Another week on Islay and everywhere you go you are reminded of the gale in May with Westerly facing woodlands looking like they have suffered a nuclear blast.

I took the opportunity of visiting the seabird colonies on the West coast to ascertain what damage had been incurred in 100mph gale. Guillemot numbers were only half what they normally are and Razorbills were only slightly down on normal. However, whilst initially Kittiwakes looked to be in normal numbers a close inspection through the binoculars revealed another story. At least half the birds present were sat on empty nests and must have had their eggs blown out of their nests in the storm.

The weather has been very mixed and generally poor for Islay in June. Two sessions looking for Otters failed to find any. Hen Harrier sightings have been well down and even these ground nesting birds may have suffered in the gale or perhaps the recent days of pouring rain.

Flowers are now beginning to appear in good numbers with sixty four Lesser Butterfly Orchids in flower in one field. It is also good to see Roe Deer with their fawns at the just able to walk stage.

We have had another week on Islay. Some time has been spent trying to film a male Short Eared Owl as he brought prey to a brooding female, her nest being deep in the heather. The photo was taken through the video camera and was the only one I took, although I did obtain some spectacular film. Some days he did not alight on the post at all and then one day he brought four items in two hours alighting on the post each time. Nothing is predictable in wildlife filming and this is the first time in forty years that I have succeeded in filming a male Short Eared Owl, with prey away from the nest.

Since we left Islay a month ago there has been a hundred mph gale which has had a devasting effect on all wildlife. The woodlands look like Autumn with the leaves dead and shrivelled and many on the ground as a result of salt spray damage. Coming at the height of the breeding season there will be no caterpillars for young birds to be fed on or butterflies to follow and no one knows what the long term effect of the gale will be.

One day during last week I was filming Redstarts and Pied Flycatchers in the Forest of Bowland. The deciduous wood had at least eight pairs of each breeding and it was an absolute delight to await their next return to the nest with an ever changing array of insects and caterpillars. While the colours of the male Redstart are amazing it was the male Pied Flycatcher that took the prize for the most visits. During the hour I was at his nest he fed the six young at least once a minute, sometimes much less. Just to be in this wood with all the bird song and no man made noises is what early Summer is all about.

Another day I spent on a moorland reservoir filming Common Sandpipers and Little Ringed Plovers. Both species had eggs about to hatch, with the Plover’s nest vulnerable to any increase in water levels so lets hope we have a dry spell during the next few days. What was pleasing was that while I was filming a Snipe was displaying overhead on the neighbouring moor and I also found a great specimen of Butterwort in full flower and the first I have ever seen in the Pennines.

In the garden Goldfinches are now bringing their first broods of young to feed and hopefully more to follow during the Summer.

This May has been typified by high winds and lack of warmth and sunshine. On the one good day this week I went to photograph the Ladys Slipper Orchid and was only just in time due to its early flowering this Spring. The rare bit of sunshine also brought out a Duke of Burgundy Fritillary butterfly which I had never seen before. The one hundred and fifty mile motorway journey produced sightings of Peregrine, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk and Buzzard.

During the week I was watching a Kestrel nest site in a hole in a barn wall high in the hills. The male Kestrel passed a vole to the incubating female and she then left the eggs and followed him to a patch of earth nearby. They then both dust bathed side by side which would have made an unique photograph and was certainly an event that I have never witnessed before. After a couple of minutes she quickly returned back to the eggs.

In the garden we have had our first fledged Blue and Great Tits together with young Robins. A pair of Carrion Crows feed every day and one of them is shown in the photograph .

It is now peak season for filming breeding birds and what happens? – we have two days of low clouds and rain!

On Monday I sat in the car for four hours waiting in vain for the rain to stop and the cloud to lift, all to no avail. As I sat there a Mallard walked down the road, which was by now like a river, accompanied by ten recently hatched ducklings. I was parked by a cattle grid and when she reached this grid she walked across and the ducklings all fell in between the bars and disappeared. She stood on the other side calling loudly and one by one heads appeared and after many attempts to get out nine were re-united with her. The last one by now hadn’t the strength to climb out and she made a final decision to walk off and abandoned it to its fate. My good deed of the day was to reach down and scoop it out of the grid and re-unite it with the rest of the family.

On Tuesday, with a lull in the rain, I walked through an Oak wood to check the Green Woodpecker hole that I had been filming in early April. The woodpecker should have by now been incubating eggs but a close inspection of the hole indicated that the interior of the Oak was not dead enough to excavate so this hole had been abandoned. It was bad news but within ten minutes elation was to follow. On the walk back through the wood a Woodcock was flushed. Any Woodcock that is encountered in May is likely to be a breeding male with its partner on a nest nearby. Within thirty minutes I had found the female Woodcock brooding four young in the nest. To me a Woodcock at the nest is the Holy Grail of Pennine breeding birds and filming commenced. In the next hour I obtained some amazing video of her with her young, the only complaint being she was wet through!

On Wednesday the elation of the previous day’s Woodcock was dashed when I went to film a pair of Kingfishers that should have had young ready to fledge. Instead the flood waters from the previous day had covered the hole and I feared the worst. I hid and waited for an hour before a Kingfisher appeared with a fish for its young. It entered the tunnel and flew back out still carrying the fish, a clear indication that the young were drowned in the nest. It was a sad moment but hopefully they will have a second brood.

Our second week on Islay has been typified by the wind conditions that were not favourable to hunting raptors. The male Hen Harriers were leaving it late to find food for their incubating females. One food pass was at 9.25pm which is exceptionally late, being a good fifteen minutes after sunset. The male Short Eared Owl that we were watching last week fed his female at 10pm and we were unable to watch her back to the nest in the darkness.

One solitary Brent Goose was left on Islay because of slight damage to its flight feathers and will not now be able to join its relatives in the Canadian Arctic. Wheatears and Grasshopper Warblers were numerous and very vocal as were the Cuckoos and more film was taken of them.

Back home in the garden two Carrion Crows have been feeding with Wood Pigeons. sadly this year there are no breeding Tits in the nest boxes.