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Spring walk, close to home
A short walk from home this morning, along a loch shore and through a small woodland. Lots of lovely flowers, plants and critters….
Wood anemone (on loch shore)
Wood anemone (actually in the woods this time)
Probably a globe flower (but leaves look quite wood anemoney)
Globe flower (looking more globe flowery)
Coltsfoot
Blaeberry (with flower)
Cowberry (very beautiful flowers)
Cow-wheat (the purply thing at the back. No flowers yet.)
Lousewort
White lousewort!
Normal lousewort but looking odd.
Oblong leafed sundew
Cuckoo flower (not something more exotic like we thought)
Veronica speedwell
Milkwort (unfortunately not all in focus – still getting used to new camera)
Milkwort (and two dogs)
An orb weaver
Same orb weaver – hard to photograph – very fast!
A different orb weaver (and some lovely sandstone)
The second orb weaver again.
A beautiful, big drinker moth caterpillar
Same one – Euthrix potatoria
The other end, plus some lovely Hylocombium splendens
Probably a violet ground beetle
Black throated diver
The other of the pair of divers. We also saw a pair of pintail later – identified by the sound they made and general look in the air since they went past so fast and far away.
An egg shell found on the way back – probably a Dunnock?? (pale blue)
Some nice scenery from the walk
Looking back the way we’d come.
Suilven and Canisp
Happy dog!
Another bird survey…..
I did another round of bird surveys recently. I’d be much more efficient at them if I didn’t stop to take photos all the time! Still, then I wouldn’t get to share these lovely pictures with you.
Anyway, I didn’t see as much as last time, or even hear as much. I did see meadow pipits (of course!), dippers (a new one), sandpipers (lots) and stonechats, and also heard a ring ouzel and a couple of snipe. Here are two days worth of pictures……
As a hiking, and general wellbeing, note, on the first day I did 25km (almost entirely cross country) and 1,500m vertical ascent. I fell in one hole (up to my knee on one foot), and also dropped my heel into another hole (hyperextending my knee). I was physically fine the next day, but mentally shattered and thereby fairly useless in the Tearooms after 1pm. The second day I did 18km and thoroughly enjoyed it. My fitness is obviously coming along well as it felt easy, even with 900m vertical ascent, much of it up significant slopes (rather than slowly edging up the side of hills). I managed to drop the same heel in another hole, hyperextending the knee again, but it was still fine the next day. The back of that knee has been hurting a bit anyway, so I figure it serves it right. Maybe now it’ll behave again.
New jobs
It has definitely been too long since I’ve written anything. Most of you will know that the main reason for this is that I have a new job – owning and running (in partnership with my mum) a small cafe in a tiny village in the north west Highlands of Scotland. As well as being an engineer (or “modelling consultant”), I’m now a professional cake baker, barista, cafe worker and administrator. I’m also hoping to get out hiking enough to get my Mountain Leader qualification so I can be a professional mountain/hiking guide.
But this post is not about any of those jobs. This is about my latest professional detour. I’m now a professional ornithologist! I’ve just spent 2 days conducting a moorland bird survey. This is actually the second time I’ve done it this year, but the last time someone else did half (or more) of the work. This time I had to do the whole thing on my own. So,….. 2 days, 43km walked, 350 miles driven and a blissful 22 hours of not having anybody else near me! (much needed now that I share a house and work in a cafe every day)
I saw (or heard) a wonderful range of birds including meadow pipit, skylark, stonechat, ring ouzel, wren, redpoll, sandpiper, greenshank, golden plover, buzzard, cuckoo, snipe and possibly a golden eagle (it was too high for me to identify properly) and less possibly a merlin (too far away). The big red dog Merlin was not able to come due to ground-nesting birds. I think I would’ve seen some grouse and more snipe if he’d been with me.
I also saw some lovely flowers (I haven’t been out much this year so have been missing the procession of things flowering), butterflies, moths, a caterpillar, spiders, trees and rocks. I also saw loads of red deer, including one young calf, one Cheviot sheep and lamb and a few (luckily friendly) cows. I don’t know my cattle breeds very well, sorry!
Here are some pictures for you, to hopefully appreciate (and maybe be jealous of) my “office” for two days.
Spring is springing! (March)
This should really have been posted in March, but since I have a little time now and still really want to talk about this stuff, I’ll post it now. Hopefully there’ll be a couple more coming, about the progression of spring here. So, for now, pretend it is still March and enjoy the first feelings of spring in the NW Highlands!
I went back to Australia in late February for a three week holiday. When I left Scotland it was very much winter.
Driving down the A9 on the way to Glasgow Airport.
When I returned, suddenly it was spring. I felt like I’d missed the change. The weather was warmer and felt more stable. Daffodils were blooming. Birds were singing. And new plants were starting to sprout.
I loved the winter here, but realised how static everything had become. Hardly any birds and a relatively small range of plants (and them not changing much).
My first few walks were an absolute treasure trove of finds. The first thing to catch my eye was Hare’s Tail Bog Cotton (Eriophorum vaginatum), which I’d not seen before and took quite a lot of effort to identify (mainly because I was describing it over email from memory!). When I took the camera back out to re-find my Bog Cotton (or Cottongrass, as it seeems to be properly called), I also found an Emperor Moth cocoon (Saturnia pavonia). Still haven’t seen one of the moths yet, but they are very beautiful (see here).
This was all on the fairly standard boggy ground. The next day I headed up to the hill where the rocky cliffs provide both shelter and richer soil. The primroses were already flowering, and lots of the other early flowering plants were poking their leaves out for the first time.
There were also some lovely young ferns, some bright new clubmoss and even a bog thistle (I think).
I’ve been learning a lot more about my mosses and lichens recently, partly as they were one of the few things left in the winter, but also because there is some new growth at the moment which is quite striking and interesting.
A few days later and all of the trees were budding. I’ll need to do some more work next year to be able to identify these by bud. At least I could recognise a willow! (I think . . . now I’m doubting myself!) I also saw my first frog of the season, plus what looks like some half developed tadpoles (probably killed by a recent frost).
Stay tuned for the next installment (from April) of the progression of spring!
Couer D'or 