Natural highs and lows

This morning I was working at a property near the RSPB's Loons reserve. As I was a little early for the appointment, I briefly stopped off at the Listening Wall, a curved structure set above the wetlands which concentrates the sounds of nature for those seated and listening. Sadly, all I managed was an indignant female Mallard. I had better luck at my next port of call, the main (and only) hide on the reserve. As I opened one of the shutters, I spotted a very distant Hen Harrier quartering the far side of the reed bed. Probably due to the attentions of this raptor, it seemed as though every Snipe in Orkney was in the air, as small flocks whooshed by the hide. The back wall of the hide is decorated with a mural by talented local artist Anne Bignall. With a few wisps of Snipe visible top left Then, whilst I was working at the customer's properrty, even more Snipe and several flocks of Golden Plover went over my head, their calls ringing out through the pleasant Autumnal morning....

At this time of year, it is nigh on impossible to suppress the urge for dappled sunlight through Beech leaves. Add in a wide, shallow burn, sinuously flowing through the scene and the only option is to give in to temptation.  We found a woodland car park at the Den o' Alyth, set off on a circuitous path through the valley, with the plan to make the mid point of the walk a lunch stop in the town of Alyth itself. Dipper A female Mallard On a woodland bench, a Common Footman moth caterpillar, a teeny-tiny forager of algae and lichen Breathe... Let the tension gently subside As well as lovely views of Dipper, we had seen several Grey Wagtails, as they hunted for invertebrates along the burn. During one of our frequent pauses, letting the tranquillity seep into our souls, Megan suddenly exclaimed, "There's a Grey Wagtail up in that tree!" Stood a few feet away, I was unsighted by another tree trunk, so was initially sceptical, especially when a Great Tit flew out of the ap...

It's January, so as is the way of things these days, I remember that I am not immune to a little competitive birding. After all, when you're the worst birder in the house, you have to take your chances when you see (or hear) them. Essentially, if I wake early on New Year's Day, I can be ahead of the game for about two hours, or until Megan surfaces from her slumbers. For the remainder of the 364 days and 22 hours, I'm fighting a losing battle as, short of a miracle, I'm not going to see (or hear) as many species as she is. Now, for the first few months, most of my list seems to come from birds seen whilst driving about for work, or the weekly food shop. But the other night, I did have one moment of complete chance which, if I'd kept quiet, would've been quite the domestic coup. In the wee small hours, I couldn't sleep, worrying about some of those little things which beyond all reason keep folk awake. Outside in the pitch black and freezing cold, I heard...

In case you're wondering, yes, we survived last Sunday's beach clean at Orphir Bay despite the 40+mph winds. Fortunately (although actually unfortunately), there was so much rope on the beach, we were able to weigh down our plastic rubbish bags quite easily. Smaller bits of plastic were trickier to handle in the gusty conditions, for despite plunging the offending piece of litter into a bag, by some sort of venturi effect, it would be whipped back out by the wind. I had to pick up one particularly annoying food wrapper four times 🙄  At a rough guess, 95% of what the group collected was fishing-orientated: rope, string and netting. There was also plenty of parcel strapping and, new for 2024, some discarded coffee pods. The following day saw Megan and I head over to Deerness to carry out some vole monitoring, with the Spring survey for the Orkney Native Wildlife Project. Shortly after beginning the first of our two transects, Megan found a caterpillar of the Ruby Tiger moth clam...

Under half an hour away from the holiday cottage was the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust's Welney reserve. A brief look at the sightings from previous days revealed that there were several species that would make the trip worthwhile for us, even without the thought of Sunday lunch in the cafe. At this time of year, the Winter flooding of the reserve has not yet subsided, so a few of the paths were inaccessible, but not to worry, we met lots of friendly birders who were only too glad to help with identifying strange-plumaged birds and pointing out fly-over rarities. I should point out, the birds weren't actually strange-plumaged, they were just species we're used to seeing in Orkney in Winter plumage, and here they were changing into their Summer finery. Great White Egret, we managed this ID on our own Avocets, I knew this one from my recent Sanday sighting! During the afore-mentioned lunch, with breaks between courses to twitch Tree Sparrow on the neighbouring feeders, we were...