Brambling Ramblings - Dec 21 2010

Brambling Ramblings – Dec 21 2010

I have mixed feelings about winter and empathise with the stratagem of migration. On the other hand, the scenery is superb on crisp, sunny days like today when Moulin has a light carpeting of snow, not so deep that you get knackered trudging through it; just enough. We had our share of the deep stuff a fortnight ago. Two level feet of Christmas Delight up at the hatchery is as much as I can be bothered with. While nearly all of it has gone here after a slow thaw, the severe frost has returned and the Moulin Burn is like a small glacier, edging its way downhill. It is in danger of spilling onto the Kirkmichael Road, at a point where I suspect some late-night enthusiasts of the alcoholic persuasion toppled a few of the bankside stones into the water. Been there, done that kind of thing myself in an earlier era. A founder member of Grumpy Old Men, I now see the fallibility of such juvenile euphoria. Not to mention the errant flow that would have to pass close to our house.

I have just got back from the Club Hatchery. This time, I didn’t take our young Labs, Vrackie and Katie, as Katie fell through thick, but unstable, ice into a pool among some large boulders, a couple of days ago. Being a Lab, she was not in the least concerned, but she might have struggled to get out, and I don’t always have my eye on the dogs up there. Not that there is a lot for me to do, except try to maintain a flow through the hatchery troughs and outside tanks. The fish don’t require feeding in such cold water. I bash the ice here and there as a kind of therapy, especially at the top water gate to the lade which supplies us. Also, the big, stainless-steel washing machine drum that acts as a primary filter has to be attended to, for it can gather a thick coat of soft ice which blocks all the holes. If the flow stops, the pipes supplying the hatchery filter tanks, the hatchery itself, and/or the intake and outlet pipes at the outside tanks are bound to freeze. Then it’s mostly a waiting game for a thaw. Air temperatures of less than about -10C signal problems and that’s not unusually cold for here in harder spells. By our standards, however, this winter is a belter! I suppose I could resign as Trout Rearing and Stocking Manager, like the recent Scottish Government Transport Minister who was unaware of the bad weather forecast. So far so good; the eggs and the fish seem to be okay.

Bramblings? Well, I am sitting here in the kitchen thawing out and watching the wee birdies spraying our expensive bird seeds all over the ground. Just now, the main culprits are a large and very flighty bunch of chaffinches. The gold finches and siskins have their “own” Nijer feeder and mostly stay aloof from the general mêlée. There’s an occasional brambling among the chaffinches, four being the most we have noticed at one time. Most of these garden birds are winter migrants from Scandinavia that come here for our cushie climate(!) – and the expensive bird seed. As cold-blooded creatures, the trout that live nearby in the Moulin Burn can huddle down in peace until spring. As long as there is some water with dissolved oxygen, they are naturally-adapted to cope. The hungry heron keeps a watch for those that stray from cover and one of the few remaining threats is the odd young Lab, or Grumpy Old Man, that may fall in and thrash them to death.
AFW