Natural highs and lows

Living within a group of islands, it's important not to take any published transport timetables as gospel truth because acts of God aren't even near the top of the list of things that can go awry. Recently, I was tasked with carrying out a repair in North Ronaldsay, one of the smaller islands within the archipelago, which is a 15 minute plane journey or a two and a half hour boat trip from Kirkwall. I was requested to attend on a Saturday and went to book a return flight which would suit. Loganair could fly me back in the afternoon, but there was no room on the outward plane in the morning. Not to worry, I could catch the early morning ferry, which would see me in North Ronaldsay by about half ten. What no-one could have possibly predicted was another ferry having a technical issue, the timetable being rejigged and my sailing being pushed back until after lunch, all of which would get me to the island just in time to catch the plane home. Oh well, let's make a new plan for ...

At the beginning of May, fate transpired to bring the wild a little closer to our door. Yes, it's those lovely, long-eared lagomorphs once more! The fields at the front and the back of our home extend northwards into the rough pasture of a little valley of the burn which once fed a mill. Across the other side of this valley are yet more fields. These are the places where we often see Brown Hares, at least if the hares are not actively seeking to be unseen! Of late, the field behind us was ploughed, rolled and sown, making it less than ideal hare habitat (that is, until the crop comes through), and all the other fields have been liberally 'enriched' with slurry. So, dear reader, you may be wondering, where does a discerning hare go to dine, rather than frequent the slim pickings of a ploughed field or the piquant plate of a shoddy sward? The three building plots adjacent to us are still a blank canvas as regards bricks and mortar, which means that they remain what, I am gues...

Crivens! We've been back from holiday for more than three weeks and I still haven't finished my round-up of goings-on. The month of May is impatiently drumming its fingers on the table top of life and exasperatedly wondering just when it will have its moment in the spotlight. So let's sum up the last few days of our sojourn to the Cairngorm area and the trip home. Although there was an abundance of wildlife around our rented cottage, for the final day of our holiday, we decided to go further afield, and drove via Tomintoul and the Lecht Road to the Muir of Dinnet National Nature Reserve. En route, we stopped off for breakfast at an excellent roadside cafe near Corgarff, and we can recommend the black pudding and egg rolls. The Nature.scot website has this to say about the Muir of Dinnet reserve: " The sheer variety of habitats and landforms makes this an amazing place for wildlife and people alike." Which is good enough for us, we needed no further encouragement....

We set aside a day for venturing to Loch Ruthven, south east of Loch Ness, in the hope of seeing Slavonian Grebes in breeding plumage. These birds are Winter visitors to Orkney, but do not breed here, and don't wear their Summer colours during the stay. Come the day, the weather was dreich, with a steady and unrelenting rain falling from a grey sky and dripping from the Scots Pines around the cottage. However, checking the forecast for Inverness, it appeared that it was a different day there. More in hope than expectation, we set off anyway, and as we crossed the Slochd summit, heading north, the sun was indeed shining. No sooner were we ensconced in the hide at the RSPB reserve of Loch Ruthven, when an Osprey drifted through. It being April, it was still chilly despite the drier weather, but we were eventually rewarded with a view of a pair of Slav Grebes. To warm up again, we decamped to a tea room and farm shop near Foyers for a well-earned bowl of soup and some cake. With no fi...

Did I allude to a lazy morning in a recent blog? Well, it happened. One of those days when one's get-up-and-go has got up and gone. Umpteen mugs of tea did not bump-start my mojo, but hey, we were on holiday, so it's all good. Instead, we eventually sauntered down the hill to the Nethy House cafe for an early lunch, before tromping off into the woods for an afternoon of wildlife watching. En route to the cafe, a Red Admiral and a Small Tortoiseshell were nectaring on a roadside bush. We managed a few photos of the former, but a passing car spooked the latter before we could commit it to pixels. Still, these were our first flutters of the year, and it felt like an energy boost for us too. After an excellent lunch at the cafe, we wandered back over the eponymous bridge, past the village shop and followed a sign for the Speyside Way. This path took us by some sports pitches, then between the Millennium pools where, in a month or so, there will be loads of damselflies and dragonfli...

It is said that whilst on holiday there's the chance to do things differently, maybe staying up late and sleeping all morning, or skydiving, or eating and drinking oneself into an absolute stupor. We may have had the odd lie-in, and the occasional meal out, but the one thing we had less of on holiday was sky. No, we didn't go caving or exploring a nuclear bunker, our 'different' is habitat, rather than habit. At home, there are not, as yet, any trees in our garden, so the views are quite unrestricted, less for buildings and neighbours' planting. Consequently, the birds we see in, or from, our garden are not the usual garden birds. In fact, as I've been typing this paragraph, a Great Skua flew by, pursued by an irate Curlew. So our holiday indulgence is trees, and if possible a river. The cottage we were staying in is very much in the category of 'can't see the wood for the trees', mainly Scots Pine and Birch, and the birdage is so very different from...

Usually, having spent at least a day travelling to a holiday destination, I like the first full day on holiday to not involve a car. So, having carelessly forgotten to check the weather forecast, we woke to a wet Sunday morning and immediately resolved not to be so carless. Instead, we drove to RSPB Loch Garten to see a pair of Ospreys. The visitor centre has a wall of tv monitors showing camera close-ups of various scenes. Two large monitors showed the Osprey nest and a favourite perch in a neighbouring tree. Another monitor was split-screened into four, giving a view of a bird feeder; a couple of nest cams (Goldeneye and Great Tit); and a mammal box baited with nuts which had a Bank Vole foraging busily. The female Osprey had very recently (within the hour) laid her first egg for the year, so the staff were very excited. Her mate was sat in the neighbouring tree, having just caught a Brown Trout, which he was undecided whether to offer to the female or eat himself. After watching for...

Towards the end of April, it was time for our "Summer" holiday, before Megan's busiest months of wildlife guiding around Orkney from May to September. This year we chose to return to a favourite destination, booking a week in a self-catering cottage at Nethy Bridge in the Cairngorms area of Scotland. We had previously only visited in June (in 2021 and 2022, although those two holidays had been quite different owing to the very cold Spring of 2021), so we were keen to see how we would fare several months earlier in the year. The journey south meant an early sailing from Stromness, the mv Hamnavoe easing out of port at 06.30 for the 90 minute crossing of the Pentland Firth. After a quick breakfast aboard, we headed out onto deck to sea watch for birds. I was rewarded with my first Great Skuas (Bonxies) of the year, and also a couple of Puffins as we neared Scrabster on the mainland. Driving off the ferry, most of our fellow passengers headed east for the A9 and the quick wa...