I seem to have amused this little Coot somehow, maybe it’s because we share the same hairstyle. It might though just be surprise as his/her wife/husband has just that instant dived, causing the ripples in front of him/her.

A common enough species but I’ve always found them hard photographically. They are, after-all black but with that pure white patch. When it come to exposure trying to get that right so as to encompass both is difficult enough but then you need a background that is suitable to show both to good effect. Unless you have a pet one getting a coot to sit in the right place is a hopeless. Here a low winter light, and just enough ripple in the water to create an interesting speckled mix of colour, shade and highlights gives just enough prettiness to provide a reason for inclusion.

A cold November afternoon, and the need for calories to burn for heat through the long winter night, is pressing. To survive, this little Moorhen is diving in the freezing water for enough for supper. The water on his back and tail is freezing in the cold. I shiver.

With a similar overall colour scheme as the Coot – except the red for white on the head thing, but with an added white patch for difficulty - it can be tricky to get the correct exposure for this species too, best just to bracket (taking a sequence with exposure shifts). Here the flattest of flat cold winter light has made it fairly easy though.

I like this image for the way the overall grey pathos provides the setting for that patch of bright red and green at its focus.

One of the attractions of birds partly acclimated to human disturbance is it enables a closeness more wilder cousins shun. I personally draw the line at zoos or bird ‘parks’ where birds are essentially caged. Sure you can get amazingly close images but where’s the skill or satisfaction in that? But I will go explore urban parkland etc. This afternoon I’m exploiting that moral loophole, again, within the University of Stirling campus. Julie has just been ‘doctored’ and we’re walking a path around the wee lochan (big pond), before we go a eatin’ and a drinkin’ to celebrate.

A moorhen ahead of us scuttles through the vegetation bordering the lochan and hence into the water and fringing reeds. I catch up and try to get pretty picture as I walk alongside her. But the plants are dense and all I get to see are transient snippets, little glimpses. She carries on swimming amongst senescent plants, I carry on walking to get ahead of her, looking for a small open area where I might get a picture. She appears, but swims though the gap too fast for me, way too fast actually, I walk ahead again, find another patch, she appears, too fast again, I walk ahead……. rinse repeat, again and again this happens. It become a game, I can see it now, she’s playing hide and seek with me, well why not?

After perhaps 1/4 miles of this game I actually did manage to get one of her. Hah, that’s 10 points to me. We shake hands and go our own ways, a game well played.

I used to visit the hide at Ruthven a fair bit, it was great during lock-down, all to myself. Sadly, muppets on crap like paddle-boards and similar plastic-junk are allowed, preferably making as much self-indulgent noise as possible, to use this so-called ‘reserve’ for the incredibly rare breeding Slavonian grebe. This has been combined with the fairly new breed of noisy and inconsiderate groups of birdwatchers, both travelling on their own, or in organised tour logo emblazoned minibuses. You can be quietly sitting there then you can hear them approaching, talking and laughing. They enter and, upon seeing someone already there, watching something rapidly swimming away, they just carry-on yapping. As often as not they’re talking loudly about what they saw earlier.

On a day when no-one else came I watched this little chap approaching until he entered a sunny gap between the scrub. He even sat there for a moment. I took his picture and, quietly, thanked him.

I know many people think Scotland never has sunshine, well they're nearly right, but when it does occur, esp in winter such as this, it can be low and create some nice colours. I just like the rich blue of the sky reflected in the shallow clear water.

a few hours have passed in the hide, I must have brought a flask, maybe a bikky, and I catch another little grebe admiring itself in the refection, the reflected sky gives an almost shocking blue to the crystal clear water.

I am lucky to live somewhere where this bird breeds, adding an exotic addition to our more common waterbirds. With that yellow tassel and striking red eye, it is a pleasure to watch. To see that detail you need the bird close, some sun, and a darker background as I was lucky to have on that day.

The water here is transparent enough to allow you to follow bird underwater as it dives. I watched this chap dive and followed it as it surfaced with a little snack. From its size it looks to me like a Dytiscus, but hey what do I know. Either way it was gone a moment later.

Sitting in the hide at Ruthven, on my own, nice and quiet. I have been here quite a long while, staring at empty water. Patience, it just needs patience I think, yet I still chide myself for not bringing a flask, and perhaps a bikkie. Suddenly the quiet tranquillity is broken, loud calls as a few birds fly overhead and land out of sight behind some vegetation. That frantic-sounding call is pretty unmistakable. To my surprise another Slav swims rapidly from cover just in front of me where it had sat unseen, well to me anyway. Another swims fast from where it has landed and joins it with great noise and obvious merriment. Then that love dance begins! I had never seen it before and I watch eyes glued to binoculars. Suddenly it dawns on me the bloody camera was laying in front of me. Idiot this is why I carry damn thing, to take photos, doh.

Picking it up I begin taking a few images, the light isn’t really right, and they’re too far out really. I capture what I can. Of course with hindsight I should have used video, but I didn’t, so there.

As I watch a track from Meatloaf inevitably comes screaming into my head (look, I was young once too, right).

Before we go any further!
Do you love me?
Will you love me forever?
Do you need me?
Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and will you make me your wife? <sup>*




                        *</sup> with all credit to Jim Steinman

I wonder if young Slavs go to a special dance school, it is exquisitely choreographed

I love Divers, not least for their haunting calls. As with most English birdwatchers I was familiar enough with seeing Red-throated Divers. But only at a thousand miles distant tossing in rough seas, on a stormy winter day, through rain-washed spotting scope. Yup, that dark blurry speck is a red-throated diver! The joys of a sea-watch during winter.

So when I first moved to Shetland the chance to see these big beautiful birds breeding, and on a sunny day too, was high on the wow list for a Norfolk boy.

I hate the idea of disturbing birds to get a picture so, one day when I found one at a little distance, I decide crawling through 2 inch deep cold water and littoral vegetation for 50 metres (they train sniper marines this way no doubt) till I could close with the bird was the only way. But it was worth it. My presence isn’t suspected, and I get to soak and watch the bird at close distance for near half an hour. Although, I got blasé about seeing them, that thrilling first close encounter with an RTD (not STD) is still a clear and fond memory. They do say they you never forget your first time.

we’re both floating in our own ways, but without doubt, he is the most elegant doing it. Just watching him swimming around just metres away from me has removed all thoughts of discomfort, or perhaps that’s the onset of hypothermia.

now, to add even more to this close up and personal experience, another cherry on top of an already well-adorned cake, he begins that haunting call, at a distance of only perhaps 10m it is loud.

If you haven't yet heard the RTD call, you could try this link to youtube, I've searched elsewhere on other sites, but this is a nice recording: ⇢ click ⇠   n.b. connects to external site: I can accept no responsibility for the moronic advertising crap Youtube flings at you.

An alternate source for bird (and other animal) sound recordings is www.xeno-canto.org. This is a thoroughly professional site, but might appear a tad overwhelming to a first-time visitor: persist and thou shall be rewarded!

Below is a link to a shortened recording by Stanislas Wroza, full recording at www.xeno-canto.org/487720. It will open a popup that plays the call then closes. The recording lasts approx 14 seconds. Check volume before playing!

🔊 Click to play.

After perhaps 30 minutes and some thought is trying to push itself back into my mind, I can sort of feel it there, nudging, prodding, probing for a way in. Oh, yes, it comes to me, that’s it, I’m fucking freezing, I’m lying in ice-cold Shetland water, am I out of my mind. I slowly crawl backwards. This is made especially fun because it pushes more freezing water under my clothes to replace the stuff my body has sort of warmed. Eventually, I get back to the Discovery, I am shivering almost uncontrollably. I fire up the big V8, in moments warm air is all about me.

As my shivering slowly subsides I wonder if they would ever have found my camouflaged body in there. I have so many images of this encounter but I must limit myself, so this is a few. Not sure I’ve picked the best to represent that wonderful experience, but I think it will do.