Natural highs and lows

Since my previous blogpost, a funny thing has occurred. In tiny increments, day by day, Summer has happened. Yes, really. The upshot of this unexpected development is that there has been lots of wildlife watching, either whilst working, waiting for ferries or on days off. So here's a whistle stop tour of the last fortnight. Training evening. Megan invited me along as another pair of eyes on one of her evening walks for clients. This had the added benefit of me being able to see what she does in her "office", which on this day was the clifftop path at Burwick in South Ronaldsay. It benefitted the clients too, as we found more wildlife to show them, whilst also allowing me to practise the role, should I ever need to cover for Megan. A Common Rustic moth on a Ragwort flower (Thanks to HA for the ID) Everyone wants to see Puffins (although they won't be here for much longer, as now the breeding season is over, they are heading back out to sea). Scottish Primrose outing: W...

Apologies for all the existential weather angst which has been the flavour of this blog for a few weeks now. My excuse was an imminent guided walk which I was due to lead for the Orkney Field Club. One of my fellow club members usually takes the reins for the New Year Ramble, but for 2024 she was unable to do so, prompting an offer from me to do it instead. I usually only volunteer to lead one walk a year, in Summer, to look for dragonflies and damselflies. As this is the nearest thing I have to a specialised subject, and the walk is very focussed on these species, it's ok, I don't feel too intimidated whilst leading a group. I do usually struggle with social interactions, but press my dragonfly button and it's a different world. But in the middle of Winter? There's lots less of everything. Few flowers, very few insects and not much in the way of bird life. Nice light, though, as long as it's not raining or blowing a hoolie. So, as storm after storm barrelled across...

Well, what do you know? Another gale. This one's from the east, so all the plant pots which we'd moved from the back of the house to the front for protection from the previous westerly, have had to be issued with return tickets and re-routed (re-rooted?) to their former location. Perhaps we actually sowed seeds of doubt? This particular hoolie has been designated as Storm Gerrit, and horizontal sleet is currently splattering madly against our east-facing windows. Mocha and Cookie, our cats, are taking it in turns to monitor the west-facing windows, staring out at the flailing grasses, as well as every leaf which dances in the vortices beyond the lee of the house. We're forecasted to have 70mph gusts after lunch, which sounds more like curried beans on toast than a weather prediction. Wildlife watching in December has suffered from the prolonged period of gales. Whilst there have been moments of calm to enable us to assuage our cabin fever, the short Winter days have meant p...

Usually (if there is still such a concept in a post-Brexit,  post-Covid Britain), at the beginning of December, there is a few flurries of snow in Orkney to remind everyone that we live on the same latitude as the southern tip of Greenland. This year, not so much. Instead, we had quite a rare thing, days of frost and ice, with barely a breath of wind. Rare because, well, we don't really do consecutive days of the same weather. Rare because to experience that many days of frost should take a whole Winter. Rare because there wasn't one flake of snow despite the low temperatures. Overnight, the mercury in the thermometer has hauled itself lethargically back above freezing and the wind (ok, a gale) has returned. Driving rain has washed the crisp frosty white from the landscape, leaving behind a subdued palette of colours, which in Winter sunlight would be burnished gold, but is currently a drab yellowy-green. During the icy spell, we did have several walks around the single track r...

The first full day of a holiday always feels like it doesn't need a car, and after two days of driving, this strategy was a no-brainer. The cottage we had chosen was within easy walking reach of a nature reserve. A nature reserve that had a cafe. I'm not quite as stupid as folk think! Furthermore, although I didn't know in advance ( I am as stupid as folk think!) , the cafe had an alcohol licence, so even more reason to walk there.  After a leisurely start to the day, we ambled a short distance down the farm track and followed a footpath alongside a mature hedge, hoping to hear the Yellowhammer we'd heard the previous evening. When this path reached a farm, we turned onto a rougher farm track which soon delivered us, by way of a pair of Kestrels, to Kingfisher's Bridge Nature Reserve . We'd effectively walked around three sides of the arable field behind the cottage, that's how close the reserve was. Following a browse of the visitors' centre, with its i...

To misquote a famous novel's opening line and also to echo a previous blog life, I am not writing this sitting in the kitchen sink. I did briefly contemplate it, for the sake of the interconnectedness of all things, but instead I'm taking a cosier refuge on the sofa with a large mug of tea. The morning's weather is foul: driving rain is lashing the window; a gale force wind is howling in the chimney; and occasional raindrops 'ping' in the cold hearth. An indoors day, methinks. Yesterday had been rather different. Working across Scapa Flow on the island of Hoy, the sun had shone its Winter light to good effect, creating a sumptuously glowing landscape of golds and browns as it caught the stems of grasses and reeds, the bark of trees and whole hillsides of heather. My task meant that I missed the best of it, but the wait for the return ferry offered an opportunity for an afternoon walk, which brought sightings of four raptor species: Kestrel, Hen Harrier, Buzzard and ...