Natural highs and lows

Yesterday, with a weekend of calm and dry weather forecast, we took the opportunity to hide the tv remote control and head outdoors. Whilst we weren't quite up to the challenge of walking to the Warebeth shore from home, we felt that we could manage driving to Ness Point at the southern end of the town and pottering along the coast to Warebeth and back. The tide was quite high, so there were plenty of waders (Redshanks, Turnstones, Purple Sandpipers, Ringed Plovers, Oystercatchers and Curlews) foraging at the top of the rocky shore. In the piles of wrack along the strandline, Pied Wagtails, Rock Pipits and Starlings were busy looking for invertebrates. Purple Sandpiper Before we set off along the coastal path, I took a moment to capture a panorama of Stromness from Ness Point, later adding the arrow which indicates roughly the bit of the northern horizon where we bide. Across the sound, the tops of Ward Hill and Cuilags in Hoy were under cloud, with only occasional shafts of sunlig...

Living within a group of islands, it's important not to take any published transport timetables as gospel truth because acts of God aren't even near the top of the list of things that can go awry. Recently, I was tasked with carrying out a repair in North Ronaldsay, one of the smaller islands within the archipelago, which is a 15 minute plane journey or a two and a half hour boat trip from Kirkwall. I was requested to attend on a Saturday and went to book a return flight which would suit. Loganair could fly me back in the afternoon, but there was no room on the outward plane in the morning. Not to worry, I could catch the early morning ferry, which would see me in North Ronaldsay by about half ten. What no-one could have possibly predicted was another ferry having a technical issue, the timetable being rejigged and my sailing being pushed back until after lunch, all of which would get me to the island just in time to catch the plane home. Oh well, let's make a new plan for ...

With the coming of the new year, thoughts of Nature turn inevitably to lists. Records of sightings from the previous year are sent off to the appropriate county recorder, and if one happens to be a county recorder, then there's the job of checking the data for accuracy before uploading to the relevant recording scheme. Less officially, there's the matter of the household bird lists: species seen during the year (anywhere); species seen in Orkney; species seen on patch (a notional area loosely defined as "Did we walk from home?"); and species seen from home (aka the garden list). Megan's quite competitive about these, me less so, but if I ever manage to be temporarily ahead, I milk it for all it's worth.  I was roundly trounced (again) for 2023, but on a positive note, my year total for species seen was a personal best of 179, up 10 from the previous year. And so to 2024. The Ramble on New Year's Day kicked things off nicely, but there's always a bit of...

This post is a bit of a mish mash (admittedly, that phrase could be used to uncritically sum up all of my literary output), which starts off a little gruesomely but then brightens up somewhat.  At the end of last month, a morning's recce at the Ring of Brodgar for one of Megan's walks saw us bathed in pleasant sunshine and in buoyant mood. Between the Neolithic stones and the shores of Stenness and Harray Lochs, there's a nature reserve looked after by the RSPB, which can be excellent for birds, wildflowers and the occasional Otter. It being late Summer, there were a few migrating waders around, and still some flowers in bloom, but our eyes were drawn to a profusion of moth caterpillars feeding on Angelica and Ragwort plants. Whilst watching one of these larvae, a female ichneumon wasp appeared. After sizing up her target, she used her long legs and even longer ovipositor to avoid all those bristles and lay an egg inside the unfortunate caterpillar. Yes, a parasitic wasp, w...

This year, in Orkney, wildlife news has been dominated by one topic, bird flu. This might please Stoats, as they've been in the headlines a little less, but everyone else is very concerned about the effect on seabird, wader and wildfowl numbers. Scotland holds 46% of the world population of Northern Gannets and 60% of the world population of Great Skuas. It has been heart-breaking to witness so many dead and dying individuals of these two species during the breeding season. And dozens more species are affected by the disease. The current outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) amongst domestic and wild birds is the worst ever seen in the UK. Monitoring by DEFRA, whilst encompassing reports of wild bird mortality, seems to focus on the poultry industry. As a wildlife watcher this has been rather frustrating, with no outlet to be able to do anything to help wild birds. Fortunately, NatureScot have now launched an HPAI surveillance project which allows volunteers to assis...