Natural highs and lows

A few of our day trips were to wildlife sites about an hour away from the cottage, not too far to travel, whilst at the same time being an exploration of locales for future holidays. One of these sites was the national nature reserve at Tentsmuir, on the east coast, where we visited Morton Lochs on the warmest day of our trip in the hope of some early-emerging dragons. No such luck, unfortunately, but we were rewarded for our dedication with several flybys from a Kingfisher. We also drove most of the way to Tay Reedbeds, but with temperatures in the mid 20s, we didn't fancy a 6km walk on dusty tracks, opting instead for an ice cream in a nearby village, followed by a meandering route back to the cottage and an  appointment at patio o'clock. An Orange Tip nectaring on apple blossom Grey Heron A reflective heron Probably our most adventurous day was another gorge walk, this time at the Birks of Aberfeldy, where the Moness Burn tumbles its way through a beech wood. We found severa...

Leaving Dornoch the next morning, our first port of call was an outdoor shop on the outskirts of Inverness to buy some new waterproof over-trousers because, well, it is Scotland after all.  That done, we took a scenic route to our next overnight stop, incorporating some wildlife watching in Boat of Garten, a road diversion due to bridge repairs to reach Tomintoul and a cake break at a pleasant tearoom in a Cairngorms valley, before pootling into Aboyne and checking into our accommodation. A male Teal on Milton Loch, Boat of Garten Before our evening meal, a leg stretch was very much in order, so we wandered around the nearby Birsemore Loch, seeing our first Blackbird fledglings of the year, listening to the drumming of Great Spotted Woodpeckers and hearing Common Crossbills calling as they were feeding in the trees high above our heads. Whilst crossing a bridge over the River Dee, Megan spotted a plant that was new to us both, which produced a flurry of photographic activity and mu...

One afternoon, a couple of days ago, a lull in the gales tempted me outdoors for a spot of gardening. Muscles which hadn't been used in several months were cajoled into action as I pottered about in the mild air, spurred on by some actual sunshine. Between bouts of activity, I wandered around the garden collecting fallen cones from a neighbour's trees, the afore-mentioned gales having distributed the empty cones far and wide.  A few brave plants have emerged from the ground, their flowers adding splashes of colour here and there. Crocus Daffodil Dwarf Iris Some cones Lupin leaves and dew drops A Hellebore I'm not certain that we knew we had The object of the exercise, however, was to backfill the hole we'd dug a year ago, when we thought that the front garden would be the location for a pond. Remember this photo from Spring 2024?  Spring 2025 Excavating activity will presently begin in the rear garden. Meantime, when the weather's dreich and we're stuck indoors,...

At the end of January... hold on a minute, let's just take a moment to savour that phrase... for in 2025, January seemed to slip by in no time at all (or at least, no longer than the statutory 31 days), rather than the two months it felt like the year before. Where was I? Oh yes, at the end of January! The first day of the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch coincided with Storm  Éowyn howling through Orkney, which meant that by the time our feathered friends showed up, the food I had put out was probably in the next parish. The following day was a little more conducive to conducting a wildlife survey and we duly recorded two Collared Doves, two Jackdaws, six Rooks and 27 Rock Dove/feral pigeons. Not a single Blackbird all day, although at dark o'clock the next morning, I could hear one sheepishly alarm calling in the garden. Gah! On Friday evening just gone, we were invited to an RSPB Volunteer Thank You event in Kirkwall. The night began with a talk by local photographer/film mak...

It is said that whilst on holiday there's the chance to do things differently, maybe staying up late and sleeping all morning, or skydiving, or eating and drinking oneself into an absolute stupor. We may have had the odd lie-in, and the occasional meal out, but the one thing we had less of on holiday was sky. No, we didn't go caving or exploring a nuclear bunker, our 'different' is habitat, rather than habit. At home, there are not, as yet, any trees in our garden, so the views are quite unrestricted, less for buildings and neighbours' planting. Consequently, the birds we see in, or from, our garden are not the usual garden birds. In fact, as I've been typing this paragraph, a Great Skua flew by, pursued by an irate Curlew. So our holiday indulgence is trees, and if possible a river. The cottage we were staying in is very much in the category of 'can't see the wood for the trees', mainly Scots Pine and Birch, and the birdage is so very different from...

We have lived in our current home since last Summer, so there's a whole Spring that will be new to us, and we can't wait. This morning we were woken from our slumbers at 06.45 by a Blackbird singing, the first time we have heard one here. Hopefully this is payback for keeping him in apples all Winter. The Blackbird had obviously decided that today was the day to begin defending a territory from rivals and to start wooing the ladies. I chuckled to think that... well... it is St Valentine's Day. In a household where Nature is the defining feature and a shared passion, here's our riff on the theme and a nod to the local endemic wildlife. All credit to Ruth for her decoupage The second bird we heard calling whilst we were still in bed was an Oystercatcher. Although a few of these waders do remain here during the Winter, numbers are now swelling, so it won't be long before the flocks on the shore begin to disperse around the county as birds scout nesting sites. It was a ...

What can I say about the Sunday of Big Garden Birdwatch weekend? Well, it was mainly dry. It wasn't cold, due to a southerly wind. In fact the temperature was a balmy 50mph, so wind chill was still a factor. Small birds were entirely absent from the garden, even in the sheltered patch in the lee of a boundary wall. Not a House Sparrow from the local flock to be seen, and even the ever-dependable Mrs Chaffinch sent her excuses, presumably because she was staying in to preen during that particular hour. However, this was our first BGB from our new home, so we weren't going to miss out on the opportunity to put Burnbank on the map. Thank goodness for the Brown Hare action in the stubble field. Well, I say action, it was mainly her hunkering down out of the gale, and him occasionally shuffling around in an ever-decreasing circle until he was sat right by his intended. We managed a total of sixteen birds, not species, mind, sixteen individual birds. Of six species. The corvids arriv...

We've (ok, I've) still not fitted a cat flap for Cookie and Mocha, as they seem quite content with their personalised aperture opening service. As a system, it does have the advantage of taking into account which direction the weather is galloping in from, thereby giving a much pleasanter feline experience via whichever door or window opens onto the leeside of the house. In turn, we have become used to checking said aperture for an irate bundle of fur, silently miaow-ing at the double glazing. "Irate" because we're never, ever quick enough to respond, and "silently" because of the sound insulating properties of modern doors and windows. All these decades later, I still find the silence of double glazing a little off-putting, having grown up in a house which had such thin panes of single glazing and so many draughts that it often felt like there weren't any windows. However, my ears were certainly attuned to any and every bird sound outside, whether i...

Severe gales and driving rain are not an unusual occurrence in Orkney, but three days of the same weather, any type of weather, very much is. So Storm Babet (or normal meteorological conditions for October) is actually a bit different - not in intensity or maximum speed, but in sheer staying power. Coming out of the east, she is hitting the front of the house full on, and we are experiencing a whole new raft of unnerving noises, bumps and rattles as we figure out just what Burnbank sounds like in a gale. We have lost at least one roof tile, but I won't be going up a ladder to investigate until wind speeds drop significantly. Living at the top of a hill, thankfully, we're relatively unlikely to experience the flooding which is causing so many problems elsewhere. Weather from the east always excites the birding fraternity, as migrating species can be blown across the North Sea to make landfall in Orkney. Birds which are rarely seen here are suddenly there in front of you, and a f...

Jings, March has flown by in a flurry of... well, mainly snow. I have ventured outside occasionally, but half of the photos below were taken from indoors. It was so cold that even some Fieldfares were tempted from the surrounding fields into the garden to forage. They were very flighty, possibly due to the local Blackbirds not being so keen to share the apples we put out. The seed feeders were busy with House Sparrows, Greenfinches, Starlings, the occasional Robin, a Rook and these Goldfinches. Meanwhile, beneath the feeder, Dunnocks, Rock Doves, Blackbirds and an even more occasional mouse helped themselves to spillages. The Hoy Head departing Houton bound for Lyness as another snow shower rolls in. The Rock Doves are waiting for a few messy eaters to show up (yes, Starlings, I mean you). Venturing out along the bay between wintry showers, wrapped up warm against the bitter wind. I seem to have spent the month never far from a hot beverage. The Hoy Head again, this time approaching Ho...