READERS sometimes ask me what is my favourite bird but there is no short answer to this as it depends on what's meant by "favourite".
For example, my favourite garden bird is probably the siskin and as I write I can see a dozen or more only a few feet away on two feeders. There again my favourite seabird has to be the gannet but I have been spoilt by this magnificent bird as I have been fortunate in seeing the great colonies on remote islands such as St. Kilda and Sula Sgeir. As for my favourite water bird there are choices but it is, perhaps, the moorhen which has always fascinated me for some unknown reason.
So a mixture of rare and common birds, but as to my top favourite it must be one of the rarest birds in Europe. It is the white form of the gyr falcon that is often called the Greenland gyr falcon.
This bird is a just about an annual vagrant, mainly the brown form, to the Highlands from both Iceland and Greenland, although I have never seen them in this country. I have seen the brown form in Iceland where they were chasing seabirds - a memorable sight indeed.
In contrast, readers occasionally ask me what is my favourite butterfly but again this varies.
If it was my favourite because of how emotive the butterfly is to me it has to be one of the more insignificant butterflies - the chequered skipper. My experience of these skippers goes back to the early 1960s in England where it was once locally common. Now it is only found in Britain around Fort William and I used to spend a great deal of time studying them there.
If my favourite is for its colours the one I find the most attractive, I think, has to be one of the fritillaries.
It is a group that varies in size from the small pearl bordered fritillary to the largest in the Highlands the dark green fritillary. There are four species of fritillaries in the Highlands with the dark green fritillary being the most widespread. This is a large butterfly by any standards with males and females having wing spans of over 55 mm.
For me the most striking aspect is the 21 silver spots on the underside of each hind wing. I have seen them at Inverpolly in the north-west and Ariundle down in the south west and last year we were fortunate in having one actually in the garden.
If you asked me what my favourite butterfly is this year I could almost say any species as this year so far has been a great disappointment with a lack of almost any butterflies in many areas.
As I write it is very warm and sunny and there are many nectar sources out in the garden including a well flowered Buddleia but still not a single butterfly. Yesterday had some compensation as along a loch side I did at least see two male common blue butterflies.
As far as colour is concerned many of the so-called "aristocrat" family, such as peacock and painted lady, are superb but for me the male common blue is outstanding. One of my reference books calls the colour on the males' upper wings as being brilliant lilac and whilst I would perhaps just say a blue colour it is quite stunning. The caterpillars feed on common bird's foot trefoil.
A wild surprise in the darkness!
THE record for last week was in some ways an eye opener as it was in the roof space of our house.
I had gone up there to set some Longworth Traps as we thought we heard mice which can cause problems. I use these traps as they are "live" traps in that I can release the mice elsewhere, mainly in woodland with no houses around.
I am not keen on the loft space as I am frightened of the dark but as I was leaving the traps I did scan the torch around. We knew there were bats there some years ago and they were brown long-eared bats. A few years ago one was in a bedroom and we released it outside on a wall and it just went when darkness fell. However, we had not heard or seen a sight of the bats for some years and thought they had gone.
However, to my surprise and pleasure the torch showed otherwise as there were two bats flying around in the loft, perhaps because it was late evening, and at least three small clusters hanging from the rafters.
I beat a hasty retreat and made plans. I would go back up the next day and have a good look and take some photographs so that I could write about them in this column. Then I suddenly thought there is something wrong and I seem to recall that even in my own loft space I could not just go and disturb the bats even to identify them let alone take any photographs.
A telephone call to the local rep of the Inverness Bat Group confirmed this.
Katie Martin was most helpful but yes I did need a licence to identify them actually in the loft space and to take photographs. I would also need to be trained for both these activities.
However, she was prepared to come along and look at the colony to identify them.
Watch this space in great anticipation.
