A pair of Leopards pick their spot

Here's a bit of a round-up of natural history snippets from the first half of July.

For 2025, I have added another bumblebee survey to my volunteering for the Species on the Edge project. The target species is the Great Yellow Bumblebee, although this Beewalk has yet to deliver one of those. The area is known as Stromness Waterworks, and I plotted a 1.7km route beginning at a track junction below the dam head. From there, a stony track leads west uphill onto heathland, then I turn northwards onto a rougher track which separates the heath from agricultural land. These two tracks have verges with plenty of wildflowers and the occasional garden escapee where soil has been dumped, all of which are good foraging for insects. Where a moorland track diverts to the north east, I follow it along a ruined stane dyke to the point where I took this photograph, behind me there is plenty of Wild Thyme and Bell Heather. The final section tracks south back across the heath, where the wildflowers hunker down in the shelter of ditches and small disused quarry pits.

Back at home, Megan continues to find moths in the garden, thankfully none on the camouflaged corrugations of the garage, so I could see them too.

Burnished Brass

After a weekend of persistent rain, the following weekend was as hot as I have experienced in Orkney. We needed no further encouragement to head to the pond on Brinkies Brae to survey for Odonata.

Black Darter (Photo: Megan Taylor)

Emerald Damselfly (Photo: Megan Taylor)

 Back in the garden again, back on the lookout for moths...

Light Arches

Last evening, whilst enjoying a beverage on the patio, we noticed a couple of Leopard Slugs climbing up the wall of the house. We were then distracted by the setting sun and a haar blowing in off the sea. By the time we remembered the slugs, they had decided to mate, spiralled around each other and slowly descending suspended from a thread of mucus. This is the sort of stuff one usually sees on wildlife documentaries, not by one's back door!

Having taken a couple of photos, we left them to apportion their packets of sperm as they saw fit. The only garden occupants which weren't thrilled by this were the new lettuce seedlings in the veg bed. Perhaps my salad days are behind me.