THE thrushes are back, the wintering migrant flocks from Scandinavia and elsewhere have once again invaded the Highlands.
For me they have shown up in three different ways starting with a surprise in the garden one morning.
As usual the blackbirds had gathered waiting for me to put the apples out on the fruit trees and below them on the ground.
The apples growing on the trees were early year but very few and small compared with other years. They had all been taken by the blackbirds by the third week in October.
Since then I have put a few apples out each day, nowhere near enough but expensive.
Half of the quartered apples ?I have stuck on branches and the other half on the ground.
One morning last week there was a new bird with them, a solitary fieldfare looking almost flamboyant compared with the more sober looking blackbirds.
It was feeding on the apples and I managed to get to the camera before it flew away.
In the next few days I kept on seeing small numbers of fieldfares flying through the strath and occasionally landing in trees but then quickly flying on.
The first sign of the large flocks of redwings was at dusk one night when I was putting the two geese away from ever present foxes.
Overhead in the gathering gloom, and unseen by me, the redwings were moving but their thin "tseep" calls seemed everywhere.
In most of Scotland these redwings will have come from Finland and Russia whilst in other parts, including the Highlands, they may well have come from Iceland.
The next day they were in the field below my study and I am not sure what they were doing as they seemed to progress across the field by a series of very short flights but I could see nothing they could have been feeding on.
The rowan berries are nonexistent this year and the crop of other berries such as rose hips are scarce and so the birds moved rapidly on no doubt going south or west to Ireland. Redwings are one of my favourite birds as when I lived at Inverpolly, north-west of Ullapool, many years ago, a pair nested in the birch trees above the house.
For many years I cherished that record of a pair of redwings as if it epitomised the rarer birds of the northern birchwoods. Then a few years ago I kept on hearing a bird singing around the garden I could not identify.
In the end it turned out to be a pair of redwings nesting in a line of blackthorn on the edge of field next to our house.
The number of pairs nesting in Scotland each year varies from a possible peak of 77 pairs located in 1984 but the numbers fell and by 2007 the numbers could have been as low as 44 pairs.
The pair outside our garden indicated one thing to me and that is that I just wondered how many pairs go unseen each year.
Certainly the pair I saw so close would not have been seen or heard by anyone else as far as I am aware. There must be plenty of similar places that are not recorded each year.
One of my impressive memories of redwings was from the expeditions I used to lead to south east Iceland. In that country the majority of the redwings actually nest on the ground.
This could be because there are so few trees or it could be that they have virtually no ground predators, apart from arctic foxes and they are few and far between.
The third indication of the migrants coming in was a bird that most people do not, perhaps, relate to migrants namely the blackbird.
For the whole of the year there have been a few blackbirds coming into the garden for food. Then one morning a couple of weeks ago I could see eight around and on the bird table below the upstairs window. Round by the fruit trees there were 14 at one brief look.
They were after the apples and the mixed seed and even balancing precariously on the feeder with suet balls.
Interestingly nearly all the birds had blackish beaks which is sign they are migrants as they do not get their bright yellow beaks until they return to their breeding grounds that may either be in Scandinavia or the Netherlands.
Record of the week: Bramblings
The record of the week was another bird in the garden as own the last day in October there on one of the peanut holders was a male brambling and it looked as if it had only just started to moult as its colours were really outstanding.
It was on its own to start with but then it as joined by chaffinches so perhaps they have been migrating together as many of our wintering chaffinches are from continental Europe.
Reference books suggest that the larger flocks of chaffinches in the winter in the Highlands are migrants whilst the smaller flocks are from our resident breeding birds but no actual numbers are indicated.
Bramblings are very rare as breeding birds in the Highlands and the highest count was nine pairs in 1982. Most years there are only one or two pairs.
Interestingly on one of my Iceland expeditions I was the first person to prove bramblings bred in that country.
Nothing to do with my expertise as I just happened to be in the right place at the right time - sheer luck, but memorable.
Butterfly compendium knocks spots off competitors
BRITAIN'S BUTTERFLIES by David Newland, Robert Still, David Tomlinson and Andy Swash. Pub. WILDGuides Ltd. 2010. Second edition. ISBN 978-1-903657-30-0. 225pp. M.95.
THERE is always some debate as to the best way of illustrating books on butterflies. Some people go for the artwork that has reached very high standards in the last few years.
Others favour the photographs and each have their following.
For me there are merits in both camps but if I had to choose the best book for using photographs it would be, by far, this one.
I was impressed by the first edition that arrived with great acclaim and was a best seller in 2002 but this second edition is even better, if that is possible.
In contrast to many new editions that have, more often than not, very few alterations this one is different.
It is fully revised and updated and is a photographic guide to all 59 breeding species in Britain and Ireland.
It has been redesigned and extended with hundreds of new photographs.
Photographic coverage on insects means different things in different books but this one is really comprehensive.
The main photographs of each species shows the upper sides and under sides of both the adult males and females.
The full page of the ringlet is a good example as the upper sides and under sides of the male are side by side at the top of the plate.
The useful caption reads: "Fresh males are dark, fading with age, but always with smaller 'eye' spots on the upperwing than females". This also relates to the photographs of the female.
The other photograph on the lower part of the plate has a ringlet at bramble flowers with the caption: "Bramble and thistle flowers along woodlands rides are a favoured nectar source".
On the opposite page the text covers: "Adult identification", "Behaviour", "Breeding habitat", "Population and Conservation" and then the "Egg, Caterpillar and Chrysalis".
The small but easily read map of the UK shows how up-date the book is as it has the current distribution of the ringlet in the Highlands where the species has been slowly spreading in recent years. Excellent coverage.
In the back of the book are several sections and one I found useful was the list of butterflies with the nectar sources and caterpillar food plants.
Another of these sections was a list of butterflies with their current conservation status.
Added to this invaluable reference is also photographic coverage of both the egg, caterpillar and chrysalis so, no matter what the butterfly is at you can identify it.
I particularly liked the plastic cover that is presumably waterproof as well as being easy to clean.
Hopefully the note from the publishers in the front pages do indicate that it was produced and printed in this country.
How good to see that the proceeds from the sale of the book will help the work of Butterfly Conservation which is the leading voluntary Society for butterfly conservation in the UK and beyond.
