Sahil's Nature Blog: Three days in Scotland

Monday, July 13, 2009

Three days in Scotland

Just got done with an amazing two weeks travelling in Europe - and I couldn't have asked for a better ending... after five blissful days in Switzerland I headed for yet another amazing landscape - Scotland for the last three days!

Starting with snaps from Edinburgh :

It was probably the best time of the year for wild flowers and since I know very little about it I will share a few photos but no ids for them...

And as expected all these flowers were attracting all sorts of insects and bugs

The rest of the snaps from Edinburgh were clicked along the road side behind the Scottish Parliament below Arthur's Seat.....

started with a Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina)....

....this here is the national flower of scotland - the Thistle

And this is the weirdest butterfly I have come across so far.. It seems to be a Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) . ..

and all three images are of the same individual - what is most puzzling is that in the UP side photo (above) one of its wings are coloured like a male - while the other has a female wing pattern!!!

(Apparently this does happen although quiet rarely and is called - gynandromorph)

Then A few Common House Martins (Delichon urbicum) caught my attention for a while

And while I was busy clicking more wild flowers and butterflies I saw the only wild mammal of this trip -

and what was better was the fact that it was a lifer. A Least Weasel (Mustela nivalis) - of course at the time I thought it was a Stoat I had seen some on TV and they looked exactly the same.

But a little bit of internet research told me that it was in fact a Least weasel. Which is distinguished from the Stoat because it lacks the black tip to the tail - this one had rich chocolate brown tail like the rest of its body.

After a brief few minutes of checking what I was up to the small fellow made a dash into the thicket and didn't reappear....

So I went back to more butterflies

a Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae)

and an unided Satyrid butterfly...

and lastly a Carrion Crow (Corvus corone)

On the next day I went to Loch Lomond,

a Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)

A few insects snapped on various halts -

an unided frog

Similar to Switzerland the landscape here too is extremely pristine and mind blowing at times..

On a small lunch break I came across these Common House Martins (Delichon urbicum) nesting below the roof of a roadside cafe..

and not far from the Martins this - Common gull (Larus canus) flew by..

and so did this Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea)

and above the nest site this White Wagtail (Motacilla alba) did what he does best - wag his tail!!

And some more great landscape

these Highland cattle or Kyloe (an ancient Scottish breed of beef cattle with long horns) are quiet a common sight in the Scottish highlands

and after some more amazing landscape I got to Fort William where I halted..

Only to be back on the road early next day heading for Loch Ness

At this particular part of the journey I was reminded a lot of a trip I had done a few years back to Shillong (Meghalaya) in the North-East of India... and I realized why the British had named that part of India the Scotland of the East!