Natural highs and lows

It had been an arduous week, at least for folk who don't routinely set an alarm to rouse them from their slumbers. But several island trips meant being up and about to catch ferries and, by Friday morning we were agreed, the weekend couldn't come soon enough, with the promise of a lie-in and a slow day. As plans go, it only had one small flaw. All week, whilst pinging about between islands, we were aware that a rare bird had been sighted on yet another island, and as each day passed, it was still there, ramping up hope and tension in equal measure. Would it stay? Would we go? Come Friday evening, we absolutely caved on the lie-in idea and booked the ferry to Stronsay, leaving Kirkwall at 7am. Ouch. I was awake at 5am, before the alarm, blundering into the kitchen semi-conscious, rustling up tea and coffee to kickstart our day. Paradoxically, Megan, who is normally grumpy until at least the second coffee, was bouncing around at the thought of a twitch and adding a species to her...

Pedantic? Me? Yeah, a bit, probably. When it comes to having photos in date order in a blogpost, it is less stressful when everything is photographed with the same device, so that the file names are sequential. At least approximately, depending upon how many I have deleted for not being in focus, those that do not actually have the subject in them or are of my feet. Mostly, this is so (the order thing, not the accidental photos of my feet) but if I've used various cameras and my phone to take the images, they will all have different file prefixes courtesy of Panasonic, Canon and Apple. In this situation, I would usually renumber everything with a digit in front of the prefix so that the photos appear in the order I would like. Yes, you're correct, I could sort the images by date and time, which would help, but I am not reliable or quite pedantic enough to have each device on the same time zone. Some automatically follow daylight saving time, others don't and could be set to...

It's been a while since I have posted. There is wildlife stuff to blog about, but the last fortnight has been a bit of a whirlwind due to a family visit, as my younger daughter and her peedie son spent a week with us. What with "cleaning the world" prior to their arrival, seven days of full-on being a grandad and then a week to recover, it's been a journey! Preparation also involved sourcing some equipment, all of which was rather different from "back in the day" when my daughters were toddlers. A stroller was purchased and mantled, as was a car seat. A good friend loaned us a high chair and some age-specific toys for the wee one, and last but not least, we fitted a stairgate to the office so that the cats, Cookie and Mocha, had a safe space (which I dubbed The Panic Room). It being Orkney, there was, let's say, a range of meteorological conditions for everyone to deal with, but on the whole, the sun put in plenty of appearances. Another good friend gav...

As alluded to at the end of the previous post, there was so much insect activity to see (amongst other senses...) whilst wandering about Stanger Head on the island of Flotta, that a second post was deemed a necessity. The target species chosen by our walk leader, Helen, was the Six-spot Burnet, a day-flying moth which is on the wing at this time of year. Whilst widespread in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and spreading through Scotland, here in Orkney, this is its only known site. Reason enough then for a pilgrimage to see it, and that's before we consider how it looks to the human eye, a visual treat of glossy, dark bluish blacks and stunning reds. Of course, to other animals who might consider the moth as prey, those colours are a warning sign, as the adult and caterpillar contain hydrogen cyanide, rendering them unpalatable or poisonous in sufficient quantity. Some of our group did try sniffing a moth, with the female contingent having more success than the male one at det...