Natural highs and lows

The Haunted Garden, a ghostly tale of a bewitching annual ritual. The setting for this orrery story is the eerie twilight of June 21st 2026, the Summer Solstice, rather than the eldritch dark of an All Hallows Eve. The ghostly goings-on portrayed below were filmed in the hour before midnight so, yes, I had to stay up especially late 🥱. Inexplicably, this snippet didn't make it into the blog back in the Summer but it is, to date, the most ethereal thing that has happen around here this year. Sadly, the accompanying sound hasn't transferred well from phone to computer, as it features a mournful Curlew call and a slightly more chipper Blackbird song (also, thankfully, none of my yawns). These are male Ghost Moths, lekking to attract and impress a female. At dusk, in June, they appear from the grassy sward and perform this swaying flight. Whilst the males are a ghostly white, the females are a pale orange and yellow. Their caterpillars feed on the roots of Docks, for which they ha...

Another pleasant day prompted me to stop work at lunchtime, ostensibly to spend the afternoon invoicing customers, ordering more stock and settling bills. But I was running out of time and nice weather to carry out October's Beewalk. To be fair, this is a month too far for Orkney's bumblebees, there's been precious few in the garden let alone out on the windswept moors.  However, the lure of fresh air and exercise proved sufficient and off I went to Stromness waterworks. I have been meaning to photograph the whole transect for some time, but always seem to forget. This time, although I had remembered, the sun was shining directly down the first section, so here's the view back to the start (at the base of the dam). There are very few flowers in bloom now, I noted four species: a single Dandelion, a single Creeping Buttercup, the occasional bit of Bell Heather and some Cat's-ear. At the height of Summer I regularly clocked over forty species. No wonder there's no...

This morning I was working at a property near the RSPB's Loons reserve. As I was a little early for the appointment, I briefly stopped off at the Listening Wall, a curved structure set above the wetlands which concentrates the sounds of nature for those seated and listening. Sadly, all I managed was an indignant female Mallard. I had better luck at my next port of call, the main (and only) hide on the reserve. As I opened one of the shutters, I spotted a very distant Hen Harrier quartering the far side of the reed bed. Probably due to the attentions of this raptor, it seemed as though every Snipe in Orkney was in the air, as small flocks whooshed by the hide. The back wall of the hide is decorated with a mural by talented local artist Anne Bignall. With a few wisps of Snipe visible top left Then, whilst I was working at the customer's properrty, even more Snipe and several flocks of Golden Plover went over my head, their calls ringing out through the pleasant Autumnal morning....

Quite a pleasant day, truth be told. Sunny periods and showers, with much gentler breezes than of late. As I rose from bed, I peeked out of the bedroom curtains but the sky didn't look too promising. Halfway through emptying the dish washer, I noticed that there was a pinkish tinge developing, so kitchen duties ground to halt whilst I captured the moment. Mid-morning, I took a wander around the garden, to see if there was anything about. The Sedum which had been keeping all the nectaring insects in a good mood was in a sorry state. It looked like a mini version of the Tunguska event from 1908, where an atmospheric air burst of a comet or meteoroid flattened  2,150 km 2  of Siberian forest. I couldn't find any bees, however, I did manage to spot a hoverfly, perched in a sunny spot on the front door frame. I think this is a male Eristalis pertinax . Until I downloaded the photos to my computer, I didn't realise that in the second photo, he was answering a call of nature. The...

It seems as though I may have been slightly premature with my talk of Storm Chloe. That's not to say that there isn't a yellow warning in place for most of Scotland, or it isn't blowing an absolute hoolie outside (60+mph during daylight hours in Orkney, higher elsewhere), but this bit of weather is, as yet, officially unnamed. We are a long way from Exeter, home of the Met Office. However, at breakfast time, the sun was shining and Mocha was quite keen to go outdoors. I chose the most sheltered portal for the conditions, which happened to be the front door, and cautiously opened it. Mocha took in the air, without ever setting a paw over the threshold and, after a brief deliberation with herself, decided "Nah, thanks anyway."  Sensible choice. Today was household waste collection day.  Our local council are currently trialling a new type of refuse truck, it's called a RotoPress and looks like the lovechild of a conventional bin lorry and a cement mixer (if that...

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...