Natural highs and lows

In recent times, one of the more interesting ways to encourage people to think about wildlife, and so help protect it, is the No Mow May campaign. In essence, you choose a part of your garden (can be a tiny bit of it, can be all of it) and don't mow it during the month of May, allowing more wildflowers to bloom and attracting more pollinating insects. Here at Burnbank,  I am not sure that the local insects have completely understood the concept of No Mow May. Although, to be fair, neither have the wildflowers. Or perhaps it's me? Our chosen area which made the cut to be spared the cut was in the back garden, behind the garage and to one side of the drying green. It measures about 15 x 5 metres and we knew from last year, having found evidence of orchid seed heads, that there might be something interesting in there. The remainder of the back 'lawn' was mowed as normal, so that we don't need to worry about being attacked by large carnivorous beasties when bringing in ...

A few weekends ago, after several days of dreich weather, Orkney mainland was bathed in some late afternoon sunshine. Cabin fever was soothed with a trip to Happy Valley. A Hen Harrier quartering the fields, much to the annoyance of many small birds A Vapourer moth caterpillar sunning itself on a Hawthorn leaf A sawfly A hoverfly, Rhingia campestris The following weekend, during a temporary lull in lawn mowing, I found another hoverfly, Leucozona lucorum , nectaring on an Ox-eye Daisy. Through late Spring and early Summer, there were a pair of Goldfinches in the garden, the male often singing from the top of one of the alder trees in the hedge. This isn't something that usually happens, they're more of a Winter visitor to the bird feeder, so we wondered if they were actually nesting in the garden. Activity seemed to centre on this Fuchsia, but we were loathe to disturb them, despite our intense curiosity. When, eventually, a few days had passed without either sight or sound of ...

The late May bank holiday proved to be an outlier on the Bell curve, as it was mainly warm and dry. We'll take that, I think. A pootle around the garden with my camera set to macro mode proved fruitful. Tree Wasps basking on a window sill A hoverfly, Rhingia campestris Cocksfoot Moth A hoverfly, we're still ruminating over ID Stocky Mason Wasp, Ancistrocerus oviventris A hoverfly, Leucozona lucorum In fact, the weather was so insect-friendly, it brought on a trip to the Stenness hills where I was shown my first damselfly of the year. Large Red Damselfly Towards evening, the front door step was the location for another homely wildlife encounter. I just hope it wipes its feet properly. Flat-backed Millipede