Natural highs and lows

If you'll allow me to be philosophical for a moment, sometimes you have to take a soaking, simply to experience the zingy intensity of the light immediately after a rain shower. Looking across Birsay Bay to the Brough, a double rainbow heralded the arrival of a few moments of a 'just washed' landscape, every rock sparkling in the warm rays of the sun. Wildlife unfurled from wherever it had hunkered down to withstand the deluge, and the bay was suddenly all a-frenzy, with ducks, waders, gulls and pipits busily feeding. Earlier, we had sat in the RSPB hide at The Loons, watching wave after wave of Golden Plover go overhead. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and we followed in their direction and discovered a flock of maybe 400 birds in a field behind Marwick Choin. Back at Birsay, a pair of Goldfinches kept us enthralled for ages as they fed on thistle seeds, often hopping rather than flying between the prickly plants. The following day was dreich, but cheered up imm

It all began about a week ago, and in the intervening seven days, there had been several power outages in our kitchen. An RCD kept tripping randomly, making it difficult to diagnose which circuit was the problem: smoke alarms; kitchen lights; kitchen sockets; immersion heater; or oven. The most likely devices which would trigger these intermittent outages were a kettle, a toaster, the fridge-freezer or the immersion heater. It dawned on me that this was going to need the services of a qualified professional, but with the random nature of the problem, I could see a huge electrician's bill in the offing, as various things were tried to narrow down the cause. Whilst mulling over the decision for one last time, prior to eventually caving in and making the call, my partner reckoned that we might have an uninvited guest because there was an aroma in the kitchen. My sense of smell is not great (a long-standing situation and not pandemic-related!) so I couldn't offer an opinion. Then,

A slow start to a Sunday meant that it was nearly lunchtime before we donned our walking boots in Burwick at the southern tip of South Ronaldsay. The car park for the John O'Groats passenger ferry was empty, as the service has stopped for the Winter, but as we admired a brightly-coloured fungus by the path, a few other cars appeared. Folk clad in outdoorsy gear made their way along the clifftop path towards the Grey Seal pupping coves, and we followed suit whilst I tried to think what a chrome yellow mushroom might be called... Deathly Lemon?... False Banana Murderer?... Egg Yolk Deathcap? The truth was a little more prosaic, as I think this is a Yellow Fieldcap Bolbitius titubans. It certainly added a splash of vibrancy to an overcast day. As we reached the bay of Bur Wick, a quick scan of several coves showed that pup numbers had increased since our last visit, when we had recorded 4 recent births. We counted 33 this time, one already moulting out of its white fur. Warning: Cuten

Autumn has opened her colour palette and begun painting the landscape, the weather has abruptly become more blustery and showery, and birds are on the move - some to warmer climes south, others to... well, here is warmer climes for them. T he dry Spring and Summer have been replaced with days of persistent rain, initially and fortunately of the vertical kind, which spent time slowly soaking into the parched ground. Today the showers have been sharp and horizontal, spurred on by a strong to gale force westerly.  I tried outdoors, at least for the first two squalls, so can confirm that sitting on the sofa writing a blogpost instead is eminently preferable. Here's a photo I retrieved from my phone, taken at the end of last month whilst working in Hoy. I was on my way back to Lyness to catch the ferry home, and encountered some sheep being moved between pastures. It was a fraught few minutes, wondering whether I would make the sailing, or be stuck on the island all night. And I believe

As an addendum to the previous post about the Peregrine falcon, that afternoon we wandered up to Houton Head, passing the Starling flock which had been fortunate to avoid the predations of the raptor. They were taking it all in their stride (wingflap?), to be fair. Out on the Head, we sat on the parapet of one of the old military structures and watched the goings on out in Bring Deeps. Gannets and Kittiwakes were passing southwards close to shore, a few Great Skuas likewise, and the local sub aqua club were diving in the channel. Despite much looking, there was nary a fin to be seen breaking the water's surface, but the sky provided a bit of interest with this layered cloud seen to the south, possibly a less than perfectly neat lenticular? Tromping back along the clifftop path, we encountered caterpillars every few steps, pretty much all of them Ruby Tiger moth larvae. One Ragwort plant even had six caterpillars on it, with my cropped photo of the topmost three eliciting a chorus o