Around the Scottish Dolphin Centre.....

Around the Scottish Dolphin Centre you can see many things that are not dolphins. Like...

gooseanders

ospreys

terms

Sensible waste disposal

The centre itself (shop, wildlife-viewing and much more)                                  

Giant Water Hogweed (this one is                                                                                  about 10ft high)

House martins

 Mute swans

The 'dolphin-whisperer'

                                                                           Charlie Phillips (more often sighted at

                                               Chanonry Point.)

Wigwams of drift wood

People with big lenses

The River Spey (complete with leaping salmon - not shown)

And much more (including dolphins - see below)!

More Scottish Dolphins

Even better pictures today - all from Chanonry Point.

The people and the dolphins - the dolphins are just to the left of their admirer in the green top.

Just a light snack!

Scottish dolphins ahoy!

Can there be a better place than Chanonry Point in north Scotland (just above Inverness) for viewing bottlenose dolphins?

When I arrived there this afternoon a small crowd of photographers were already in place (many with bazooka-sized professional lenses) on the gravel spit that sticks out into the Moray Firth.

Channory Point

Soon everyone was pointing excitedly and lenses moved in unison to point in parallel as the school - in several separate groups - swept in from the seaward size. They milled for a while off the point and then moved on.

Now I am no Charlie Phillips (his blog here) but even I could not fail to get some pictures.

The sighting clearly made the day for many holidaymakers and the gang of photographers reinforced themselves with some hot tea and settled back to await the dolphins' return.

Distinctive sickle-shaped dorsal fin

Here - a distant dolphin sees off a gannet - or is it the other way around?

Summertime visitors - badgers

So I did not expect these visitors, but there were a few clues: odd little holes in the lawn and occasional rustlings in the hedgerow that runs to the back of my garden - neither of which I could explain. Then, suddenly, one dull summer's evening when the drizzle was finely falling, I saw a face come around the old flower pot that helps to hold up the bird feeder. It was twilight. And after one striped face came another. They seemed to be finishing off the left-over bird food and as there could not have been much of this I suspect that what they are really after are the worms in the guano-enriched soil.

They seem entirely oblivious to being watched from the upper story windows and pretty tolerant to the noises that come from the house. I think they are well used to them and have been watching us for sometime and decided we are mainly harmless..... which is true. It is a great privilege to see these pretty little animals close up.

And here...

... a three badger evening!

Back in the bird nursery

Young - recently fledged - birds are still a feature of the summer garden here. They include Stumpy, the tail-less starling. It is now clear that he is not able to keep up with the rest of the flock. He cannot fly as well as them at the moment and he cannot get onto the fat feeder, which the other young starlings (and their parents) seems to spend much of the day squabbling over, but he is surviving and, hopefully, his tail will grow back.

We are also now down to one juvenile robin. Its a tough life out there.

Young robin

Young blue tit

We have also had some other more unexpected visitors to the garden and they will be the subject of the next blog. They too are fond of peanuts but they cannot fly at all.

Australia Versus Japan at the International Court of Justice REV2

As many readers will know, Australia has taken Japan to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its 'scientific whaling' activities in Antarctica. This is undoubtedly an historic case with very significant implications for future whaling and I am not going to comment beyond this here, but I will provide some links below where you can find out more.

You can find some official background to the case here.

Andrew Darby is one of the leading journalists who follows the whaling issue and you can see his opening article on the case here.

The case is now entering its second (of three) weeks of the hearing. The first three days, last week, consisted of Australia presenting its case, the presentations by its expert scientific witnesses and some cross questioning of the same. Japan starts to make its reply from Tuesday afternoon.

You can watch the case live on the ICJ website or you can watch video recordings - the link to both of these is here.

I will update this page with other links as I spot them.

Newer Links

Interesting commentary from Philippa Brakes of WDC here

Latest from Andrew Darby (including pictures of the court) here

Attorney General of Australia commenting on the case (9th July) here

And again here on ABC.

The case closes (16th of July) - comments on Japan's closing statements here and here

Australia concludes its case - Darby again (11th July) here

Andrew Darby's final thoughts, including a little more on what happens next here

Back in the UK - the birds and the bees

More summer visitors to the garden:

The European Magpie (last seen in Jeju) here in the UK

Greater  spotted woodpecker and adult starling share a bird-feeder

Bathtime

A youngster

'Stumpy' the tail-less young starling

Stumpy again

Parent robin looking for its two youngsters

One young robin begs for food

And here is the other

Even in my relatively protected garden it is obviously a tough life for young birds. They lack the experience of older birds and no matter how watchful their parents are, there are many hazards for the youngsters. The small pile of brown feathers that I found a couple of days ago can be explained by Stumpy's condition. I suspect that he was grabbed by a cat and whilst he has survived, his tail is gone and he seems to spend most of his time running about on the ground. When startled the other flock members fly swiftly up and and away into the hedgerow but stumpy runs for cover in the long grass.