Aurora

 
There are some pictures which I wish I had taken, and this is one. Euan Miles took it from the hills of northern Mull, looking across the Sound of Mull to the south coast of Ardnamurchan. Above, a magnificent aurora is shooting beams of light across the Plough.

We slept peacefully through this firework display as it was in the days before I discovered a website which gave fairly accurate aurora predictions. However, we did see some very impressive displays during our time in Kilchoan in one of which we seemed to standing in a great teepee of moving curtains of light.

I could never tire of watching auroras so continue to watch websites like Aurorawatch (above) in the hope of another aurora experience but the chances of a major one happening are low - though there's been a minor event going on this morning. Auroras are caused by highly charged particles from the sun's sunspots colliding with the Earth's magnetosphere but the sun has an 11-year sunspot cycle which is, at the moment, at its minimum so, very sadly, the chances of a good sighting are relatively low.

Transcendence 3

Transcendence, in the sense of "extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience", is hardly a word in common use and I can only remember deploying it once in a formal setting when, as a student of Political Institutions at Keele, I presented a paper in a tutorial in which I used the word to describe an element of a political philosophy. This was in the days when a 'paper' was hand-written on foolscap and had to be taken to the library where yellowing copies were produced to be handed out to other tutorial members. I recall the tutor pouncing on the word and demanding a definition, and his evident pleasure when I could define it, and also explain why I had applied it to the particular philosophy.

So if one looks back on a life to seek out its transcendental moments, the most significant are probably the ones which involve infatuation for another person - not love, which to me is a long-term, deep affection, nor the ecstasy in sex, but those periods in a relationship when an overwhelming attraction becomes almost totally consuming.

This is one such moment, as Gill and I stood at the entrance to Cranham church after our wedding. I simply could not believe that this girl had just agreed to be with me for the rest of our lives and consequently could not take my eyes - or my hands - off her. Incidentally, I also like the picture for other reasons: Gill had made her wedding outfit; and my mother is in the background in the red hat, doing what she always did so well - talking to people.

In fifty-four years together there have been many other transcendental moments, not least those four occasions when Gill had just just produced a baby and we together inspected another small being whom we hoped would be happily with us for many years to come. This picture, taken at Cranham, happens to be Elizabeth but only because it's the only photo I have of any of our children as very small babies which has just the three of us in it. Also, it's good to remember the days when my hair didn't contain any grey.

To be able, at my stage in life, to sit quietly and recall such moments is one of the great pleasures of the waning years of a life. I am fortunate in the knowledge that, if I spent more time at it, I would be able to remember so many more.

Low Tide

Low tide at Littleferry with grey heron, common gull and eider feeding in waters protected from a northeasterly by an offshore sand bar.

A Late August Wander

A pair of buzzards have raised their young in the woodland to the north of our house. As we walked up to Beinn Bhraggie woods this morning we heard the chick crying, perhaps begging a parent for the food they no longer bring, but the parent was having none of it. You're on your own, junior!

The clearings are ablaze with the lilac flowers of the ling, and their sunlight is filled with.... 

....speckled woods. This species seems to have thrived this summer, as have the....

....common blues in the open environment of the links.

It's getting late in the year but there is a newcomer in both habitats, the very late-flowering devil's-bit scabious, a popular flower with insects. As we walked this morning we were looking out for the two colour variants and Mrs MW almost immediately spotted....

....a pink flower, which leaves us the rather beautiful white one to find.

More and more fungi are appearing amongst the ling. This one looked like fresh-baked, crusty bread but was cold and slimy to touch - and, no, I'm not going to spend an hour trying to identify it, though I really would like to know what it is.

I don't enjoy walking in woodland as much as I do in open country but the mixed woodland we wandered through today was exceptional, particularly when one of the larger clearings on a steep slope opened up the view to the south, along Golspie beach to Loch Fleet and the distant Dornoch Firth.

My Napkin Ring

 I haven't used a napkin ring in years for the simple reason that, as a 'modern' family, we've never had napkins at table, but now I'm getting old and dribbly it seemed a good idea, though I'm not so far gone, yet, to have the napkin tucked under my chin.

In the early years in East Africa my napkin ring was well-used. It appeared at table for breakfast, lunch and dinner with a clean, white napkin in it each morning. The napkins were washed daily by Kitetu the dhobi boy (right), and he and Saidi (left) were responsible for cleaning the rings - along with a mass of other silver-, copper- and brassware - once a week, a task which they carried out with some gusto - hence the wear on the ring

A napkin ring is one of the things which, in those days, a child had to have at its christening. Mrs MW also had one, which she was required to use at table until she left home to go to Keele. She had it until recently but, sadly, it seems to have been one of the casualties of our recent moves.

I was quite proud of mine as it had an unusual octagonal shape, all the others being round or oval. It's made of sterling silver and hallmarked. The anchor proves that it was made in Birmingham, the lion indicates a London or other English assay office, and the L with the wavy lower border shows that it was made in 1935. D&F is the manufacturer's hallmark, standing for Deakin & Francis, a Birmingham company founded in 1786 which is still trading, but which today specialises in men's cufflinks and signet rings.

I don't know who gave it to me, there is no reference to it in my mother's writings, nor is there a clue in that it was made in Birmingham. It doesn't matter: I'm grateful for it and just pleased that it has survived with me for my seventy-five years.

Starfish Graveyard

 

We walked the as-usual-almost-deserted sands at Littleferry this morning, finding jellyfish - mostly lion's mane but also moon and blue - including....

....what is probably the largest lion's mane we've seen here, though not as big as the giants we met on Ardnamurchan's beaches.

Then we came across a starfish in delicate lavender shade, about 10cm across and the first starfish we've seen on Golspie's beaches, but....

....it was soon followed by another, this time in pale pink and with a slightly smoother 'skin' texture. Although they are rather different, they appear both to be members of the species Asterias rubens, the common starfish of the North Atlantic.

We wandered gently along a wide beach exposed by a low tide until we reached the point where the sea flows into and out of Loch Fleet, to find that the edge of the water was....

....covered with hundreds of dead starfish in the common starfish's main colours, lavender, pink, light brown and....

....yellow.

We have no idea why there should have been this sudden mortality except to suggest it might be connected to yesterday's strong, cold northeaster.

Nature Studies

Along Golspie beach we often come across these, the 'tests' of the sea urchin or 'sea potato', Echinocardium cordatum, most often at the Littleferry end of the beach, and they remind me of one of the great gaps in my education - that, as a boy going through the English private education system, I was not normally expected to know much biology. At prep school I did a bit of 'nature studies' but at Bradfield the emphasis was on physics, chemistry and maths, and NOT biology.

As a result, I came at what knowledge I have of the living world later in my education, and indirectly, through characters like....

....this beauty - picture courtesy Didier Descouens at Wikipedia, link here. It is, of course, a fossil, the preserved remains of Micraster decipients, from the Chalk, and I was expected to learn about how modern versions of this beast - such as the sea potato - lived in order to understand the fossils which I so enjoyed studying in the palaeontology section of my geology degree at Keele.

So I learned that M. decipiens, like the sea potato, lived a few centimetres below the surface of soft sediments, working its way through the ooze extracting nutrients from it, but maintaining a tunnel to the mud surface through which it could bring down clean water from which to extract oxygen and to remove waste.

I found the geology side to this fascinating. For example, why did M. leskei, which lived near the mud/water interface, evolve over time into the deeper-living M. decipiens, which evolved in due course into M. coranguinum? However, I found equally fascinating the fact that these urchins operated - and still operate - through a truly wonderful hydraulic system of the sort we, as humans, 'invented' to work, among many other things, the business end of JCBs.

So I learned some biology through my geology, and have continued to wonder at the marvels revealed by both subjects.

Flying Machines

Yesterday afternoon we watched this flying machine hover motionless over the heather-covered slopes of Beinn Bhraggie despite a gusty wind while it first dropped off a medic to care for a casualty and then returned some time later to pick up both casualty and medic. The structure at bottom right, where the accident - if that's what it was, as there's nothing in the news - happened is a wooden bridge across the deer fence at the top of the lower, forested slopes.

This morning we walked up the hill and across Golspie burn to buy some eggs from the Backies croft in bright but distinctly cool weather and, while taking a short cut across some bracken-infested croft land, spotted....

....this magnificent flying machine. The larger dragonflies we've seen over the past few weeks have consistently refused to land so their portraits could be taken but we guessed that this one was waiting to warm up before taking off, though another possible reason is that its abdomen appears damaged.

I'm struggling to identify it. It most resembles a male common hawker but the yellow-green stripes on the side of the thorax are far too wide, and are more like those of the hairy dragonfly - except this one lacks the brown, hairy bit on its thorax.

We returned home via the skating pond which, very unexpectedly, had more dragon- and damselflies than we've seen in weeks. As usual, the hawkers refused to settle but I did get shots of....

....a very handsome male black darter and....

....an equally fine female of the same species. Along with the hawkers, the damselflies eluded me.

Sparrowhawk

We spotted this sparrowhawk through the sitting-room window early this afternoon. We've had sparrowhawks in the garden before but fleetingly, and have never seen one so close. It quickly became apparent that it couldn't see us, so we were able to watch it as....

....it set about hunting our small birds, working its way through the bushes and....

....seemingly trying to frighten them out into the open.

For some time it sat on top of the trellis which separates the front and back gardens. The tangle of rose and clematis to the left is a night roost for a bunch of our sparrows and the hawk seemed quite content to wait to see if one showed its face or broke cover.

Then it flew into the back garden where most of the peanut feeders are hanging and, making an attack from the roof the summer house, almost managed to catch a sparrow.

It then flew back to the top of the trellis and spent more time there - from which we guess that it's had previous successful hunts from that vantage point.

That it's feeding off our carefully fattened small birds doesn't worry us. A fine predator like this is part of nature's rich pattern and we're thrilled to see it in our garden, even if the resident small birds aren't.

We watched it for over half an hour before it flew off across the field. At times it was within ten feet of us yet unaware of our presence.

It was almost certainly a juvenile as it doesn't have the rich colours of the adult - and its hunting skills definitely need to improve if it's to survive through the coming winter.

A Dove's Breakfast

Hello, hello, what's he done now? He used to scatter our breakfast seed along the top of the wall but....

....it looks as if he's put a cage over it. Can't see a way in at this end but....

....perhaps I can get in from the side? No, then....

....what about from on top? This is a bit trying, there must be a way in, so what about....

 ....the other side? For goodness sake, what's he playing at? I bet it's to do with those greedy jackdaws he's forever chasing away. Trouble is....

....I'm about the same size as a jackdaw.

I give up.