The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Home birds
While on a trip to St Cyrus, near Montrose, Keith comes across some creatures taking up residence in an unusual way...
It is interesting how some creatures rely on others to give them a helping hand – for example, an old woodpecker hole will provide a future nesting site for blue and great tits, and some owls will use redundant crows’ nests for rearing their own young. Such thoughts breezed through my mind last week as I watched a small group of shelducks resting in among the sand dunes at St Cyrus nature reserve, near Montrose.
The shelducks were in an open grassy area that was pock-marked with rabbit burrows. Indeed, as I swept my binoculars from side to side, I could see several rabbits grazing peacefully.
Shelducks like to nest in holes and hollows but are not much good at digging so will often take up residence in rabbit burrows. It makes good sense – after all, why go to the effort of digging when someone else can do the work for you?
Shelducks are chunky birds and it must be a tight squeeze for the mother duck down in the burrow, although I imagine she will do some remedial work to ensure the tunnel is fit for purpose.
Do the rabbits benefit from having lodgers in their burrow systems? Possibly so, because the ducks will provide a good early-warning alarm system for an approaching fox or other predator.
In fact, I suspect a shelduck could easily see off a stoat should one approach too close.
There was a real spring feel at St Cyrus, with skylarks floating high in the air on trembling wings and spilling forth their wonderful trilling song.
Skylarks are real endurance masters and can easily hang in the air for three or four minutes at a go, singing all the time with no pause whatsoever.
Out at sea a couple of sandwich terns were moving up the coast, perhaps heading to the Ythan estuary north of Aberdeen where there is a large nesting colony.
As I walked towards the estuary of the North Esk, I was struck by the abundance of empty razor shells along the strandline of the beach.
It looked like the Beast from the East and previous winter storms had taken their toll on these elongated shellfish. Razor shells live buried on sandy shores, most usually close to the low tide mark, and the sheer power of the surge must have scoured them out.
The sweet meat inside a razor shell apparently tastes delicious and they are much sought after.
In Orkney razor shells are called ‘spoots’ and low spring tides, when the shells can be dug up for food, are known as ‘spoot tides’.
They are formidable burrowers, with the shape of the shell acting a bit like a spade, enabling them to dig down under the sand with all the speed and dexterity of a mole.
It is hard to imagine a mollusc being able to move so fast; but not, it would seem, quickly enough to escape the fury of winter storms.