Natural highs and lows

Let's begin with a couple of apologies: 1. We're not done with hare posts just yet. I'm sorry. Buckle up; 2. I have been quite restrained with my punning of late (no, really), but I don't think I can hold back the groundswell of awful puns for much longer. I am so sorry. As we reach the end of March, the stubble field behind our house is pretty much on borrowed time. In an area where about half the island's income comes from agriculture, that land is going to be ploughed, rolled and sowed some time soon. So with a sense of contemplative resignation, we have been enjoying the Brown Hares and their antics, because come the plough, they will be harder to spot, even if they take the tramlines. Once the field is rolled and sown, I doubt the hares will have anywhere to hide, although they do have form in this regard. Then it will be a case of waiting for the new green growth of the crop to once more tempt the hares back, providing them with both food and cover. Over the w...

Amongst the many new or different experiences we anticipated upon moving home, there are also some randomly-scattered instances of pleasant surprise. For instance, back at Houton, corvid activity mainly involved Hooded Crows and Ravens, their calls of caws and cronks echoing around the hills and rooftops. Here in Stromness, the majority of corvids are Rooks and Jackdaws, who roost in the town but commute daily out to far-flung pastures to forage.  These journeys are generally northwards in the morning and southwards in the evening, so at some point not long after dawn, I am awoken by the sounds of their various raaks and chacks as small flocks of both species pass overhead. Because I am invariably snuggled under a duvet at this time of day (at least until later in the year when dawn is at a more civilised time), there isn't a photographic record of these sojourns. You could say that I am avoiding catching corvid. In the evening, towards dusk, the birds return from their day in ...

Bright and breezy, the westerly gusts possessed a cool razor's edge. Scapa Bay wasn't as sheltered as it would be from a southerly wind, but this didn't stop a huge flock of gulls from gathering far out in the middle. A few grebes and auks could be picked out from this throng, though they were difficult to identify to species at distance. Closer to or on the shore, were assorted Redshanks, Guillemots and Black-headed Gulls, the latter not actually sporting black feathers on its head, more a dull brown.  The scientific name for Black-headed Gull,  Chroicocephalus ridibundus , translates as 'coloured head laughing', so rather unhelpfully not a direct reference to which colour, and the laughing referring to its call. Oddly, and this is often the case with gull nomenclature, there is a species known as Laughing Gull, whose scientific name is Leucophaeus ( or Larus) atricilla , translating as 'white/brown blacktail', without any reference to laughing at all. It...