Natural highs and lows

Crivens! We've been back from holiday for more than three weeks and I still haven't finished my round-up of goings-on. The month of May is impatiently drumming its fingers on the table top of life and exasperatedly wondering just when it will have its moment in the spotlight. So let's sum up the last few days of our sojourn to the Cairngorm area and the trip home. Although there was an abundance of wildlife around our rented cottage, for the final day of our holiday, we decided to go further afield, and drove via Tomintoul and the Lecht Road to the Muir of Dinnet National Nature Reserve. En route, we stopped off for breakfast at an excellent roadside cafe near Corgarff, and we can recommend the black pudding and egg rolls. The Nature.scot website has this to say about the Muir of Dinnet reserve: " The sheer variety of habitats and landforms makes this an amazing place for wildlife and people alike." Which is good enough for us, we needed no further encouragement....

OK, I have to admit, I needed a lot of help decoding what this chart was showing, as it was well outside my area of expertise. For a start, what's the flashing yellow LED sign mean? And is 19 degrees the angle at which to best view the LED? Or is it the declination to the celestial equator? I am not even sure that this sort of info should be in the public domain, it could cause widespread panic and disorder. Meanwhile, outside GraemeWorld, the rest of the populace were having a fabulous time, thank you very much. The heat was certainly favouring us watching insects, especially as this shrub in the garden of our accommodation was teeming with them: bumblebees, butterflies, hoverflies, moths and a squillion other tiny flies. Green Hairstreak butterfly This was a hoverfly that was new to me. The folk at UK Hoverflies identified it as one of the Genus Didea (to get to species level I would need to check the colour of the halteres) Continuing with the insect-y theme, the next day saw a ...

Natural Highs and Lows is on holiday. I know! All vaccined up and laterally flow tested; masked and maintaining as much social distancing as possible; excited at the thought of two weeks of wildlife watching, but nervous about being amongst other folk once more. Despite umpteen announcements over the tannoy, the ferry trip to mainland Scotland was a nightmare, stuck on a ship midst unmasked covidiots with little concept of personal space. Ugh. However, several hours later, calm was restored upon checking in to a small self catering cottage in the Nethybridge area of the Cairngorms, complete with a garden which was really just an extension of the surrounding countryside. Bliss. And breathe. Four-spotted Chaser, at a pond in Nethybridge  Cardinal Beetle, in garden of cottage Goosander on the River Nethy Northern Damselflies mating, at a pond in Nethybridge Longhorn Beetle on window of cottage Treecreeper in garden of cottage Red Squirrel in garden of cottage Long-tailed Tit fledgling...