Natural highs and lows

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...

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...

The 2023 calendar has now been posted out to family, with a spread of images from our wildlife year. Most of the flora and fauna were photographed in the county, with the one exception being in the Cairngorms but of a species that is resident in Orkney. Megan has more photographs here than I, so I was allowed to donate the cover photo. You will note that we don't do dawn landscapes! Maybe that needs to be rectified before the next edition? Cover - Puffins, Birsay; January  -  Fulmars, North Ronaldsay; F ebruary -  Whitehall sunset, Stronsay;  March -  Starlings, Orphir;  April -  Mute Swan, Kirkwall; M ay -  Spring Squill, South Ronaldsay;  June - Large Red Damselflies, Glen Feshie;  July -  Six-spot Burnet moth, Flotta;  August - Grey Dagger caterpillar, Orphir; September -  Devil’s-bit scabious, South Walls;  October - Grey Seal pup, South Ronaldsay;  November -  Autumn leaves, Firth;  December -...

(This post was mostly written during a not so brief stopover at a regional transport hub) The pause in bloggage has been due to a trip south to visit family. How does that prevent post output I hear you ponder? Well, it was too hot, hot enough at least for a denizen of the Northern Isles experiencing mid May in central England. And when it wasn’t hot, there was so much more wildlife to see and hear. This is a known ecological phenomenon, (not the whinging about the heat, although that could be argued, eh?), the fact that larger islands have more biodiversity than smaller ones. And despite Bedfordshire seemingly being somewhere very near the Equator, there was quite a lot of biodiversity. It did take me while to find a House Sparrow, mind, as well as any Swallows, and of Swifts there was nary a sniff. But my bird list for the year went stratospheric, up by 16 in three days, and I managed 9 species of butterfly in the same timeframe. There were wildflowers aplenty and, glory be, a fe...