Blogtober Five

Hmmm, the Blogtober Five? Would that be a plucky group of teenage diarists, up to high jinks and spiffing adventures, or a devious gang of anti-grammarian word terrorists, hellbent on misspelling their way to infamy?

But I digress, so now back to 50+mph westerly winds (forecasted) and horizontal rain (not so forecasted).

This morning I popped down into Stromness to get the messages*, which involved visiting a gift shop and a chemist, with the trip allowing a few moments of natural history along the way.

Not far from the pier and at the back of the Ferry Inn, there's a wall which is covered in tiny ferns of several species. I am always fascinated by wild plants in an urban setting**, but it has been Blogtober which has made me stop and look properly (apologies to any owners of parked cars who wondered what the heck I was doing with my nose pressed against the wall and with two rolls of wrapping paper under an arm).

I do not have a dedicated guide to ferns, mosses and the like, but I think these plants are most likely to be Maidenhair Spleenwort, Hart's Tongue Fern and Male Fern.

A little farther along my route, beneath a rookery and opposite the local surgery, was another wall, this one festooned with Ivy in both flower and fruit. This is an excellent food resource for insects and birds at a time of year when the larder is becoming quite empty.

Back home, I noticed an earwig on the house wall, but before I could capture the moment for posterity, it fell to the ground and scuttled away into some decorative chippings. The only photo I managed was a shot of its (admittedly impressive) bum. I recently learned (via the excellent Pan Species Listing Facebook page), that the only presumed native species of earwig present in Orkney, Forficula auricularia, is actually a species complex (meaning several closely-related species are aggregated together) and can only be correctly identified using mDNA analysis. The bottom line is that I should delete Common Earwig from my list until such time as NaHal has the forensic capability to prove otherwise.

Now I am spending a relaxing afternoon switching electricity provider and upgrading home broadband and several mobile phone accounts. What could possibly go wrong?

* Please see below for a translation

"I'm getting the messages"

This is one of the Scottish sayings that you might think doesn't need translating - but you'd be wrong! In this case, the 'messages' are not what you're probably thinking.

'Messages' are 'groceries' or other things that you'd get from the store. So, literally speaking this Scottish phrase means "I'm doing the (grocery) shopping".

** There's a wonderful book in the British Wildlife Collection, Number 15 Urban Plants by Trevor Dines.