Dec 2nd by Ian under Miscellaneous

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When you see a crowd of photographers around a celeb or person notorious, you see/hear many £k's worth of cameras on multishot or continuous shot. I just wondered about the number of photos now taken daily in the  digital age? Most phones have cameras, ipods, tablets all take photos. Lets have an estimate just to get a number, lets say a quarter of the population have a means to take a photo, 7 billion/ 4 = 1.75 billion and they take a photo at least once per week, that's 91 billion annually, and for a range say…
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Dec 2nd by Ian under Travels, my Friends travels

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Its not that often you can see the land so clearly flying into Scatsta, however flying in on the 15th Nov I had the right seat and the right weather. What you are seeing is the west coast of the island from dropping through the cloud just south of Brae to land at Scatsta. These are not remarkable photographs but what I wanted to bring your attention to was the isolation of farmhouses and the tracks that can lead to good birding spots. But is this isolation part or wholly the reason for the community spirit that…
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Nov 10th by Ian under Bird Watching, Miscellaneous

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On leave from the Shetlands, the mist at home lifted, the sun came out and I wheezed up Kinnoul hill in Perth. Heard long tailed tits with blues and greats, a pair of jays and a buzzard. Saw ravens,  longtailed tits, jackdaws and a peregrine that obligingly went into a stoop over Barnshill and disappeared from my view. Meanwhile I was snapping with my panasonic DMC FZ7 and my Canon EOS 550 D, you can see the comparison above, the canon shots are on top and the brighter less real shots are the panasonics below. The canon…
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Nov 6th by Ian under Materials and Construction

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Being used to the role of principal contractor,then  being a sub-contractor needs a mindset change, that comes through the contract and the impositions necessarily put on you. The Shetlands Gas Plant (SGP) Laggan-Tormore had a bigger surprise waiting, lurking menacingly, unseen, unexpected in the Totality of  it's monstrous dimensions - documents for QA. The whole team have no experience of the level of documentation required, I guess we are somewhat spoiled in transportation where the client has the testing required tabulated and "bare" appendices for designers to complete, from this I in the past have complied many test and inspection…
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Nov 5th by Ian under Bird Watching, Travels, my Friends travels

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I will post about the Shetlands project separately, I want to give you a flavour of the island from a brief respite of time off. On a Sunday I dropped the guys off and took the pool car for a drive in the reduced daylight we get up here. First I was obliged to watch a boring GP from India, kinda glad its going to Sky sports next year as I don't subscribe, therefore the link of "must watch" will be broken. Going from Sella Ness (home) I stopped at a community woodland walk by an old…
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Oct 10th by Ian under Travels, my Friends travels

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After my first work cycle to the Shetlands, I arrived at  Guild street bus station in Aberdeen and picked up my car that was in the good safe hands of my Daughter. It was 15.00 hrs, as I set off , my tom tom being set by my Daughter as my phone rang when I was attempting it, it was probably set to the shortest route as I got out of the city but found myself on the A944 not the A96, anyway such is life, the A96 my have been faster the A944 was much more…
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Oct 8th by Ian under Materials and Construction, Travels, my Friends travels

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First tour of 18 days on and 9 days off which includes two travel days. No time off in 18 days, except to watch some morning rugby, where we played well but lost to the old enemy. Surprisingly I got used to the work cycle, working weekends well what else was I to do? well could have taken some more pictures, these sunsets were from the same place on different nights, luckily I had transport so could chase the sun to the west when it looked promising. I have to say I have about 20 really good…
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Sep 6th by Ian under Bird Watching, Travels, my Friends travels

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I am retyping this from the original which is a paper I helped compile for a years worth of birdwatching on Dubai's creek. I was not alone and the observations are from a small but determined party of enthusiasts who got up early on a Friday (holy day) and often took to the mud to cover the whole creek. The period was 1981 to 1982 and I believe shortly after I left the area it was declared a national park, good vision from the Maktoums. I am doing this in response to a search of my site for Dubai birds,…
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Aug 21st by Ian under Travels, my Friends travels

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The normal summer hols were again spent in Lochaline, (nearest ferry to Mull), in a house overlooking the sound of Mull and Ardornish castle if a tree wasn't there! Mike and Jan, the owners, weren't there which was a pity. With more people incumbent there is more intention to explore/ have day trips. My brother Derek and his wife Moira were there from the first Saturday to the Thursday, we arrived on the Monday, so had a few days overlap. Five people went to three, my wife and her cousin Helen, we kinda stayed local. We did…
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Aug 16th by Ian under Bird Watching

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Adults Ospreys may have gone, did see two juvs on the eyrie, and later one on the eyrie branch, it was making begging calls, but eventually flew off. On scanning the reedbeds I did pick up an Osprey on the other side of the river, one from "my" nest ? who knows. It's time we had bird rings that emitted bar codes that smart phones could pick up, now that would advance bird movement study. No juv or adult harriers in evidence so could also be gone. End of another nesting season, comes round so quickly! however the weather was…
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Aug 7th by neilgd under Bird Watching

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Last weekend I decided that I would pay a visit to the RSPB Fowlsheugh reserve on the east coast of Scotland near Stonehaven.  My aim was to see some auks and in particular some Puffins - it was late in the season and as such possibly too late.  Indeed it was too late and no auks were in evidence, however some great views of  Herring Gull, Fulmar and Kittiwake were had, including juveniles of all three species.  A great view of a Sedge Warbler was also had on the walk back to the carpark.…
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Jul 31st by Ian under Bird Watching, Travels, my Friends travels

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For a bloke who gets sea sick standing on a pier the thought of a ferry trip to Shetland where the seats in the bar have a wire harness to the floor, was worrying. However the weather was high pressure and i needed to take my car to move the bulky PPE and other items I need. So with confidence having used the ferry port to turn around on after leaving Petrofacs office i set off, and duly turned into the right place to turn but the wrong quay, dope!! Found the right quay, after instructions, boarded…
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Jul 17th by Ian under Bird Watching

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All three chicks are on the wing and as rumoured they have been ringed, the osprey pic is the female on the left and a juv on the right, you can make out the ring on the juvs left leg. I think they have a ring on both legs. All three chicks were on the eyrie when i got there about 9.45, the female was there, then the male arrived and when I was watching the fox in the pics for a good 45 mins only a juv remained on the eyrie, the other four had gone…
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Jul 10th by Ian under Bird Watching

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As you can see from the pics the Ospreys have three well grown juveniles, on Sunday I was out at 7.30 am the rain had finished from yesterday and the wind and sun were not spoiling telescoping, so i was able to get some reasonable pics. As I've said before a photographer would not offer these pics on the internet, but I'm not trying to win a prize just show three well grown juvs. Like some tabloids some people might consider I'm making it up hacking into smart phone pictures or the like. My farmer friends suggested…
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Jul 4th by Ian under Bird Watching

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Not up too early, lay in bed listening to out of doors on radio Scotland, it was 9.30 when I scoped the Ospreys, but just before I did I saw a fox on the path some 50m away head down sniffing , I froze but was very exposed and the fox ran off after looking up, into the barley field. I thought that would have been that but within 15 mins a pair of foxes were on the path and I was an obvious intrusion, I thought the pair a male and female as there was no…
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