Frank's Diary

A Great Black Backed Gull screamed as it soared past overhead. I could not be sure if it spotted the young amphibian bit i felt bad that i may have inadvertently led this formidible hunter to its prey, that was now looking more exposed than when i first discovered it. i waited, waited, waited, until the predator banked to turn, and confident that it was no longer able to see me, i plucked the Toad from the rock and placed it on the ground in the middle of the thick vegitetion.

An extract from my article that will be published in this weeks “Hebridean” newspaper

A good number of finches at the feeders in the garden at Tigh an Uillt this morning even if the weather was wet and miserable.
Along with the Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Goldfinches and Redpolls was a solitary Bramblefinch . While the Greenies and Chaffinches seemed happier perched on the feeders, the Bramblefinch was more content picking up the seed from the ground that these other birds scattered. Meanwhile the redpolls preferred to eat seed form some of the seeding weeds that remain, particularly dock.
At around 11 am a female Sparrowhawk patrolling her territory glided past in a typical manner, barely two foot off the ground, wings not flapping but held out stiffly to the sides.
This caused a bit of a panic among the smaller birds, forcing them to flee for cover into the thick trees and shrubs that border the garden.
As they flew for their lives the Goldfinches and Greenies resembled small yellow darts , the Chaffinches flashed their white wing bars while the single Bramblefinch showed off its equally snowy white rump.
A male Blackbird who had raised the alarm, joined the retreating flock in the bushes, while the hunter drifted by silently, fully aware that her moment of surprise was gone.

Golden Eagle and Mountain Hare

A cruel wind blowing straight from the snow-covered peaks of the Harris Hills froze my left cheek as I plodded through a large bog at the foot of Cronc Mor Soval.
I was about half way up the south slope of this small yet prominent hill when Seonaidh, my exuberant Spaniel, suddenly shot from my side. With his nose only close to the ground he hurtled downhill until finally, after a moment of erratic circling, he plunged into an unusually large patch of thick heather. At the exact moment my over enthusiastic mutt entered the dense vegetation, a Mountain Hare exploded from the opposite side. It glanced at me briefly before sprinting effortlessly uphill, leaving an ill equipped dog trailing far behind. unknown to me but not I suspect the Hare, another pair of eyes watched this drama enfold. As the lagomorph disappeared over the brow of the hill, a large dark figure loomed ominously on an adjacent summit. Focusing my field glasses I was confronted with the sight of a Golden Eagle, a raptor equipped with its own inbuilt binocular vision, staring back at me, or more likely I thought, in the direction of the fleeing Hare.

The begining of this weeks article.

A bird so rare that one was hounded to death by bird watchers when it landed in the U.K. a week ago has appeared in a Western Isles garden
A young rose-coloured starling has taken up residence in a back garden in Stornoway
Like another that landed in Norfolk, the starling, originally from Central Asia was blown miles off course on its emigration route towards Romania.
Western Isles naturalist and photographer Frank Stark could not believe his luck when he was told the bird was in a friend’s back garden.

The beginning of an article about the Stornoway rose-coloured starling published with one of my photographs in todays Press and Journal.

I had just returned home after a long strenuous hike and was about to replace a million or so spent calories when my conscientious partner thrust a large piece of paper in front of me.
On it were a list of peoples names, telephone numbers and brief notes of why they had tried to contact me. One message in particular immediately caught my attention.The persons name was familiar but it was the three words scribbled underneath Rose Coloured Starling- that really made me sit up.

A photograph of this bird and an account of what happened when i found it is published in this weeks “Hebridean”.

Just had lunch and the Sparrowhawk is still around. i assume it is the same bird and she seems to have set up camp in a thick hedge growing at the edge of my garden. She gave away her presence today when she appeared from her hidden perch and grabbed a Red Admiral Butterfly i had been watching. i hope to get some more photographs today sometime?

While preparing last nights meal, I happened to glance out the window, and there gazing back, only three yards in front of me, was a young female Sparrowhawk. She was perched on a branch close to a large bird feeder that is visited daily by a large flock of House Sparrows. Fortunately, I keep my camera on the kitchen worktop and I was quite surprised at her relaxed manner as I photographed her.
She seemed to be looking for something on the ground, I didn’t know what at the time. After a few minutes she swooped from her perch towards a small Blackcurrent bush where three of my chickens were sitting, causing one nervous individual to shoot almost vertically into the air. I know female Sparrowhawks are capable of killing birds as large as pheasants but I thought this was a bit ambitious this youngster.
She didn’t make contact with any of the chickens though, and eventually flew of, perched on my neighbours roof, glanced back for a second, took to the air once more and then disappeared into the distance.
it was a full ten minutes later before I discovered what she was really after.
As I watched the chickens settle down under the same small Blackcurrent bush, a solitary House Sparrow, realising that the coast was clear, shot out from his temporary refuge and joined the rest of the flock.

The object of writing this diary is to inform anyone visiting my website of the various wildlife subjects that i encounter throughout the year. Many can be found in or around the haven i have created where i live, Tigh an Uillt (house by the stream). I will mention Tigh an Uillt regularly, and i thought it would be a good idea to let you all know what this is now,rather than explaining every time it is mentioned.

Another Gaelic word you will encounter on a regular basis is Seonaidh, roughly pronounced Shawney. This is the name of my dog, a two year old Springer Spaniel who accompanies me on all my walks, whether it is a short stroll around the local lochs, or a longer treck to some of the remotest parts of these islands.