It’s been snowing!

As you probably know by now, it’s been snowing recently up here in bonnie Scotland. In fact, it’s been snowing in most of the UK!

I took advantage of the weather yesterday to get out and about and get something i’ve been wanting for a long time. A photo of Loch Leven, frozen! And I got it, too!

There’s really only 2 vantage points to get the whole loch. Either Benarty Hill or Bishop Hill. Both have their positive and negative sides. I chose Bishop Hill. The obvious downside of this, as seen from the photo above (If you click on it, it’ll take you to the Flickr page, where you can get a larger view) is the direction of the sun. It did have a more interesting walk, and more interesting scenery on the way up, though, which more than offset it. Besides, I actually think the sun works quite well in this case.

Here are some photos I took on the way up to the summit.

Some pretty nice scenery, I’d say! As before, click on the link for the Flickr page, which will give larger options, if you’re of a mind.

I’m now in the process of getting the Loch Leven photo printed onto Canvas, 30cm tall and god knows how long – i Suspect the best part of a metre. Well worth it, though!

Oh, and the photos were taken on a cheap and nasty ‘point and click’ Nikon S220, if anyone is interested. I used to use a much larger (and in a lot of cases, better) camera, but a tiny compact seems to work better for me. As a birder, when it comes to a choice between a camera or binoculars around my neck, the binoculars will win every time – thus a pocket sized camera, so I can do both!

I’ll be back at Loch Leven tomorrow, too. SNH are doing a guided ‘Winter Bird Walk’ at 10am, which I’ve booked up on. Could be interesting!

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To experience Loch Leven, don’t stick to Vane Farm

I decided to get out and about today, to do a bit of bird watching at Loch Leven. Now, the majority of people who visit Loch Leven seem to stick to the RSPB’s Vane Farm reserve, which is only a small part of Loch Leven National Nature Reserve. Personally, I think they’re missing out on a whole lot – they’re only seeing a small part of what Loch Leven has to offer.

Don’t get me wrong, here. Vane Farm is great! It’s a brilliant place to visit, the staff are very welcoming and friendly, not to mention knowledgeable. It has a whole lot to offer, and quite often, it has some of the bird species in larger numbers than anywhere else on the loch, but it doesn’t have it all. To experience it all, you have to visit more of the loch.

A lot of people I’ve spoken to aren’t even aware that there are three bird hides around the loch, not including the ones at Vane Farm. They’re all easily accessible by car, and are all on the Loch Leven Heritage Trail. take a look at THIS map to see where they are.

What I decided to do today was visit all three hides around the loch, then visit Vane Farm and compare the species present. Now, please bear in mind, the number of species present doesn’t necessarily mean too much. Seeing lots of different species isn’t nearly as exciting as seeing lots of the same species doing something spectacular, but we’ll come to that later on.

Ok, so the list of species. I’ve included the individual hides seperately, as they are quite far apart, but the hides at Vane Farm I’m including as one list (As some things can be seen from all of the hides at the same time)

First of all, I arrived at Kirkgate Park in Kinross. I had a quick scan around before I got out of the car and recorded the following:

3 Black-headed Gull

1 Pied Wagtail

2 Carrion Crow

3 Goldeneye

4 Mallard

8 Tufted Duck

2 Blue Tit

1 Great Tit

1 Blackbird

Now, I got out of the car and made the trip to the Boathouse Hide, where I added the following:

2 Goosander

3 Cormorant

43 Tufted Duck

11 Coot

I also added the following to the list on the walk to and from the hide:

Coal Tit

Jackdaw

Pink-Footed Goose

Grey Heron

Woodpigeon

Magpie

Starling

Dunnock

Once back at the car, it was quickly off to Burleigh Sands, to the hide there. I parked up, and off I went. At the hide, I added the following:

1 Cormorant

24 Tufted Duck

5 Goldeneye

1 Buzzard

163 Black-Headed Gull

3 Common Gull

3 Goosander

1 Moorhen

And again, on the way to and from the hide, i managed to add the following species to the list:

Sparrowhawk

Lesser Redpoll

Whooper Swan

Mute Swan

Twite

As i mentioned earlier, all of these hides are on the Loch Leven Heritage Trail, and can be reached on foot. It admittedly has a significantly smaller carbon footprint doing it that way than it would using the car, like I did today. The downside of this is, as it is an 8 mile walk from Kinross to Vane Farm, it reduces the amount of time you can spend in the hides, observing the birds.

A good spot for lunch, about half way along the route is Loch Leven’s Larder. I stopped there for a quick bite to eat today, as it was on the way. It’s also accessible directly from the Heritage Trail itself, so it makes a good stopping off point for lunch for those walking the trail, too. (On the map it can be seen as Chapel Farm)

And on to the final hide before reaching Vane Farm. Levenmouth Pools. For this one, you park at the Findatie Car Park, which is only 1km or so away from Vane Farm. The hide is a further 10-15 minutes walking through woodland.

At this hide I saw the following birds:

2 Mute Swan

1 Jay

Not a lot to see… but the pools were frozen, so there wasn’t much water accessible to wildfowl. However, it was still the best part of the whole trip for me. Why? Although there were little or no birds to be seen, I did get to sit and watch an Otter playing on the ice for 10-15 minutes before it went away! This was at 1pm… on a non-coastal site, it’s very unusual to see Otters during the day time. In fact, the only other place I’ve seen Otter was on the Isle of Mull a couple of years ago. I think it’s fair to say I was grinning like a cheshire cat for the rest of the day!

On the way to and from the hide I managed to add the following species:

House Sparrow

Curlew

Redwing

Long-Tailed Tit

Fieldfare

Chaffinch

Bringing us to a total species count, not including Vane Farm of 35. Not a bad result, I’d say!

All that was left to complete the trip was Vane Farm itself. As I mentioned earlier, because the hides were reasonably close together, I included them in a single list. The results are as follows:

3 Chaffinch

2 Robin

3 Blackbird

7 Jackdaw

4 Rook

3 Great Tit

2 Blue Tit

8 Mute Swan

1 Wren

2 Greenfinch

7 Carrion Crow

3 Grey Heron

1 Moorhen

approx 300 Starling

Approx 600 Lapwing

2 Shelduck

Approx 150 Teal

20 Pink-Footed Geese

Approx 40 Curlew

Approx 30 Whooper Swan

1 Reed Bunting

1 Pied Wagtail

1 Kestrel

22 Species in total – 8 of which I hadn’t recorded elsewhere. Bringing a total of 43 species of bird for the day – and one rather marvelous Otter!

Now, although I saw less species at Vane Farm than I did elsewhere, it doesn’t mean that it was less enjoyable (Though it clearly wasn’t going to top the Otter!). A lot can be said about sheer volume. Have you ever seen 600 Lapwing all flying in unison, changing from black to white and back to black again as they turn? It’s a rather amazing sight! Definitely my number two sight of the day!

Basically, what I am getting at from all of this is that yes, you can go to Vane Farm and see a whole lot of birds, a decent number of species, and occasionally some specialities (I saw Hen Harrier there last Saturday), but to truly experience everything that Loch Leven has to offer, you should explore the other sites that can be found.

I would strongly recommend walking the Heritage Trail, as this is by far the best way to see everything. Although you spend less time in the hides, you get to see more of the species on the loch as a whole. There were some species which I would have expected to be on my list for today, which were almost certainly on the loch… they just weren’t seen from the hides when I visited them. Had I walked the whole loch, I suspect the list would be much larger. I would expect species such as Great-Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Shoveler, Wigeon and Greylag Goose to be on the list, along with possible sightings (regularly seen each year) of Slavonian Grebe and Pintail.

One last piece of advice. If you wish to walk the Heritage Trail, I would recommend doing so on a Saturday. There are more bus trips on a Saturday from Vane Farm to Kinross than any other day (the only other days the bus runs are Wednesday and Sunday). It’s either that or have a car parked at both ends of the walk – or walk 8 miles back again to where you started from!

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