Today I went to Haddo House, a stately home that used to be the seat of the Earls/Marquesses of Aberdeen. It is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland. The parkland is owned and run as a Country Park by Aberdeenshire Council. The surrounding Haddo Estate owned by the 7th Marquess of Aberdeen and and Temair. All very confusing. The house was closed for the winter. The Country Park was open, all the signage seemed to have been done by the Haddo Estate and estate workers still had cottages around the park. NTS has a gift shop, visitors centre and cafe all of which were open from 10:30. The Haddo Estate also has a gift shop! Here are two Country Park images.
This is looking each way along the 'Scots Mile' The house is at one end and the huge urn is at the other. A Scots Mile is 196 yards longer than a normal 'Imperial' mile.
Anyway I was there for the wildlife and the birds in particular. There is a river running through the park which some Earl of Aberdeen dammed to form a lake. This has plenty of wildfowl form the big......
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| Greylag Goose |
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| Canada Goose |
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| Mute Swan |
(The Canada Goose is a new year tick.)
....to the quite small
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| Little Grebe |
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| Wigeon |
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| Goldeneye |
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| Moorhen |
There were two non wildfowl waterbirds a Kingfisher and a Dipper
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| Dipper |
On land the bird life was not as diverse. I did however seen the second year tick of the day, a Jay. Others were the usual fare - including Robins, Chaffinches, Tits, Crows and most numerous, Jackdaws.
There were mammals as well. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a Roe Deer and saw Red Squirrels on the side of the drive to the car park (it was too dark for a photo) and another on a rope specially made for Squirrels (it was also too dark for a photo but I took one just the same.
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| Red Squirrel |
I arrived at sunrise (8:00am). There had been a frost:-
By 9:00 the dog walkers started to arrive, by 10:30 the car park was full, and the park nearly full with families, joggers, more dog walkers and just a few people like me with binoculars and cameras. That was my cue to go to the cafe for a coffee and cake. I did another quick tour round the lake but found nothing new. The ducks, geese and swans had found lots of humans with bread and seeds so they were happy.
A couple or so more happy snaps -:
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| Teal |
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| Teal |
Total on list 115
But still no coot.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone has seen a coot in Aberdeenshire for months.
DeleteCanada Geese are pests here. They are supposed to fly south in the winter but hang around because people feed them. They leave a horrible mess with their droppings and are a real nuisance on golf courses!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean Chris. Cananda Geese are not migratory in the UK. Here in the North East of Scotland there are not very common so they do not present a problem. I remember some years ago camping in England near a smallish pond. We arrived in the dark and woke up to find that we had put up our tent in a field covered in goose droppings. Needless to say we quickly found another pitch.
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