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...

It's the Saturday morning of Big Garden Birdwatch weekend, apples have been halved and strewn in the front garden, two scoops of bird seed have been liberally scattered in sheltered spots, I am stood at the kitchen window eagerly anticipating feathery fauna feeding, and I haven't even shaved yet. The RSPB's citizen science wildlife survey, reputedly the largest of its kind in the UK, is in full swing across the land whilst, here in Orkney, yet another gale is making things a bit challenging. Not for me, obvs, I'm sat indoors with a mug of tea, but the birds are a little reluctant to battle with the driving rain. Normally, by now, on any of the 363 days in the year which aren't part of the BGBW, there would have been a throng of hungry birds (from a single female Chaffinch to a horde of quarrelsome Rooks) busily feeding. Whatever. The. Weather. 🙄 Perhaps Sunday will be more to their liking. Most of the wildlife action of late has actually been on the opposite side o...

Recently, a day's work was cancelled at the last minute when the spare part we'd been waiting for finally turned up but was not what had been ordered. Gah! Still, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and there was a rarity loitering at a wetland pool in the West Mainland. Better still, checking my life list, the bird wasn't on it. There will be plenty of dreich days this Winter so I reasoned that making the most of the fine weather was probably allowable. The pool in question was quite close to the shore, so we left the car at a nearby car park and wandered along the coast. There were loads of thrushes about, a trend for a few weeks now, with Blackbirds, Redwings and Fieldfares to the fore. A small flock descended to the ground before our eyes and we were pleasantly surprised to discover that they were Song Thrushes. Song Thrush But on to the pool, for the main event! This diminutive wader is a Grey Phalarope, a species which breeds in the Arctic and then spends much of Wi...

Serves me right, I shouldn't have mentioned 'Spring', it brought virtually instant retribution in the form of several days of southeasterly gales. However, just before they arrived, there were a few more pleasant moments. A walk at Brodgar was graced with a Skylark singing from on high for all he was worth, in defiant opposition to (in no particular order) other male Skylarks, hungry raptors, the gusty wind and gravity. There were ducks aplenty on both Harray Loch (freshwater) and Stenness Loch (brackish), as well as in field pools and scrapes. Just over the brow of a low hill from the Neolithic stone circle, a piece of rough ground offered up a Short-eared Owl on a fence post. When I tried to film it, the owl immediately took to the air, and all I managed was 7 seconds of shaky, wind-blasted footage. Back home, I was able to turn off the wind noise, and slow down the footage so that it wasn't so jerky, resulting in a slo-mo SEO. Some of the afore-mentioned waterfowl, T...

An afternoon's walk along the Gyre and Breck Roads in Orphir raised some excitement when, rounding the corner of a wood, I spotted a raptor in the distance. Unfortunately, by the time I had raised my bins to try and ID the bird, it had disappeared, mobbed by a passing flock of gulls. Watching the general direction for 30 seconds or so, didn't produce another sighting, which probably meant one of two things: the raptor had flown low and away, out of sight behind a low hill; or it had gone to ground to avoid the gulls. Fortuitously, our route went in the direction of the sighting, so when we crested the hill, some time was spent scanning fence posts for perched birds. This drew a blank, but my attention was called to an area of white in an adjacent field, which wasn't as I'd thought a patch of snow, but the feathers from a Common Gull. In the middle of this 'snowstorm' was a female Peregrine falcon. She had obviously stooped into the gull flock and taken one of th...

Here are a few images from a late afternoon walk along the shore of Houton Bay, but first a helpful gardening tip... When trying to eradicate Broad-leaved Dock, ensure you remove all of the tap root. A Grey Heron in the shallows There were some Shoveler in the bay And lots of Golden Plover (and Common Gulls) Sunlight on the water A pair of Slavonian Grebes On the mudflats, there were Ringed Plover and Dunlin Almost sunset