Natural highs and lows

Leaving Dornoch the next morning, our first port of call was an outdoor shop on the outskirts of Inverness to buy some new waterproof over-trousers because, well, it is Scotland after all.  That done, we took a scenic route to our next overnight stop, incorporating some wildlife watching in Boat of Garten, a road diversion due to bridge repairs to reach Tomintoul and a cake break at a pleasant tearoom in a Cairngorms valley, before pootling into Aboyne and checking into our accommodation. A male Teal on Milton Loch, Boat of Garten Before our evening meal, a leg stretch was very much in order, so we wandered around the nearby Birsemore Loch, seeing our first Blackbird fledglings of the year, listening to the drumming of Great Spotted Woodpeckers and hearing Common Crossbills calling as they were feeding in the trees high above our heads. Whilst crossing a bridge over the River Dee, Megan spotted a plant that was new to us both, which produced a flurry of photographic activity and mu...

In a week when researchers at Cambridge University have found promising hints of life on an exo-planet 124 light years away, plenty of us are wondering when there might be the possibility of detecting signs of some humanity here on Earth. "Humanity" 🙄 We're gonna need a bigger microscope to unearth any evidence of compassion and benevolence around these parts. [Presses button for some Nature therapy] Feels like it's on speed-dial these days. Megan discovered this caterpillar in the garden. Our best guess is Angle Shades moth. April seems early for Mayflies. Apparently this is a Baetis sp which must've found its way to the house wall from the burn in the valley.   Two Common Cranes which recently spent some time in the county, specifically this ploughed field in the parish of Birsay. Whilst twitching the above cranes, we popped into the hide at the Marwick Loons on the off-chance that a Bittern might show. It didn't, but here's a very confiding Redshank (p...

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...

Another week of island hopping for work, with a bit of wildlife watching thrown in for good measure, and another survey completed. The weather's been very April, some balmy days (for here), plus some wind and lash at other times. Whilst on Stronsay, mid-week, I had a few hours to spare before the ferry home. At the lochan of Matpow, there were plenty of ducks to be seen: Mallard, Wigeon, Teal, Gadwall, Red-breasted Merganser, Pintail, Shoveler and Shelduck. Scanning around the shore, I spotted a Snipe snuggled down out of the wind, and on a small islet were a pair of Sandwich Terns. At St Catherine's Bay, the avian interest was limited to gulls, until four Godwits flew in and began feeding in the shallows. I struggled to keep my bins steady enough to identify which species, but fortunately I took some video as they were flying, which later allowed me to see they were Bar-tailed Godwits. On Good Friday, I had to go to Hoy at lunchtime. Scapa Flow was like a mill pond, so I sat o...

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...

Dinnae worry, this isn't an extension of the 'Love Food, Hate Waste' campaign, not least because, as the thrifty folk would argue,"Leftovers?" Nope, this is a post from the tail end of 2021, when a work trip to Stronsay left me with a long wait for the return ferry to mainland Orkney. A week or so past the the solstice, there wasn't very much in the way of daylight, and the scant amount that was available struggled with low cloud, rain and high winds. Sorry, no, that was me, I struggled with those things 🙄 It had been an early start, up at 05.30, to catch a ferry at 07.00. After an hour and forty minutes of sailing, the ferry arrived in Stronsay half an hour before dawn. Mid morning saw me departing the customer's property and parking my 'office' up at a suitably windswept, but wildlifey, location to check on emails, phone calls and the local waterfowl (from a safety-conscious bird flu distance). Behind the Bight of Matpow (for some reason, Strons...