The Ayrshire Coast (Stranraer to Girvan)

The view out to Ailsa Craig.

After exploring around Rockcliffe, we drove out west to the Ayrshire coast. The road from Stranraer to Girvan follows the shore very closely, and has plenty of large parking places which make it really easy to stop and have a look around. I've found this stretch of coastline to be pretty good for seabirds in the past, and it didn't disappoint this time around either!

We stopped at Carleton Bay, close to Lendalfoot.

The bit we stopped in this time was close to Lendalfoot at Carleton Bay - if you follow the signs for the Russian naval memorial you'll find it. Being relatively close to Ailsa Craig, it's also usually a good area to look for gannets, and this time was no exception.

This is a composite image (obviously. No-one gets this lucky!), of a gannet diving just off the beach. It took longer to make than I'd like to admit!

Of course, early summer is also the time when eider ducks breed, and usually hatch their chicks in late May - early June. This is a lot earlier than most of the other seabirds will be hatching their chicks, so if you go to any of the big seabird colonies like the Isle of May or the Farne Islands, they can be easy to miss if you're not on the ball. Anyway, eider ducklings have been on my photography wishlist for a while now, and I was pretty pleased to find that there were quite a few groups of them around this patch of coastline, and pretty delighted to spot the little ducklings in amongst the adults!

Eider ducks fighting about something while a bunch of seals look on in the background. 

So delighted that I didn't actually notice there were a group of common seals basking just offshore until I looked at the photos later on my computer!

An eider duck family settling in for a nap. The duckling is just visible underneath its mum (the brown one).

Eventually, one pair of eiders came into the shore with a chick and settled down in a rather photogenic fashion for a snooze, and I finally got my first decent photo of an entire eider duck family!

An oystercatcher exploring the shore.

Of course, that's not all there was to shoot. A group of shags were making good use of an exposed line of rocks to rest on for the evening, and a rather bold oystercatcher was happy to pose for a few photos before wandering off again!

30 shags sitting on a rock...

Rockcliffe to Sandyhills coastal walk (Solway Coast)

The rocky shores at Rockcliffe (low tide).

I went for a bit of an explore around the Solway and Ayrshire Coasts a couple of weeks ago to find some new places to make longer visits to in the future. So, with the dog and my mum in tow, we headed south and started our wanderings at the descriptively-named town of Rockcliffe (which is indeed both rocky and cliffy). From here, there's a coastal walk along a very nice rocky shore and out along the sea-cliffs to the sandy bay at Sandyhills (where there is sand and hills!). The walk itself is about 4.5 miles in each direction, and there is an infrequent bus service that will take you from Sandyhills back to Rockcliffe if you'd prefer not to retrace your steps.

The towns of Rockcliffe and Sandyhills are connected by a lovely coastal walk along the sea cliffs.

There's an easy path that meanders just above the top of the shore if you prefer not to scramble around on the rocks.

The shore around Rockcliffe is volcanic and rocky, with loads of wild plants and a small stretch of woodland running along the at the top of the shore and decent rockpools over the shore itself. Beyond the rocky shore, the coast extends out onto a large mudflat. We didn't see too much in the way of seabirds over the flats, although there were a few of the usual oystercatchers and gulls foraging on the edge of the water as the tide came back in. One of the problems I find with sunny days in the summer though is that most animals get up at the crack of dawn, feed early and then chill out for the rest of the day, so it may just have been bad timing on our part!

Looking up the coast from Castle Point. The path follows the cliffs east to a big sandy bay at Sandyhills.

The path takes you through the edge of the town, past a smuggler's grave and up to Castle Point, which is where the main cliff walk begins.

The view to Sandyhills. This was as close as we got on this occasion!

I was hoping there might be a few seabirds nesting on the cliffs, but there weren't really any to be found the day we visited. A couple of gulls flew past us but there certainly wasn't too much to see in terms of seabirds when we were there!

Looking down over the seacliffs

Saying that, the views along the coast were stunning and the shores around Rockcliffe are beautiful for exploring. We unfortunately weren't able to follow the path all the way to Sandyhills on this particular trip because the dog got too excited about life and cut his foot rather badly on the beach. Not that he noticed or cared particularly (and he's completely fine now!), but we did have to curtail our wanderings and pop him back in the car!

A hooded crow on the shore.

Our happy, oblivious dog.

After Rockcliffe, it was time to head west to Stranraer and the Ayrshire coast, which I'll tell you all about in the next update! [Spoilers: I found a LOT more wildlife to photograph!]

I made a map!

One of the things I've been wanting to do for a while is to make a map that shows all the coastal reserves or dive sites I've been to so you can see exactly where they all are if you're planning your own visit.

Well, I finally got round to figuring out how to create and embed a google map into my blog this weekend and you can see the current version in all its glory on this page:

http://wildoceanphotography.blogspot.co.uk/p/map.html

It is a work in progress, and I've got a lot more to add to it over the coming weeks, but hopefully it's a useful start! If you have any issues using the map please let me know in the comments.

Seaton Cliffs

A couple of weeks ago, I headed up to the red sandstone coastline of the Scottish Wildlife Trust's Seaton Cliffs wildlife reserve. The reserve sits on the east coast of Scotland, just at the town of Arbroath. That's not a million miles away from the big seabird colonies at the Isle of May, Bass Rock and the Farne Islands and I was keen to see if there were any seabirds nesting along the cliffs since it would certainly be an easier (and cheaper) spot to get to than the islands of a weekend!

Wildflowers on the Seaton Cliffs with Arbroath in the distance.

Seaton Cliffs Wildlife Reserve. Link to Google Maps.

Almost as soon as we arrived at the reserve I realised that I'd left the battery for my DSLR in the charger at home which was... less than ideal! This led to the subsequent realisation that there is nowhere obvious in Arbroath to buy a battery for a Canon 7D. Fortunately, I had my trusty Canon G12 tucked away in my rucksack as well though, which turned out to be absolutely fine for the wildflowers and lovely scenery.

The red sandstone Seaton Cliffs.

A couple of snoozing gulls was the only bird life we saw on the cliffs for the first half an hour or so. We did walk VERY slowly though! 

Sauntering along the path from the car park in Arbroath, we were treated to lovely views of the cliffs and views over the North Sea, but not much in the way of birds. There were plenty of wildflowers though and lots of little white butterflies in amongst them which were lovely (but too skittish for my compact camera), as well as skylarks in the fields on the other side of the path.

A sandstone arch carved out by the sea.

My old dog certainly enjoyed the walk!

The cliffs themselves have been weathered into all kinds of shapes and structures, and it looked like an outdoor-adventure group were setting up ropes along some areas, presumably for a spot of cliff-walking or something similar. The walk was also clearly popular with dog-owners, so if you're looking for a more solitary experience, this might not be the place for you! Then again, it was also a beautifully sunny day when I visited which might have boosted the numbers a bit.

Kittiwakes and gulls nesting on Seaton cliffs. A couple of guillemots and shags were also present on the rocks by the shore, but may just have been passing through.

A northern fulmar (Fulmaris glacialis) on the cliffs.

Eventually, we did find a small bay which had quite a few kittiwakes, gulls and fulmars nesting on them, as well as a couple of guillemots and shags further down by the water. It wasn't a huge number of birds, but the cliffs were obviously protected enough from predators and the elements that it was good enough for some at least! If you're just looking for a few birds, this was a nice wee spot to see them, but it was nothing like as crowded with animals as the big island colonies, and there were definitely no puffins.

Cormorants, eider ducks and oystercatchers were happy to hang out in the bay next to the car park.

By the time we got back to the car, the tide had come in and there were a few more birds hanging out on the rocks just opposite the car park including a few cormorants, eider ducks and oystercatchers which was pretty cool. Later in the season it might be worth swinging by to have a look out for eider ducklings!

My Best Friend's Wedding

This weekend I got the chance to do something a little different (for me anyway), and swap my wildlife subjects for wedding guests! Michelle (who's been my best friend for a very long time!) got married to her husband Steven in Mauritius last year, which is a rather lovely venue for a wedding, but one that not many of us were able to get to. Since I was deeply mired in the horrors of thesis writing at that point, I was one of the people who couldn't make it along.

Not everyone was quite so engrossed in the ceremony! (Photo by Kevin Boyle).

Waiting to cut the (rather delicious) cake

The bride's speech

Fortunately part two of the wedding celebrations was planned for last weekend at Dalduff Farm in Ayrshire which was much closer to home! Since I knew that they weren't planning to have a photographer at this celebration, I offered to bring my kit with me on the understanding that this was my first shot at photographing an actual wedding and there were no guarantees of success!

Michelle and Steven, the lovely bride and groom!

And the lovely bridesmaids!

Happily, we got a stunningly beautiful day for it all, and the photos turned out pretty well I think. It was also a lot easier and a lot more fun than I was expecting it to be, but I guess it helps when you know half the room!

Every wedding should end with a ceilidh. Always.

So there we go - my first wedding as a photographer (sort-of)! Congratulations again to Michelle and Steven, and I promise I'll be back to the wildlife updates and wellies with the next blog! 

Multicoloured Harbour Crabs

When I was teaching at Millport a couple of weeks ago, one of the exercises we did involved conducting a short trawl in the Clyde so the students could see the technique and then get some experience in identifying and analysing the species present. What was interesting about these catches though is that one of them contained a rather unusual harbour crab (Liocarcinus depurator).

Trawling for animals in the Clyde Sea Area, from the Millport Marine Biological Station, Cumbrae.
Click for a larger image.

Harbour crabs are very common around the coasts of the UK, and are usually a fairly light orange-brown colour with purple patches on their swimmerets, a bit like this one:

A harbour crab (Liocarcinus depurator) showing the "normal" colour pattern.
Click for a larger image.

Unusually, the one we trawled up two weeks ago had a much darker body and completely white legs: 

An unusually-coloured harbour crab, caught by trawl in the Clyde Sea Area, just opposite the Millport Marine Biological Station, Cumbrae. I unfortunately lost my photos of the specimen, but Martina has kindly allowed me to use hers instead!

We keyed this guy out, and it appears to be Liocarcinus depurator, but a different colour morph. The REALLY cool thing though, is that this isn't the first time I've seen a crab like this. In 2010, a similarly-coloured crab was trawled up from the Clyde and brought to Glasgow University. I happened to have my camera with me, so was asked to photograph the specimen because it was cool and unusual, but I don't think we ever really followed it up. Anyway, the images were still sitting in my archives, and it turns out that they are rather similar (AND showed off its pink belly!): 

A similarly-strange harbour crab (Liocarcinus depurator) caught in the Clyde Sea Area in 2010.
Click for a larger image. 

I've had a bit of a look online for any reports of different colour-morphs in the Harbour Crab, but I haven't been able to find any previous reports of albinism or partial albinism in this species. A quick search pulls up plenty of examples of temperate crustaceans that have well-known colour variants, such as the red and green colour morphs of the common Shore Crab (Carcinus maenas), the Pacific shore crab (Hemigrapsus oregonensis), juveniles of the red rock crab (Cancer productus) and American (Homarus americanus) and Atlantic lobsters (Homarus gammarus) to name just a few.

Colouration patterns in crustaceans are driven largely by genetics (though environmental drivers can also be important in changing the brightness or colouration over shorter time-scales). It may be then, that the unusual harbour crabs we have caught from the Clyde have some mutation that gives rise to the different patterns. It would be interesting to know whether there are more crabs like this elsewhere in the UK, and what causes the change (unfortunately there's only so much you can tell from a photograph!). So, if you ever spot a harbour crab looking a bit like these ones, please let me know!

Foggy day in Tentsmuir National Nature Reserve

I'm not going to lie, yesterday's trip to the Tentsmuir National Nature Reserve (NNR) wasn't exactly the most successful photographic outing I've ever been on! On what was otherwise a beautifully hot and sunny Easter Monday for the vast majority of the UK, it would appear that the North Sea had other ideas...

The forest edge shrouded in fog was cool and slightly eerie!
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By the time I got to the Firth of Tay, it was clear that the North Sea was producing one of its characteristic haars. But, it was fairly light cloud and so I figured it would burn off soon enough as the sun got stronger through the afternoon. The NNR isn't very well signposted from the road so it did take a while to find the place, but I eventually arrived at Tentsmuir Forest (there's a £2 car park fee if you're planning on visiting).

British beach holidays are traditionally a slightly grim affair.
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The fog was far thicker by the coast, and gave the forest edge a cool, "Game of Thrones" type atmosphere. I still thought it would probably dissipate pretty quickly though, so I set off, following another intrepid British family who were obviously not going to let some inconvenient weather ruin their bank holiday at the beach.

A pool near the edge of Tayport Heath NNR. I'm sure the North Sea was behind it somewhere...
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I headed north into the haar and walked up the sandy coast for about 3 miles.

Still foggy! It was pretty cool though.
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The fog didn't burn off.

Ringed plovers scooted by a couple of times while they were foraging at the top of the shore.
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I THINK that this might be a skylark. Can anyone confirm the ID for me?

As you might expect, I didn't see too much in the way of wildlife! A couple of ringed plovers dashed by as they foraged along the strandline, and there were small birds darting around the dunes that I think might have been skylarks. If anyone can confirm the ID from the photo above, it would be much appreciated!

The weather was lovely 200 m from the shore!

After I gave up on the coast, I walked the 2 miles back to my car through the forest. It turned out that the fog only extended about 200 m inshore though before giving way to beautiful sunshine... I tried not to take it personally! Still, although there were tons of songbirds in the trees the forest itself was a little too full of holidaymakers to really offer many photographic opportunities.

Despite the unlucky weather, the reserve was a lovely place to spend a day and isn't that far from Glasgow for a trip out. The information spots promised that the beaches are good seal haul-outs (for grey and harbour seals) and are good places to see flocks of wading birds and eider ducks. Maybe next time!