ONE of the pleasures in writing this column is the queries and comments from readers and the last few weeks have been no exception.
Contact is mainly by email but also by the people I meet in differing situations. Some of these are queries about various wildlife ranging from the blackcap last week to red squirrels crossing a busy road to get to feeders in a garden.
Others are in answer to requests for information from me about a range of species from crested tits to badgers. One of the most noteworthy and rewarding of these over the last two years - let alone the last two weeks - has been about wild goats.
It seems that this survey captured the imagination of readers from as far afield as The Mound near Golspie to south of Fort William.
All the information gathered from readers does not gather dust in my records and files as it is always fed into the recording system of the Highland Biological Recording Group and from there into the national recording systems.
One query last week was about a bird that appeared at a garden feeder. The query simply said: "Is this unusual? Came into my garden before the snows..."
There was a photograph included with the e-mail and it was of a male blackcap, with the black cap giving it away as opposed the rich brown cap of the female.
I always think these birds are remarkable as during the summer they are feeding mainly on insects and then when this source is no longer available with the onset of winter they take berries in the autumn and then a range of food off bird tables in the winter.
At one time it was thought these wintering blackcaps were simply a few birds that stayed over from the breeding population. However, our breeding birds move south to southern Iberia and north-west Africa although just a very small number will stay.
However, ringing has now shown that the increasing numbers of wintering blackcaps are from central European breeding birds. The numbers of such wintering blackcaps are on the increase every year and, as one book puts it, this is "Evolution in Action".
Another record, and how I envy this one, was from a reader who has crested tits in his garden, albeit in Nethybridge.
He has had a pair coming into feeders such as peanut feeders, fat cake feeds and, occasionally, the bird table and they visit his garden most days. He also mentions goldfinch on nyjer and the first brambling on October 19.
I am sure there are more records of crested tits in gardens than are recorded so please keep your eyes open. They are so easily missed in the numbers of active birds at feeders these days and even more so when the winter really sets in.
Another record, but nowhere near so rare, was a single red-legged partridge that turned up in a garden on the outskirts of Inverness. Here again a photograph was included and although it was a distant shot it could be identified as a red-legged partridge.
These non-native birds rarely breed in the Highlands and will have come from wandering birds that have been released in the wild for shooting.
Since my article in this column on red squirrels there have been a number on inquiries about these delightful mammals. One that came last week from a reader said that he had up to four red squirrels coming to feed in his garden.
The problem is that they cross one of two busy main roads. I e-mailed back and suggested he gets in touch with Juliet Robinson from the Forestry Commission in Dingwall.
Two readers living in this strath had the same problem a couple of years ago and in the end put up signs on the roadside to warn drivers and, although expensive, they seem to have worked.
Mystery skeleton find raises questions about goat numbers
The record of the week was, by coincidence, a result from a query from a reader and was about wild goats.
He had seen a goat on the southern side of Loch Shiel in land between Callop and Pollock and wondered if there were any other records for that area.
However, this was a goat record with a difference as what he found was the skeleton of a goat. This is something in all my ramblings in the Highlands I have never seen. Partly or well-decaying goats yes but never a skeleton!
Dead goats go into the so-called food chain quite rapidly as there are always carrion eaters to take them, from golden eagles to foxes.
I have no records for goats in that area so where does one look for such information? Interestingly there is still only one monograph on wild goats in Scotland let alone the Highlands. That is the outstanding book Wild Goats of Great Britain and Ireland by G. Kenneth Whitehead.
This author is better known for his extensive books on deer but his book on wild goats is a classic. It badly needs updating but I doubt if the records could be compiled so exhaustively these days as it took a tremendous amount of work.
He mentions Loch Shiel in his records of wild goats but the entry is short as it simply states: "A herd in the hills around Loch Shiel, now apparently extinct, the last animal shot about 1954".
So if anyone has any information to add about wild goats in this area, or any other areas for that matter, please let me know.
