Lovin’ Scotland

Don’t you just love Scotland and its birds? Carl Chapman is out of office.

A Long Tail

One of the delights of Northern Scotland in the Winter months are the wildfowl at sea. Long tailed Ducks are just the biz!

LTD’s

This year has been a great year for Long tailed Ducks off Norfolk. This small group were just a splinter from a larger flock off Titchwell last week.

A bit of a tale

A Long tailed Duck has been seemingly resident on the Cley reserve at Salthouse for quite some weeks now. It was joined, when I saw it last week, by another. They weren’t close. We waited some time for them to swim a little nearer … but they never did. LTD’s are one of the hardest ducks to photograph here in Norfolk. The harbours of Scotland are the best bet for a few splendid Oldsquaw males!

A muddy tale of a tailess bird

Lying in the mud meant I had to turn up for lunch at Cley reserve centre looking less than my debonair self. I wish.

Carrying my camera along the muddy path aside the Glaven channel meant an uncomfortable three quarters of a mile walk slipping and sliding and generally struggling to keep an upright posture. Having talked to a photographer who was returning, walking the opposite way, I was told the Long tailed Duck was viewable but only at some 500m. Despite the disappointment of only being able to photograph the bird at such a distance I decided to go ahead and at least get a record shot of the bird. Long tailed Ducks are not rare especially further north in the UK but to get close to one within Norfolk doesn’t happen often.

It didn’t take long to find the bird sitting in the middle of the channel. I decided to walk past it and find an area where the channel was closer to the path where I could sit quietly and let the bird come my way. If it didn’t I’d lost nothing and still had my record shot. I found what looked like a good place to sit and waited. A group of Teal came by so I hid; lying flat on the ground. If I spooked the Teal the Long tailed Duck would never come close. ‘Long tailed Duck’ by the way in this instance is a complete misnomer as no long tail was evident – she was female and therefore lacked the Oldsquaw feathering of the male. As the duck dived and fed she came closer and closer and eventually sailed by. No doubt in complete ignorance there was someone admiring her nearby getting exceptionally muddy.