Natural highs and lows

Last weekend, on a whim, we decided to head to Yesnaby on the west coast to see if we could find a Frog Orchid. These small orchids are not as showy as their blousier cousins, and can be difficult to spot on the coastal heaths which are regularly blasted by gales and the Atlantic Ocean, keeping the vegetation lower than more sheltered environments. Having parked the car, we set off northwards into what was quite a significant breeze and diligently searched the Hill of Borwick to no avail. We did, however, find a few Scottish Primroses still in flower as well as some other nice things... Primula scotica with phone for scale A Stocky Mason Wasp Ancistrocerus scoticus nectaring on some Water Mint A Great Yellow Bumblebee nectaring on Devil's-bit Scabious We wandered back towards the car park to continue our search for orchids further south. After much crawling about on the ground and plenty of general chuntering of a needles and haystacks variety, we eventually managed to find one F...

In recent years, May in Orkney has been characterised by cold and unsettled weather, despite it being traditionally our driest month. Thankfully, in 2020, we had a warm, sunny time of it, all the better to survive lockdown. This year is running true to form, a stuttering Spring, reluctant to let go of Winter, with no enthusiasm for rushing pell-mell into Summer. Sigh. At the beginning of the month, a walk around the bay revealed that, against the odds, a mole had seemingly tunnelled under the Pentland Firth and made landfall (landthrust?) in Orphir. However, closer inspection revealed that it was actually a black rabbit playing a game of "You can't see me!" Badly. As we had experienced in England in April, migrant birds were on the move, and this Common Whitethroat put in an appearance in the garden for a couple of days. As well as this supposedly being the driest month, another Orcadian myth has it that Arctic Terns don't appear from their oceanic wanderings until th...