Natural highs and lows

Well, what do you know? Another gale. This one's from the east, so all the plant pots which we'd moved from the back of the house to the front for protection from the previous westerly, have had to be issued with return tickets and re-routed (re-rooted?) to their former location. Perhaps we actually sowed seeds of doubt? This particular hoolie has been designated as Storm Gerrit, and horizontal sleet is currently splattering madly against our east-facing windows. Mocha and Cookie, our cats, are taking it in turns to monitor the west-facing windows, staring out at the flailing grasses, as well as every leaf which dances in the vortices beyond the lee of the house. We're forecasted to have 70mph gusts after lunch, which sounds more like curried beans on toast than a weather prediction. Wildlife watching in December has suffered from the prolonged period of gales. Whilst there have been moments of calm to enable us to assuage our cabin fever, the short Winter days have meant p...

On the cusp of the Winter Solstice for 2023, we're hunkered down whilst a severe gale rips through the north of Scotland. As Highland & Islands Weather put it on their Facebook page recently: " **WIND WARNING** No, granny hasn't been on the sprouts already...but it's the storm with no name as it's only really affecting northern Scotland and only sheep and coos live here and the odd haggis A deep area of low pressure passing to our north will bring a swathe of gale or severe gale NW winds west to east on Thursday morning, clearing the far NE and Northern Isles through the afternoon. Gusts in excess of 75mph for coasts, Isles and exposed spots." And also: "Thursday's storm with no name is now named Storm Pia by the Danish Meteorological Institute." So at least we're on someone's radar, even if it's not that of the UK's Met Office. I haven't posted anything for a while and also I am unlikely to have the opportunity to photogr...

Usually (if there is still such a concept in a post-Brexit,  post-Covid Britain), at the beginning of December, there is a few flurries of snow in Orkney to remind everyone that we live on the same latitude as the southern tip of Greenland. This year, not so much. Instead, we had quite a rare thing, days of frost and ice, with barely a breath of wind. Rare because, well, we don't really do consecutive days of the same weather. Rare because to experience that many days of frost should take a whole Winter. Rare because there wasn't one flake of snow despite the low temperatures. Overnight, the mercury in the thermometer has hauled itself lethargically back above freezing and the wind (ok, a gale) has returned. Driving rain has washed the crisp frosty white from the landscape, leaving behind a subdued palette of colours, which in Winter sunlight would be burnished gold, but is currently a drab yellowy-green. During the icy spell, we did have several walks around the single track r...

It's that time of year again, when our photo calendar begins to take shape. With the nights drawing in, we can spend some time recapping the images we took whilst wildlife-watching in 2023, and whittle down the shortlists we've both created to leave, hopefully, enough pictures to fill all the pages. As for last year, most of the flora and fauna were photographed in Orkney, with just one exception, although it is of a species that is resident in Orkney. For the 2024 calendar, there are two options of front cover, as one was... er... tailored... to the recipients. Of the 14 images, the split isn't quite 50/50, with 6 of Megan's and 8 of mine. The year covered the time when we moved from Houton to Stromness, and obviously the calendar reflects this. And to think I was worried that we wouldn't be able to see as much wildlife "in the town". We have tried to be varied with our subjects, rather than concentrate on one topic, so for 2024 we have landscapes, a skys...