Species list, Scotland August 2013

Name: Peterson's Birds of Britain and Europe (North American Name) Scientific name

Gaviidae

Diver sp. (loon) Gavia sp.

Procellariidae

Fulmar (Northern Fulmar) Fulmarus glacialis

Manx Shearwater (Manx Shearwater) Puffinus puffinus

Sulidae

Gannet (Northern Gannet) Morus bassanus

Phalacrocoracidae

Cormorant (Great Cormorant) Phalacrocorax carbo

Shag (Eurasian Cormorant) Phalacrocorax aristotelis

Ardeidae

Grey Heron (Grey Heron) Ardea cinerea

Anatidae

Ferruginous Duck (Ferruginous Duck) Aythya nyroca

Canada Goose (Canada Goose) Branta canadensis

Graylag Goose (Graylag Goose) Anser anser

Mute Swan (Mute Swan) Cygnus olor

Eider (Common Eider) Somateria mollissima

Shelduck (Common Shelduck ) Tadorna tadorna

Red-breasted Merganser (Red-breasted Merganser) Mergus serrator

Accipitridae

Osprey (Osprey) Pandion haliaetus

White-tailed Eagle (White-tailed Eagle) Haliaeetus albicilla

Buzzard (Common Buzzard ) Buteo buteo

Golden Eagle (Golden Eagle) Aquila chrysaetos

Falconidae

Merlin (Merlin) Falco columbarius

Peregrine Falcon (Peregrine Falcon) Falco peregrinus

Phasianidae

Red Grouse (Willow Ptarmigan) Lagopus lagopus scotica

Rallidae

Coot (Eurasian Coot) Fulica atra

Charadriidae

Ringed Plover (Common Ringed Plover) Charadrius hiaticula

Lapwing (Northern Lapwing) Vanellus vanellus

Haematopodidae

Oystercatcher (Eurasian Oystercatcher) Haematopus ostralegus

Scolopacidae
Redshank (Common Redshank) Tringa totanus
Whimbrel (Whimbrel) Numenis phaeopus
Curlew (Eurasian Curlew) Numenius arquata
Turnstone (Ruddy Turnstone) Arenaria interpres
Sanderling (Sanderling) Calidris alba
Dunlin (Dunlin) Calidris alpina 
Snipe (Common Snipe) Gallinago gallinago

Stercorariidae

Great Skua (Great Skua) Stercorarius skua

Laridae

Herring Gull (Herring Gull) Larus argentatus

Great Black-backed Gull (Great Black-backed Gull) Larus marinus

Black-headed Gull (Black-headed Gull ) Larus ridibundus

Kittiwake (Black-legged Kittiwake) Rissa tridactyla

Common Tern (Common Tern) Sterna hirundo

Arctic Tern (Arctic Tern) Sterna paradisaea

Alcidae
Guillemot (Common Murre) Uria aalge
Razorbill (Razorbill) Alca torda
Black Guillemot (Black Guillemot) Cepphus grylle
Puffin (Atlantic Puffin) Fratercula arctica

Columbidae

Rock Dove (Rock Dove) Columba livia

Wood Pigeon (Common Wood Pigeon) Columba palumbus

Stock Dove (Stock Dove)Columba oenas

Collared Dove (Eurasian Collared Dove) Streptopelia decaoto

Apodidae

Swift (Common Swift) Apus apus

Muscicapidae (Old World Flycatchers)

Pied Flycatcher (European Pied Flycatcher) Ficedula hypoleuca

Corvidae

Jay (Eurasian Jay) Garrulus glandarius

Magpie (Black-billed Magpie) Pica pica

Carrion Crow (Carrion Crow) Corvus corone

Hooded Crow (Hooded Crow) Corvus cornix

Jackdaw (Eurasian Jackdaw) Corvus monedula

Rook (Rook) Corvus frugilegus

Raven (Common Raven) Corvus corax

Hirundinidae

Swallow (Barn Swallow) Hirundo rustica

House Martin (Common House Martin) Delichon urbica

Paridae

Blue Tit (Blue Tit) Cyanistes caeruleus

Great Tit (Great Tit) Parus major

Coal Tit (Coal Tit) Periparus aler

Certhidae

Tree Creeper (Eurasian Tree Creeper) Certhia familiaris

Troglodytidae

Wren (Winter Wren) Troglodytes troglodytes

Cinclidae

Dipper (White-throated Dipper) Cinclus cinclus

Turdidae

Robin (European Robin) Erithacus rubecula

Stonechat (European Stonecat) Saxicola rubicola

Northern Wheatear (Northern Wheatear) Oenathe oenathe

Ring Ouzel (Ring Ouzel) Turdus torquatus

Blackbird (Common Blackbird) Turdus merula

Mistle Thrush (Mistle Thrush) Turdus viscivorus

Sturnidae

Starling (European Starling) Sturnus vulgaris

Motacillidae

Pied Wagtail (Pied Wagtail) Motacilla alba yarrellii

Grey Wagtail (Grey Wagtail) Motacilla cinerea

Meadow Pipit (Meadow Pipit) Anthus prateusis

Calcariidae

Snow Bunting (Snow Bunting) Plectrophenax nivalis

Fringillidae

Goldfinch (European Goldfinch) Carduelis carduels

Chaffinch (Common Chaffinch) Fringilla coelebs

Passeridae

House Sparrow (House Sparrow) Passer domesticus 78

Retrograde

In the station at Corrour, I watched as Mike boarded the Northbound train to Fort William, waved as his face, then his window slid from view. Then I pulled out my camera, and began to thumb through the pictures I had taken, beginning with the station, where I now stood, as an isolated building surrounded by rugged moorland. And back to our campsite, the night before, and the long walk through Glen Nevis. A retrograde of our journey.

When it arrived, I boarded the train for Glasgow, settled into a window seat and watched the landscape slip by. There a pair of hikers, waterproofs donned against the day's pervasive mist, headed up a track through bracken and moorland. Sheep, high on a hill, crowned their kingdom of terraces. A haircut of grazing trails patterned into the hillside.

The tea cart stopped at my elbow, and I asked for a cup of tea, counting out the pound sixty while the server poured hot water.

At Crianlarich we hitch to the train from Oban and my mind wandered to the sun on the water, to the bagpipers along the quay, and the Isle of Mull ferry churning into the terminal.

The train lurched into movement and we continued south. We paralleled the stone wall that edged the West Highland Way. There were the ancient Caledonian pines, their crowns twisted with repeated breakages and new growth, and there the high point where we paused for lunch and watched the train pass.

We streamed south along Loch Lomond's western shore. We passed Castle Island, the white house with it's boothy, and the grand hotel at Inversnaid, traversing in an hour and a half what we took three days to walk.

At Glasgow's Queen Street station I changed for the train to Edinburgh. In the waste places along the tracks, only the upper reaches of the fireweed steeple held their pink blossoms. The rest of the plume had gone to seed. We skimmed just south of Sterling and I remembered its castle, flags flying stiff from the battlements.

I emerged in Edinburgh a bit discombobulated without my traveling partner. I headed across North Bridge and uphill to a small café, and settled in for a pint of ale and a good supper before navigating the now familiar streets to Leith and my home for the night. How different the city seemed on the eve of my farewell, than it had on our arrival.

And in the morning, my retrograde would conclude as I boarded the plane to the place my ancestors had learned to call home.

Wild in its Way

"Like so much of Scotland's wildest land, this is not an empty landscape, but an emptied one." Robert MacFarlane

We lost the track in Glen Nevis and forged on across the moorland. We were not, ourselves, lost, as our route followed the River Nevis to its origin and then descended along the Abhainn Rath. The silver ribbon of the Nevis cut through green and russet grasses. Valley walls swept up to surrounding peaks in a gentle slope carved by glaciers. On the high terrain, green gave way to stone and then to sky. Just this, grass and stone and sky. The rush of water and startle of a pipit. The land held no trees.

The land I call "wilderness" at home, is forested, for the most part, except for exposed peaks and open water. In New England, land left unmanaged, turns to trees.

We climbed a small rise to lengthen our view. As we climbed, we came across a channel where water cut down through black peat. From the mire, silvery bones of pines glinted. A graveyard trees. They told a different story then the one we encountered on the surface: the story of an ancient forest, felled. The clear reach of human habitation on this remote and rugged stretch of Scotland.

My home ground was not always wild. The decayed stone walls and veteran trees of the Northeast whisper of another landscape. But here, in the Scottish Highlands, called by some Europe's last wilderness, the cleared land remains treeless.

There were gifts to be found in this incarnation of landscape to be sure. It held wildness in its own way: in the protesting flush of a merganser taking flight, in the last blooms of wild thyme carpeting the gravel bar of an older riverbed, in the shifting light across the felsenmeer, in the sweet juice of an early blackberry.

We walked on, circling back to avoid the worst of the muck. And as I leapt from tussock to tussock, I thought about the stumps. What must it have looked like, this landscape, forested? How long ago? Yet, despite the lurch of loss in my gut, I savored the long open views of ridge and glen, the sweeping summits, now obscured by mist, now clear. The high open land drew me onward.