Natural highs and lows

At about peak Boelo yesterday afternoon, I received an email from a customer asking me to pop by at my convenience to fix a broken tv aerial. What's that saying? "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good". Here at Burnbank, we seem to have survived relatively unscathed, which is quite surprising considering the noises that the house was making last night. And talking of noises, I don't know whether it was because it was a full moon, but Mocha was very vocal and very awake during the hours of darkness. I even got up at 2am to sit in the lounge with her for a while. That cat loves attention at any time of day. My actual planned work this morning was cancelled by the customer (and rebooked for next week) so off I went to sort out the afore-mentioned aerial. Not long after leaving Stromness, I rounded a bend and spotted a group of Whooper Swans in a roadside field. I wondered whether they might have flown south from Iceland on the back of the storm.  Driving throug...

06:20 Up early this morning, mainly due to the change to GMT, but also because I could hear a bird singing. In my semi-somnolent state I couldn't identify the songster, but big respect to whomsoever it was. Mocha was pleased to see me though, at least up until the point that she realised the thrushes were going to be fed before she was. As I sliced up some apples, I tried to explain to her that the Blackbirds were out in the awful weather and probably needed a bit of pampering much more than a cat did. She remained wholly unconvinced. 07:10 Mocha has now been given her meds, heavily disguised in a cat yoghurt treat. From the kitchen window, I count 17 Blackbirds and a single Redwing. The wind and rain are increasing in intensity, and now hitting the rear of the house, meaning that the front garden is a little more sheltered. As if to prove my reasoning, a pair of Dunnocks appear from under the kitchen window. 07:30 Mocha fed (Cat edit: "finally fed"). 08:45 Megan's up...

A late start this morning, the sun was already well above the horizon when I finally stirred. It is Saturday, I guess, but it meant that I missed an opportunity to photograph dawn. As soon as I had fed Mocha, I put an apple out for the thrushes and a couple of Blackbirds immediately materialised out of nowhere. Photo: M Taylor Indeed, there were a few more species around than usual. A pair of Dunnocks hopped along the garden wall and into the undergrowth, the local House Sparrow flock put in an appearance (perhaps someone's feeders hadn't been filled) and a Collared Dove investigated what the Blackbirds were up to. Brief sightings of a Robin, a Wren and a pair of Pied Wagtails were then overshadowed by the first appearance this Autumn of a Blackcap. It was a male, with the eponymous headgear, and Megan immediately sliced up another apple in the hope of tempting it down onto the ground to feed. Alas, it seemed content to search the few remaining Sycamore leaves for insects rathe...

It has been so calm in Orkney today, in stark contrast to the weather farther south and what is due for here at the weekend. We  were up early, me to catch up with one of the jobs postponed from yesterday, and Megan to head to Burwick in South Ronaldsay to guide some tourists along the clifftops above the Grey Seal pupping beaches. Here's a few photos taken around dawn, including a very faint sun dog in the 3rd shot (just to the left of the flying bird). Working outdoors was much more pleasant this morning, with the repair completed in weak sunshine. Back home, there was a cable to run from the lounge, through the loft, and into a corridor, so that the broadband router can return to its usual place in the centre of the house following the installation of full fibre. Fortunately, I was able to use an old aerial cable as a pull-through from the lounge and then the now-redundant phone cable as another pull-through into the corridor. It only remains for me to terminate the ethernet cab...

It's rather a blustery day, with driving rain, not ideal for working outside with power tools. I rescheduled the day's visits, returned home and settled down to some admin tasks. The Winter thrushes are still moving through, still mainly Redwings, and one eventually deigned to hop about our garden. After lunch, Megan counted at least 150 in the field across the track, with more flocks arriving all the time. As Storm Boelo is bringing 70+mph winds on Sunday, we took the opportunity, during a break in the showers, to move our garden furniture into the garage. Hopefully the garage will be ok! Other storms are available for folk farther south. So the weekend will likely be spent indoors, keeping cosy and warm, probably with my nose in a book and fortified by a conveyor belt of tea mugs. The to-be-read pile is simmering nicely. Unsurprisingly, it's heavy on natural history. The George Monbiot book is my unfinished holiday reading, having sat in the pile for years. I don't kn...

For a couple of weeks now, thrushes have been arriving in the UK from their Scandinavian breeding grounds, hoping for better weather here during the Winter. Birders in Orkney have been studiously counting flock sizes, which have occasionally been in the thousands, but this mainly happens on the east side of the archipelago rather than on the west where we live. However, today we noticed the first few Redwings of the Autumn in the field over the track, and a couple of different Blackbirds in the garden. Apples were immediately deployed, halved and deposited in plain sight, just a short glide from our neighbour's trees.  By lunchtime, it was only the Blackbirds which were confident (or hungry) enough to hop about the front garden. My understanding is that the all-dark individuals are from Scandinavia The resident Blackbird The flocks continued to arrive though, now with a few Fieldfares among them, but no sign of any Song Thrushes yet, or the Holy Grail of Thrushdom, a Ring Ouzel. Re...