Natural highs and lows

It's rather a blustery day, with driving rain, not ideal for working outside with power tools. I rescheduled the day's visits, returned home and settled down to some admin tasks. The Winter thrushes are still moving through, still mainly Redwings, and one eventually deigned to hop about our garden. After lunch, Megan counted at least 150 in the field across the track, with more flocks arriving all the time. As Storm Boelo is bringing 70+mph winds on Sunday, we took the opportunity, during a break in the showers, to move our garden furniture into the garage. Hopefully the garage will be ok! Other storms are available for folk farther south. So the weekend will likely be spent indoors, keeping cosy and warm, probably with my nose in a book and fortified by a conveyor belt of tea mugs. The to-be-read pile is simmering nicely. Unsurprisingly, it's heavy on natural history. The George Monbiot book is my unfinished holiday reading, having sat in the pile for years. I don't kn...

For a couple of weeks now, thrushes have been arriving in the UK from their Scandinavian breeding grounds, hoping for better weather here during the Winter. Birders in Orkney have been studiously counting flock sizes, which have occasionally been in the thousands, but this mainly happens on the east side of the archipelago rather than on the west where we live. However, today we noticed the first few Redwings of the Autumn in the field over the track, and a couple of different Blackbirds in the garden. Apples were immediately deployed, halved and deposited in plain sight, just a short glide from our neighbour's trees.  By lunchtime, it was only the Blackbirds which were confident (or hungry) enough to hop about the front garden. My understanding is that the all-dark individuals are from Scandinavia The resident Blackbird The flocks continued to arrive though, now with a few Fieldfares among them, but no sign of any Song Thrushes yet, or the Holy Grail of Thrushdom, a Ring Ouzel. Re...

Today is International Sloth Day, and as I'm feeling a bit under the weather, I think I can appreciate the sentiment. Funnily enough, one of the recent cards I received did feature this somewhat less than energetic creature. I can't think why. One evening at the end of September, I completely forgot about a Zoom meeting for the staff and area coordinators of the British Dragonfly Society Scotland. I was mortified, despite not having many species of dragon and not much to add at such meetings. I mention this because one of the actions to come out of the evening was to look at 10km (hectad) squares with few or no records to understand why this should be. I must point out that the world of biological recording relies heavily on squares of varying sizes to understand the distributions of plants and animals, which then informs conservation actions. For instance, before I moved to Orkney, I helped the Buckinghamshire Dragonfly recorder (aka Alan) with 10km square data for the BDS Atl...

Sunday was a peach of a day, worthy of sitting outside with a morning cuppa. A few hardy bumblebees, wasps and honey bees busied about the flowers which remained in bloom. There weren't many leaves left on the trees when I took a wander around the garden. I popped down the hill to post a card and it seemed as though the whole population of Stromness was mowing or weeding or generally tidying up, making the most of the lovely weather. We still have quite a lot of cobbles left from our pond project. Megan's dad has been helping to reduce the pile as he reclaims one end of his pond from encroaching vegetation and creates a pebble beach. After lunch, I dropped off another load for him.    This morning, as I went to and fro between the utility room and kitchen with Mocha's meds and then breakfast, I couldn't help but notice the dawn. So here are some more gratuitous sky photos. The early start was because Openreach were due shortly after 8am to connect us to full fibre, a jo...

Before our holiday in Rutland, I had browsed through the iRecord website and a couple of ID guides to see which species of dragonfly and damselfly might still be on the wing in mid-October. There were four possibilities, the most likely of which was Common Darter. We saw these small dragonflies at most sites we visited, including Rutland Water, Stanwick Lakes, Fineshade Wood and the RSPB's The Lodge. A female on the wall of a hide at Rutland Water Another late season dragon is Migrant Hawker, and we were very fortunate to find a male and a female roosting together near a pond at Rutland Water. He is showier in his blue finery, whilst she is camouflaged in brown and yellow, more to avoid unwanted attention than anything else. Clearly, in this instance, she was tolerating the male's presence. A couple of males even put in an appearance outside the log cabin on my birthday. Damselflies are scarcer towards the back end of the flight season, but we did manage to find a few Willow Em...

Today we're starting with a gratuitous fluffy mammal image from a few days ago, mainly so that the banner isn't a shock to the unwary. You'll thank me later. Grey Squirrel seen from our log cabin After arriving home late evening yesterday, this morning was all about unpacking and putting everything back where it should be. Megan nipped out for a bit of shopping and I cracked on with chores. Despite a forecast for showers all day, we risked putting out two loads of washing to dry, and they are now successfully squirrelled away in the airing cupboard. The list of missed phone calls and emails has been dredged for names and details, because as always happens when you go on holiday, the work floods in. Monday morning will be busy with scheduling of appointments whilst I wait for Openreach to install fibre to the property (or so they assure me).  This afternoon I have spent a good while going through Blogger, catching up on what folk have been up to and answering the comments wh...

Homeward bound. Quite a relaxed start to the day as we were already at the airport. My last transit through Birmingham had been a nightmare: the place was rammed, there were folk everywhere; the carrier did not have a check-in desk open; and queues to get into the queue for the lift to take everyone to Security. This time we were taking no chances and headed to check-in a full three hours before our flight. Consequently, there were no queues, we breezed through everywhere and had a v-e-r-y lazy breakfast. This past week has been our Summer. Orkney had not been this warm for this many consecutive days all year, so as we boarded our plane to Inverness, I took a snap of the blue skies. Once back in the Highlands, we had a brief visit to Dunelm to pick up some cutlery that couldn't be shipped to Orkney (because... knives) and then it was a couple of hours drive through Autumn to the port of Scrabster. The sea crossing to Stromness was a little lumpy, courtesy of the gale which hit the ...

Our last full day of the holiday was a whirlwind of packing, followed by another visit to Rutland Water, before heading to Birmingham to return the hire car and check into a hotel for the night. Whilst packing, there was a constant stream of raptor calls from outside. A pair of Red Kites were very vocal, perched in a tree close to our log cabin. At Rutland Water, we spotted a Weasel and four species of ode, but photos of the latter are on my camera, so will have to wait for another day. Here's dawn from the log cabin and an interesting fungi on a willow trunk at Rutland Water. The drive to Birmingham wasn't pleasant, many hold ups along the way, but finally we could hand the car back and relax. This past week has been our Summer, but tomorrow it's back to the cool and windy north.

A slow start today, before a drive south to the village of Potton and a trip to RSPB Headquarters with Ruth. The coolness of an early autumnal dawn had gave way to a pleasantly warm morning. The three of us set off around the heath, stopping occasionally to photograph the heather, flowers and insects. Megan spotted a large beetle on a pathside sign. It wasn't, as I had first thought, a shield bug, but in fact was a Western Conifer Seed Beetle. This, we later learned, was an accidental introduction to the UK (in 2007) from the west coast of North America. I found a very fresh Fly Agaric, yet to be gnawed by anything. Definitely worth a photo. We wandered through the gardens of the HQ building, and just before we returned to the car park, we discovered a dung beetle on the path. Later attempts at an ID suggested it was a Minotaur Beetle. Ruth was enjoying the day out, as little Louis was in Pre School, so we went to a pub for a wonderfu...

During the night, about 3am, we were awakened by a Tawny Owl, calling loudly from quite close. "Ke-wick, ke-wick, ke-wick." The day properly began with an email requesting that I complete a survey. As it concerned the Big Garden Bird Watch and volunteering for the RSPB, I decided to contribute my twopenn'orth. A few minutes later, I arrived at the final questions which included "Which age group are you?" For the first time ever, I realised that I was in the last group, which was a bit of a moment. Daughter Ruth and grandson Louis visited us today, and we all ventured to Fineshade Wood, a site which I hadn't previously been to. In early Summer, it is a Mecca for butterfly enthusiasts, as Fineshade is home to a thriving colony of Purple Emperors. Not in mid October though. However, we had a lovely lunch at the cafe, then wandered along one of the waymarked trails. We saw several Migrant Hawker and Common Darter dragonflies, a few species of plant t...

Today, we were supposed to have a family get together at a country park. Elder daughter, Sally, was driving down from Lincolnshire, younger daughter Ruth (plus her son Louis) would be heading north from Bedfordshire, and Megan and I would saunter across from Rutlandshire to all meet up in the Soke of Peterborough. Just as we were about to leave our accommodation, Ruth phoned to say that she couldn't start her car, so we revised the plan and all met up at her house. I behaved dadly and attempted to diagnose the problem, which appeared to be either a faulty starter motor or a dead battery. We all wandered through the narrow streets of Potton to a cafe for lunch, then on the way back I purchased a set of jump leads. With these, we were able to start Ruth's car and prove it had been a flat battery all along. Grandson kept us all entertained with his energy, songs, toys and games. We will attempt the country park again tomorrow.

Despite not having to rise early to give Mocha the cat her medicines and breakfast, I did manage to be up and about just after dawn this morning. Today we met up with good friend Alan (who visited us earlier in the Summer), at Stanwick Lakes Nature Reserve, near Raunds.  Although it was a warm day, the odes were few, but we found plenty else of interest. More birds were added to the holiday list, flowers were identified, the many patterns of Harlequin Ladybirds were photographed and we spotted three Otters, probably a mum and two cubs. There were several visits to the cafe, as is only right and proper. Alas, I am too tired to wrangle with video footage of the Otters, but here are a few views of the Reserve. The other highlight of the day was standing within three metres of the UK's loudest songbird, the Cetti's Warbler, as it belted out its "song". They sing from deep cover, so although we occasionally saw a bit of veget...

After our day's travelling yesterday, we did not rise early this morning, so I missed the opportunity for a sunrise photo. However, here I am, a shadow of my former self, taking the morning air before we spent the day at the Anglian Water Birding Centre at Rutland Water. Whilst the day's main focus was the avian interest, inevitably there was much else to sample: flowers, fungi, trees, insects and sausage rolls. We managed to see a lifer, a Pectoral Sandpiper, and spotted four species of odes: Common Darter, Migrant Hawker, Willow Emerald Damselfly and Southern Hawker. Too many photos to go through, but here's a brief taster: Spindle tree, Hornet and a 7-spot Ladybird. Apologies, I have not figured out comments and replies yet. I must give a special mention to the Chicken and Ham Pie at the Coach House Inn at South Luffenham. Pastry and filling were superb.

It is after 9pm, we're ensconced in a little wooden lodge near Rutland Water, having left Stromness aboard the mv Hamnavoe shortly before 6.30am. Thankfully, the crossing to Scrabster on the Scottish mainland was smooth. The drive to Inverness Airport was a little more stressful, owing to roadworks on the A9 (convoy system in operation) and an unexpected 40 minute detour when an accident closed the Cromarty Firth bridge. There were some lovely Autumn colours, lit by a low sun, and we managed to catch our flight to Birmingham. Then there was the small matter of negotiating the motorway system of the English Midlands, before finally arriving at our abode for the next week, just as the sun was setting. Following a much-needed shower and then a pub meal, I have just enough energy left for a quick blogpost. We shall sleep soundly and perhaps be a little more communicative tomorrow.

Today is the last morning of work before our holiday. This afternoon is pencilled in as "packing".  I was up early so that I could drive to Kirkwall for 9am to collect keys for various offices. So here's another dawn photo. As it was, despite driving slowly to take in the sights of bays full of geese and fields full of Curlew, I was seven minutes early, so I took a wander around the harbour, pretending to be a tourist. The basin is where the Kirkwall lifeboat and one of the Harbour Authority's pilot boats are berthed. At the end of the pier was Pharos , one of the Northern Lighthouse Board's tenders. The house Megan and I live in once belonged to an engineer of the NLB, but I think he served on the sister ship Pole Star . For me, who grew up beside a railway line, the word 'tender' conjures up a picture of the small coal bunker on wheels which trundled along behind a steam locomotive. This ship is a different order of magnitude entirely! Back home once mor...