The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
The sounds and sights of spring
Never mind the first day of spring, recent blue skies and sunny weather had me wondering if we’d skipped straight to the first days of summer. It was good to leave my jacket behind and feel the heat of the sun on my face when I took Inka for his afternoon walk.
On Monday we went round by the lochan at the foot of Glenesk. I wasn’t expecting to see greylag geese but I heard them and called Inka to heel.
A pack of five were grazing beside the loch. I couldn’t hope to creep up on such wary birds unnoticed and they took to the water and joined another pair.
Greylag normally pair for life and the pair in the picture are displaying classic courtship behaviour of parallel swimming with the male behind with his neck fluffed out. Another recognised mating ritual involves both birds swimming in parallel, their bodies low in the water but heads, wings and tails raised.
The loch’s wildfowl population increases temporarily in spring, but I’ve never seen it so busy. I slipped into my favourite seat at the foot of the elderly beech tree in the corner of the wood where I can watch the activity on the whole loch, although most of it happens on the far shore.
For as long as I’ve walked there oystercatchers have gathered in spring before pairing up to nest and this year there seem to be twice as many.
They are such busy birds, always on the move, chattering with their sharp calls. For no apparent reason small packs take flight to unknown destinations, returning shortly with shrill cries of pleasure at being reunited with the ones that stayed behind.
Behind their lochside roost the grass field rises gently to the edge of a wood. Mallard duck had come off the water and were dozing in the sun. For an hour I sat watching the dabchicks and crested duck – the drakes’ tufted crest on the back of their heads lifting in the breeze – diving to feed and popping up again like corks.
I picked out drake wigeon paddling about the rushes. A croaky kurruk call from the rushes in front of my hide gave away the moorhen that was waiting for me to go away and let it get on with its life.
A single redshank flew in to join the oystercatchers on the shoreline. They are normally sociable birds but at this time they disperse to pair up and nest.
I then heard the fluid trill of curlews – whaups being the old Scottish name my father used for them. Their bubbling song is associated with spring and it is encouraging to hear them because there is concern about the species’ future.
Many years ago, walking with my son Robert in Glenesk we disturbed a curlew off her nest in deep heather. The three olive eggs, heavily spotted with dark brown, seemed improbably large for such a slim bird to lay. As indeed they are, but they have to accommodate a chick with the long, wading legs it needs for the coastal estuaries and wetlands where it feeds.
For 20 minutes I watched a red kite surveying its world from the topmost branches, its rusty brown plumage glowing in the sun and its distinctive forked tail clearly visible. They were faced with near extinction not long ago but have made a comeback and are once more a feature of The Mearns landscape.