as a food colouring for farmed salmon (as additive E161j).

However, there is a bit more to it. A 1963 Science paper tells us that: “The pigment on the secondary feathers of the cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) is deposited as an amorphous layer upon a supporting medullary structure. The pigment was extracted with alkali and analysed by chromatographic and spectrophotometric methods. The results indicate that the pigment is astacene (3,3′,4,4′-tetraketo- β-carotene), the oxidation product of astaxanthin.” The medullary structure refers to a spongy medium within the long hollow shaft of the feathers. Backwoodsman believes that this text is saying that the colour is showing through the keratin cortex of a spur protruding from the secondary feathers, and is not arising from a coating of pigment-containing wax on an outer surface. The oxidation reported by this team but unnoticed by the two authors writing about Cedar Waxwings would tend to make the pigment molecule a little redder (by extending the chromophore with two extra ketonic carbonyl groups), less water soluble and probably a bit more stable than astaxanthin.

Backwoodsman returned to the photographic site twice two days later; there was some glorious autumn light in the morning and the combination of the light and the Waxwings would have produced some real knock-your-socks-off images, but it was not to be. None were present for the first visit but by the second visit, though some Waxwings had come, the light had gone. The birds (maybe two dozen this time) raided a small Rowan very briefly and then rose up and headed for Maryhill. Backwoodsman considers himself extremely privileged indeed to have been granted so much time with these birds on Wednesday November 15^th.

PS The return trip took in Ruchill Park; two dozen Redwings were present, the first proper sighting of the season. They had found a stand of Cotoneasters with an abundance of berries, and were busy feeding.

The “Life or Death Struggle” sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus summarises rather accurately (from about 1:49) Backwoodman’s negative feelings about many of the nature programmes on the telly. All that resource spent capturing marvellous footage and hiring species experts and what are we treated to? A litany of species X slaughtering species Y is what; most of the Attenborough extravaganzas generally tell the viewer disappointingly little about the marvellous adaptations on display. If Ewan McGregor is involved in the programme, it’s even worse; the body count rises rapidly to levels realised only on one of Begbie’s rampages in Trainspotting. We  deserve better! More detail, less uninformative violence, please.

Some Monty Python now seems ridiculously dated but if you can fight your way through the opening, the sketch offers more, with a succinct summary at 2:26 of Backwoodsman’s recent falling out with a large American corporation (the one which shares a name with that of an unburnt brick dried in the sun). This large concern was keen to tell Backwoodsman that his copy of Lightroom, purchased in 2017 from a reputable high street retailer was in fact bootleg software, and that the corporation was about to disable it (it wasn’t and they didn’t, but they seem to think they have). This prompted a search for alternative processing software, which turned up the DxO PhotoLab and DxO PureRAW applications available on a generous 31 day free trial.

Backwoodsman has enjoyed using this software and has now bought licenses for both applications. The PureRAW application improves the RAW files which come off the camera using AI technology, a phrase which has many potential meanings. The application seems to be able to deduce what should be in the grainy RAW file from its sampling of billions of images via neural networks and is, I think, colouring in erroneous or noisy sections of image space with fresh pixels. Image files grow to about three times their original size in consequence. Processing then takes place in the PhotoLab application, which seems quite familiar to a Lightroom user. For a photographer trying to capture bird images, and required to use quite fast shutter speeds, the two-and-a-half stops on offer from PureRAW are very useful compensation for the high ISO or sensitivity settings which go with the rapid exposures and indifferent lighting. In On Photography, Susan Sontag wrote: “The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.” Rather than encroaching on the boundary between the two forms of representation, PureRAW’s AI-driven Pointillism would seem to knock the fence down and plough up the ground.

Our visit to Kinneil in early September gave us a good look at some old friends and provided an opportunity to try out the DxO products. While Black-tailed Godwits have already been the subject of a post, we were fortunate to see the birds move from the lagoon where they were resting, to the mud to feed as the tide started to ebb. I used an image of the large resting group to count approximately four hundred birds. As the tide started to ebb, birds started to lift (some Knot went first) and turn towards the sea. They flew right towards us. We were standing in deep shade cast by some Alders and the Godwits landed close by on some fresh mud and started to feed.

I was surprised to hear how vocal they were.

After quite a few minutes, they moved off in a tight flock, settling in anticipation of the tide’s further retreat. I’ve never had images of Godwits in flight before – the black and whites are very dramatic.

Two days after Storm Agnes thrashed the west, I travelled to Troon to see what birds the strong winds had blown to the coast. There was little there alas, apart from some more old friends. A small flock of Turnstones was foraging on the rocks and weed just above South Beach in spectacular light which brought out their colours and textures of the rocky substrate beautifully.

Turnstones formed the subject of one of the early posts but I didn’t have images of this crispness or vibrance, so despite the repetition, I’m sharing them here. After a while, the Turnstones heard something that disturbed them or sensed a change in the wind and took to the wing.

I was also pleased to find Starlings, not only foraging near the Turnstones, but also bathing in a quiet sunny place above the North Beach. Repetition again but I love the brightness and the movement of the birds.

And Monty Python’s finest moment? Well, this takes some beating, not least for the post-goal protests.

Backwoodsman will be back in two weeks with a new species. Until then, he hopes you enjoy these old friends.