Bed hare

What. A. Weekend.

I had hoped to complete my working day on Friday before the gale force winds arrived, but they showed up early. So, rather than run the risk of having the van doors ripped out of my hands and my equipment and stock distributed downwind in a rapid manner, I shut up shop (figuratively, I don't have a shop), apologised to customers and rebooked visits for this week.

The afternoon was spent hunkering down as cosily as possible and trying to ignore the horizontal weather outside. Happily, there was a Zoom talk arranged for that evening, when one of the local amateur naturalists was giving a presentation about two Summers spent watching Common Carder bees in her garden. At the allotted time, we all logged on and were grandly entertained with photos and film footage of wee bees busily building nests, collecting pollen and making bee bread. It's not the same as having a live social event, but then again, with the storm, we would've had to cancel the whole thing anyway.

Saturday dawned as blowy as ever, but the British Dragonfly Society was holding its annual conference, again online, so a pleasant day was spent listening to talks about all manner of dragonfly-influenced science and projects.

Sunday was a much calmer and brighter day, and not long after dawn I opened the curtains to this...

The bird feeder, which had spent the best part of a week feeling rather lonely due to the Sparrowhawk incident, was now inundated with all manner of frantically-feeding feathered fauna: House Sparrows, Starlings and Greenfinches. On the ground underneath, another cast of birds were rootling through the snow for spillages: Dunnock, Robin, a couple of Rock Doves and a Rook. The Blackbirds were pecking their way through some apple halves, Goldfinches and Redwings were furtling about in the tops of the Willows and, by now, the Rook had figured out how to gain direct access to the bird feeder.

Robin snowboarding on a pear half

We were still in our dressing gowns at this point, having only journeyed from the bed to the window. Suddenly, a Brown Hare appeared in our neighbour's garden and soon made its way to ours. We held our breath as it investigated the vegetable beds just below the window, checking out a few leeks and the frozen kale.

Redwing

During the previous day, we had noticed a message on social media which mentioned a Turtle Dove which was present in a garden in a nearby village. This would be a rare occurrence at any time of year (sadly in much of the UK, not just Orkney), so after we had calmed down from the Hare excitement, we donned outdoor gear and set off through the snow.

NOTE: if you walk to see a rare bird, that's probably not a twitch. OK?

Between sunshine and snow showers, we had a pleasant walk along a lane giving views over Scapa Flow and across to the hills of Hoy. It was just so nice to be out after the cabin fever of the previous few days.

Snow showers over Scapa Flow

Hedgerow haws

Reed Bunting

Hoy hills

A day for woollens

More snow showers over Scapa Flow

Just before I decided to put my camera away...

Whilst we did see the dove (my first for many years), my photos were a turtle disaster.

Fortunately, Megan has kindly given me permission to use one of hers.