Natural highs and lows

Usually, having spent at least a day travelling to a holiday destination, I like the first full day on holiday to not involve a car. So, having carelessly forgotten to check the weather forecast, we woke to a wet Sunday morning and immediately resolved not to be so carless. Instead, we drove to RSPB Loch Garten to see a pair of Ospreys. The visitor centre has a wall of tv monitors showing camera close-ups of various scenes. Two large monitors showed the Osprey nest and a favourite perch in a neighbouring tree. Another monitor was split-screened into four, giving a view of a bird feeder; a couple of nest cams (Goldeneye and Great Tit); and a mammal box baited with nuts which had a Bank Vole foraging busily. The female Osprey had very recently (within the hour) laid her first egg for the year, so the staff were very excited. Her mate was sat in the neighbouring tree, having just caught a Brown Trout, which he was undecided whether to offer to the female or eat himself. After watching for...

Summer is a tricky time for my partner, Megan, to take a holiday as this is when she is busiest with Wild Orkney Walks . For the past few years, we have been gently edging our Summer holiday date forward and shortening the time away, so as to reduce the impact upon her business during the tourist season. This year we took our Summer holiday at the end of April, a week in a cottage in rural East Anglia with walks from the door and plenty of opportunity to feed Megan's life list with birds and mammals. En route, we visited or met up with various members of my family, and we reduced the driving a little by catching the ferry to and from Aberdeen, saving three hours of motoring in both directions. We still managed to rack up 1500 miles, which is a lot of potholes, and often felt like we were in an episode of Wacky Races, especially in Englandshire. Due to transport and accommodation logistics, we left Orkney at midnight on a Wednesday, a really strange time to begin a holiday, I though...

It's the middle of the night, the wee small hours, and I am awake. For some reason, sleep eludes me, so I have got up and gone through to the lounge to try and do something remotely useful to pass the time until slumber returns. I fire up my computer and try to add photos and videos to a proto-post about the last few weeks since I last blogged. Blogger itself has other ideas and manages to load the photos in reverse order, a skill it intermittently exhibits which baffles and maddens me in equal measure. The bare bones of it is that there has been a trip south. Megan and I stayed in a hotel in the Inverness area for a few days before I headed even further south to visit family whilst she caught up with friends and much more wildlife than I was ever going to see. We reunited for another weekend in Inverness, took in a show at the Eden Court Theatre and then returned to Orkney. Whilst I did improve the running total of my year list, I am no nearer to catching up with Megan and may eve...