June's happenings

June. Ah June, how you have been so very hectic but yet fantastic as the same time.

You might have noticed that I have decided to rebrand myself. I’ll get to that later.

This was after my first day in my brand new job, one of the wildlife photographers at Center Parcs at Whinfell forest. The day was fantastic; I had checked the weather before I was to arrive and it said that I would be able to just about miss the rain with my ‘pupils’. Starting at 9:30 meant that most animals would be highly active. Some times this is a problem but most of the times especially when the animals are so used to human activity and feeding that it doesn’t make much of a difference. Well 9:30 am appeared and my single student was very receptive to what I had to say. Lucky he was a photographer already and wanted to branch out into taking wildlife. So it was a fantastic base to work with. The ‘pupil’ was fantastic asking loads of good questions and was very much able to see what I was saying helped him take fantastic pictures on the hour and a half that I had with him. The weather did start to turn eventually but we had just made it to the bird hide before the weather decided to rain for the rest of the day. Either way it was such a fantastic day and the job is actually very rewarding when you get to see your ‘pupils’ look at their shots and feel ecstatic with their shots. 

The beginning of this month I was back home, back south that is. Only spending 2 weeks down in Kent was so nice. Having some time to myself being able to go birding with no pressure of taking photos. I really do like just going out and seeing what I can see, not so much reconnecting or rediscovering, but unearthing my feelings for birding again. Seeing bearded tits again for the first time in years. Seeing cuckoos and hobbies. My brain really was in meltdown, I very nearly cried because I hadn’t seen these birds for such a long time. It was rather emotional.

Upon my return up north I had my interview and then waited around to see when my shifts would start. While this was going on I was slowly making my flat look like a tip. So after being badgered by foreign voices over the telephone I got my self out of the flat. If I can get out at least 2 or 3 times each week then I am a happy chappy. On theses excursions I have seen many things and actually met several people with amazing facts about Carlisle. These are wildlife facts and will be kept to myself until the time is right. Intriguing right! Probably not, I do try you know.

Any back to my rebranding. It was actually on the first shift. Whereupon I met a very talented tall photographer call Phil. Phil is a very nice and tall person. Watching him take peoples portraits is outstanding. I really cannot parse him enough. Any way I hung around after my first shift so I could get to know him a bit more, you know make new friends. Any way toward the end of the day he gave me his business card. And by god was it a wonderful piece of self-marketing. Hence my new blog name. Because Phil is rather tall and it seems to me that’s what people talk to him about when first meeting him. It is what his business card is all about. While chatting about it he came up with the ‘Charming Bearded Birder’ which if I say so myself has a lovely ring to it. So from now on I am the CBB (Charming Bearded Birder). THANKS PHIL. I would like you all to do me a favour though, go and check out Phil. His website is www.tallorderphotography.co.uk

That’s all for this month. Tune in again next month when I might have more to talk about.

CBB

The Cairngorms

Time to blog again. What have I been doing since Scotland? I have been to Gambia and done an exam. That’s about it really. But I will tell you about Gambia in a blog later on in the week. ALSO pictures from Scotland can be found her: http://500px.com/DomB/sets/scotland

First however I would like to talk a bit about my Scottish expedition to the most astonishing place I have been to in the UK. The Cairngorms. Spending a sun filled week there was simply wonderful. Having rented out a cottage was one of the best moves to have done, as camping out side would have been a bad idea.

We forgot the clocks went back an hour, but also because we were up at 6am. Or was it 5am? Either way it was early. We had soon made simple breakfasts and had gobbled them as quickly as we had made them. We left the cottage with plenty of time to spare to get to Loch Garten at 8. We packed the car and started to defrost it. The temperature was so cold that it had not only frozen the window wipers spray, also the emergency bottles of water in the car. Solid. The anti freeze bottle was still operational so the task fell to me to de-ice the windows. Having sprayed the windscreen with a liberal amount. It worked … for all of 10 seconds as we all watched as the ice reformed on the windscreen. This was to happen for the next 10-20 minutes. As we arrived there were plenty of birds swooping around feeders and the trees. We pulled up in the car park and looked at the sign on the visitors center door,     

 ‘Open at 10am,

It was about 8:30am. Deciding to take a short walk to see what the area had in store for us, we walked a short distance to a little spit to see the beautiful view over the loch. With an imposing mountain behind dusted with snow, just enough to see some trees and bushes but not cover them. This was only a few hundred yards away from the car park. Ciaran had slowly wondered off behind us into the woods. Then he was gesticulating wildly at me and pointing to a tree a mere 10 feet in front of him. There was a tiny shape flitting around the tree. Lifting my binoculars to the tree and saw a tiny little bird. Only having seen it for a split second I knew that it was a crested tit.

After we got back to the car we did a quick stop and looked at Loch Mallachie here we got closer to the crested tits for about 30 seconds. It is here where we also saw goldeneye, teal and wigeon.

The second day was started late in the day, after our long day yesterday, gave us a nice slow start with shopping and writing post cards. Having our second day as a half-day around Carr-Bridge. Taking the wooded walk, a combination of 3 walks in the wood, we were not expecting to see much except for birds high in the trees. Unexpectedly we happened to see our first Scottish red squirrel.

We also walked to the summit of Cairngorm during the week. It was a hard walk. Took us along time to lug our gear up to the top. It was an early start again so we were all pretty tired, making the walk up a little harder. Getting the funicular rail up to the Ptarmigan restaurant was the easiest part as we soon discovered.

On the funicular we were packed in with the skiers whom were all layered up to the full and we must have looked rather silly with our thousands of layers. After we all burst out from the doors into the café we made our way to the viewing platform to see the view. It was astonishing, a huge view over most of the cairngorm park. We stood and looked at this view until Helen Pointed out that just in front of us was a snow bunting. We headed back inside to put on our grips for our shoes. We headed out onto the ice-covered platform and started snapping. It’s a fabulous little bird, simple colouration but astonishing.

We then decided that the best thing to do would be to walk to the summit of the mountain. The climb with our camera gear made it a little more challenging. We put on our ice-grips and headed to the summit. It was a steep slope but not what we had thought. We made steady progress; while scanning either side of the path for the birds we were looking for. We did eventually reach the top. It felt like such an accomplishment to do; something that I am proud to say that I did.

It was on the way back down when we saw a small crowd of people near the path taking photographs when we knew we had found what we were looking for. After slipping and sliding down the slope (as safely as we could) we reached the point we wanted to go and find them. We started out and then we saw them scuttling around the rocks. Ptarmigans. The two birds we found were undeniably marvellous posing and not bothered by us at all. We were able to get fairly close to them. Although after a while a skier came and disturbed them and they took flight. Even though this was slightly annoying we did get some pictures, both moving and still, of them flying. Heading back in to warm up and eat lunch. It was a rather difficult place to eat lunch with all the skiers in there. It was jam-packed. We did eventually find some seats in the passage and set up camp. We ate our cold food and drank our teeth shattering cold water. We did however warm up which was our main focus.

After lunch we moved back out to see if there were any more that had flown in while we had been inside. We had not just stepped out when we saw another one not far from us. We carefully walked towards it and tried not to disturb it. It took very little notice of us and just sat and looked at us like we were the crazy ones. We were snapping it like crazy. It called a few times and then pottered around for a bit before flying off. Leaving the mountain the same way we had got to it we went for a warmer walk down in the woods. This was the way to unwind as we had started the day pretty heavily it was nice to just have a short walk and see some beautiful dippers.

            While taking a much-needed rest on a 6 hour walk the day after climbing up Carin Gorm, we saw a puddle moving of its own accord; it wasn’t just slightly moving it was jumping out of the puddle itself. We walked up to it and then it stopped. But there was common frog’s spawn on this puddle. We looked at it in shock, ‘Frogs? In in the highlands? In the snow?’ we looked at it for a while but the spawning seemed to have stopped. Waiting for a bit to see if it would continue, which it didn’t, we talked about how it could possibly be. There was still no movement from the puddle. So we started to move down the road looking at the running water to see if there was any other kind of frogs we could see. We saw 4 in total in a tiny stretch stream. It was a surprise to see them let alone see them mate.

            This morning of the 5^th of April we decided to go to a valley not far from our cottage for a gentle day before leaving for Knapdale. It was a very, very, nice drive with some light snow on the ground as we drove deeper into the valley. It was only just up the road and yet it was snowy, which was very unpredicted as it has been sunny and sunburn weather for the past week.

            The drive along the road to the car park was long and windy, with many pheasants and red squirrel dashing across the road. We did eventually get to the car park while looking at the unadulterated beauty of the mountains. We had just got all of our equipment out and ready when a hare dashed out and sat not far from us. We looked around a bit and found nothing close to the car park, so we decided to walk down towards a bridge we had spotted crossing a nice river.

            Finding a disused house and barn, we thought it would be good to have lunch there. Upon approach we decided this was not what we should do as it was full of sheep droppings. Also a dead sheep and a dead kid (not a child, the goat variety), so it would not have provided anything but upset stomachs. Then looking over at the barn we saw a mountain hare sitting enjoying the sun apparently unfazed by us. The girls started moving behind the barn and me and Ciaran started to army crawl toward it.

            From out of the barn popped a second and ran beside me and stopped at the house. Crawling closer and round to the side we saw that another had come out of the barn at the same time. Slowly crawling closer and closer to these animals which seemed to look at us with the eyes of most relaxed wild animal I have ever seen. They scarcely lifted a whisker when we crawled past them to get behind cover and leave them be.

            It was the best wildlife experience I have ever had. It was just so magical that these animals let us, all four of us, get really close and see what they were doing. Really thrilling to get that close to them.