Materials Man

some more selected M 74 pics

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As some of you know I take my annual holidays in Lochaline, I usually have to explain where that is, the Morven peninsula, it is on the mainland where you get the shortest car ferry to Mull. There is also a passenger ferry from Drimnin that runs twice a week and is skippered by the lifeboat Coxswain, so you are in good hands.  visit  http://www.west-scotland-tourism.com/ardnamurchan-charters/Drimnin-Ferry.html see  picture of three known to me ladies, looking like they are going shopping by boat.  Well they were and we found Tobermory looking less than prosperous, no butcher, the business in the old church, closed, and two Chinese takeaways. Not easy to get lunch either, only a few from the many of last year. We did have a good pub lunch. Couldn’t visit cafe fish due to the dietary requirements of some of the party. But if you are in Tobermory, visit cafe fish at the end of the promenade.

Started feeding the birds on arrival, and soon had a multitude of chaffinches, some greenfinches, usual tits, but newcomers were siskins and collared doves, see pics.

A usual walk is by Keil church, this has a prominent outlook over the sound of Mull and was once the burial place of choice of the good and almighty, there is a small  museum next to the church which holds gravestones from  the 14th and 15th centuries and is well worth a visit if you want to sense your place in history.

If you have ever been on a holiday where the food, the drink and the ambience was so good? then the indoor pictures may give you a glimpse of why everyone falls asleep during the ending of Avatar !!

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On the 24/7/2010 I found a Tawny Owl feather and gave it to my wife to use in bee keeping as a soft brush to remove bees from the frames. She said it was a buzzard feather and I said it was a Tawny owl, she agreed. But it got me thinking that I should be able to prove that it was an owl feather, particularly a nocturnal owl as they strike with silence given to them from “soft” wing feathers. So I set out to photograph a pheasants tail feather against this wing feather of a suspected owl.

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Although I am comparing a tail feather with a primary wing feather I hope you can see the much softer surface of the tawny’s feather. They sacrifice flying efficiency by increasing the drag on their wings but the pay off is a silent approach, no hard wing edges and the wing surface is “hairier”  therefore reducing the air speed over the wing making a wing flap or glide quieter.

I hope my pictures demonstrate this. I need to pick up a wing feather from a diurnal species to make this comparison proper.

24/7/2010

As I expected the eyrie is now empty and an Osprey was perched on the top of the highest tree nearby. Ospreys are really nosey, when you watch them doing nothing they are always alert, and like to perch high to get the best view. I could not sex the bird on the tree, due to having its back to me and its head out of sight. Later I did pick up the female on a post with a fish, I suspect a pike as I could just make out a rounded tail fin, she sat for a while not feeding then took off and disappeared. I then picked up a juvenile on another post, see photo and note the mottled appearance of the plumage. On this day I confirmed three juvs and the adult female, but where was the male?

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Also pictured is a wood pigeon which I thought was nicely framed and the Ospreys on perches on the river, there is one picture with the crows picking at a fish, probably the one the female had earlier. Later I saw a juvenile recover the fish and have a desultory pick at it. I also saw a juvenile marsh harrier so the usual pair have raised at least one chick. The juvenile bird I saw had no wing tags, perhaps that exercise has stopped, it was hunting at the reed bed edge and did stoop and did not reappear, I did have a good view of it’s wings as wing tags are not always that  easy to spot.

Well I was out observing on the 11/7/10 but the gale force winds restricted the young Ospreys. So on the 13/7/10  I was on station at 5.55 am and as I thought the young Ospreys could fly, well two could the third remained nest bound. The female was on lookout, the male was off fishing? and one off the juvs took off, flew around, and just disappeared for the remaining 40 mins I was there. I suspect he/she was nearby and waiting for the fish delivery. It is frustrating getting these visual jigsaw pieces, it has taken me years to get a basic understanding of Osprey behaviour from weekend observing, and Roy Dennis’s book helps, see below, I blogged Loch of the Lowes for a full years diary notes that i would pay for, not available, SWT need a commercial leader. Your detailed 24 hour observations are worth money, my money anyway. My jigsaw is incomplete.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Ospreys-Roy-Dennis/dp/1904445268/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279047026&sr=1-1

to sum up a season “my” ospreys are exemplary, most lay three eggs and raise two chicks, mine laid ? eggs but three well fed chicks are a testimony to a very successful pair.

Hope the marsh harriers do as well.

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Derek what are these insects, and don’t say ladybird and shield bug , I’ve got that far already. I have posted both on Ispot so lets see how good your reference books are !! have you been to Ispot ?

T in the park so it must rain and it is, 10th July and went to visit the ospreys, between drizzles of rain, had to step carefully due to hundreds well I mean lots of  toadlets. see pics, I have put these pics on Ispot to verify that they are toads and not frogs. This is a fantastic resource when you can’t identify a species, any species. The nearest pond is 500m away and I assume their origin, although a stream from the pond is 30m away.

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The young Ospreys are now the size of their parents and are rising some several feet during flapping exercises, next week I expect them to be flying around.

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I forgot about these pictures of Greylag geese breeding on the same loch as the Slavonian grebes, the grebes had two juvs and were not to be photographed, these geese were more obliging.

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There are two populations of Greylags in Scotland a naturalised population in the South and East and a  native population in the North and West 1. The naturalised population is in part introduced birds and both populations are increasing

1.  The birds of Scotland volume 1

I was out on the 3 and 4 of July and had nothing much to observe, except three chicks are well fed and just about to start that wing flapping stage. I was expecting to see them doing this but as the wind was gale to nearly gale force they were sensibly reluctant to try. I was concerned on the 4th that I went along at 5pm to see if the eyrie was still there, it was, and due to the wind direction and the surrounding trees it was somewhat sheltered. I did report one year that the eyrie had been blown down during winter gales so my concern had some founding. The male had a good spot away from buffeting winds but the female was not happy on the nest or perched nearby, she took off a few times and eventually I spotted her on a fence post where she was preening, so I guess she want to do feather care but was reluctant to leave the eyrie, but had to due to the gale force winds. One thing I did accomplish was starting to identify umbelliferers, the picture shows a hogweed (not giant) with a common red soldier beetle.

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as an off the wall link, being a gout sufferer I occasionally use diclofenac, it kills vultures, see connection below

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00sx8nd/Saving_Species_Episode_14/

20 June saw the male bring in a small pike and the female set about feeding her chicks, there are still three but one was being a teenager and just lying around. As the male took up his customary position out of faecal squirt range I saw he had a yellow ring on his right leg and a silver one on his left. These rings are harder to see than you might think as branches and feathers often obscure them. They  hunker down when preening and can stand on one leg. So it is well into the season and I am just spotting this yellow ring, oh for a camera on the nest area!

25 June, 5.00 am, at my usual watching time of 8 to 10 am I usually see a feeding session, I was reluctant to believe this was the first feed of the day, so I got up early and was on station by 5.00 am. Just witnessed the female feeding a chick who was soon full up and moving away. So that answers my question, well kind of, as the first feed of the day may be around 8 to 10 am if the fishing conditions are bad? The next bit was interesting as well, the female fed herself for a bit, the chicks were not interested, then she flapped to where the male usually sits and preens, he was up an adjacent tree. He immediately swoops down over her head and takes the considerable remains of the fish up the adjacent tree and starts to feed. Now I thought the male fed from the head of the fish and the body, then brought the fish to the nest for it to be consumed. He might well have done this as I did not see him arrive, and it could be he has no problems feeding his family so by 6.00 am they, including the female,  are full, so he has a second feed. He did fly back to the nest with the fish, but the female and chicks ignored him, so back off to the adjacent tree he went and sat for some time before resuming his feeding. The pics are the male preening and obscuring his legs, male up the adjacent tree and female on his usual preening perch, male on nest and female on his usual perch and female on nest

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spotted this unusual feather in a field next to the estuary, there was 3 or 4, not enough for a death on the ground, struck in the air and escaped? I think it’s from a water bird, so it would not be roosting in a field of cows. Possible feather from the breast or flank. But from what?

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Saturday 11 June 2010, back of 8.00 am, Both adult Ospreys at eyrie, male on nearby perch, female on eyrie rim. Chicks not visible and she is not begging for food so presume chicks have been fed. Grey squirrel in next door tree emerges from the foliage on a leafless twig and chatters at the ospreys, never seen that before. Also never seen the female take off  with a fish and fly around, which she did when I returned after looking for the Marsh harrier. She did this twice, see picture of  her landing, was this to encourage the chicks to eat? as the three of the chicks seemed content. They did consent to eat and I noticed them wing stretching and the small one had gained in size to the others. Took a picture on the 11th and the 12th showing three chicks, also a left yellow winged tagged  female marsh harrier, last years female but nesting in a different location. Caught a brief  glimse of a hunting male harrier, and an other Osprey sitting on a dead branch of a small tree, breeding nearby? probably.

Inserted some pics of hedgerow flowers that are much more difficult than birds to identify, if you put the mouse pointer on them you will see their names, (well my names for them!) Derek what is the fly on the Himalayan balsam’s leaf?

I went to a presentation tonight on the concrete ambassador series of four talks throughout the UK, Professor Karen Scrivener gave the talk on “cementing the future of concrete – science & sustainability” She ably demonstrated that concrete was needed and demanded as a unique material worldwide and went on to get us to the nana technology that enables them, the scientists, to tell us, the users and practitioners how a better understanding of the material and its constituents can deliver concrete with less CO2 emissions. It is the constituents that hold the key to CO2 reduction along with techniques like additives to the grinding process that reduce CO2 emissions. Download the full presentation at www.concrete.org.uk/

I am  convinced by applied advanced science in concrete technology that it will reduce CO2 emissions, but at the other end of the electron microscope the production people can assist, how? clients like Transport Scotland (TS) ignore all design rules and state a free W/C ratio of 0.4, why? well they don’t say, but let me put words in their mouth, they do not believe the free W/C ratios from proffered mix designs and the quality of supplied concrete is less than desired.

So they (TS) as ultimate buyers specify what they desire through employers requirements, which at the moment means more CO2.

My point is, the rmc  industry has really to do what they say they will do and help the nano technology to produce better sustainable concrete. Why should I have a bad day just because the batcher man is having one? I know about accreditation and I will repeat here that QSRMC is not worth the paper it is printed on. Wake up QSRMC guys and realise your future is not hiding behind a QA system, it is in producing a competitive science based product independently assessed (eg BSI) for quality.

My thanks to Helen for the champagne I won in the prize draw, the only bonus I’ll see this year !

As a PS  I note TS, are, on the Forth replacement crossing moving away from ERs for specifying their full requirements and part filling in the designers appendices, noting that the designers should adopt these. Like I have said for years, not Design and Build but Proscibe and Build.

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6th of June and one of the picture’s here show three Osprey chicks, two larger ones and a smaller one further back in the nest, hope it survives. There was a wandering Osprey today and the female immediately was off the nest, and circling, the male had gone fishing. The female wasn’t too bothered, as the wandering Osprey just flew nearby. Soon the male returned with a fish and she began to feed the two chicks that immediately were at her feet, the larger ones. The photo isn’t to clear but trust me there is three.

Other pictures are a fading rainbow and an Oak tree, a violet ground beetle larvae, with designs on a large worm. Notice in one of the pics the larvae’s head is vibrating, what’s that about? supposedly nocturnal so I was lucky to see it.

The seed head is a close up of a dandelion.

The post on Osprey diary 7 includes some remarks about Spey bay, I was at our laboratory for the Fochabers by pass, so could visit Spey bay during spare time. The reason I had spare time was our lab was being assessed for accreditation by UKAS assessors, and I was the virtual spare person at a wedding. This, because my assistants were the builders and I was the architect, so well done Jamie and Sandy, master builders.

Everyone who has achieved UKAS accreditation knows the difficulties, so I would like to thank John Macavoy, chief materials engineer  for the M74 completion for his considerable assistance in helping us to achieve the milestone we reached on the 27th of May.