The Expert

When I was a secondary schoolmaster I always considered myself a generalist rather than a subject 'expert', so I was particularly useful to the unfortunate colleague who had to construct the annual school timetable, when he/she found they needed someone to teach a class of, say, history, but didn't have a history specialist to take it. So, over my thirty years in the profession, I took classes of geography, geology, history, English, religious education, personal and social education, information technology, French, maths, general science, and, just the once, thank goodness, girls' netball. Of these I was qualified in only one: geology.

I enjoyed learning in new subject areas, and felt that it was not altogether a bad thing that I approached a subject from the same ignorant view as most of my pupils.

Despite this, I have always had a niggling desire to have been THE world expert on something. I might have become just that when, on leaving university in 1967, I was offered an MSc, the area of research being the Namurian goniatites of the Derbyshire/Staffordshire Peak District, goniatites being a slightly obscure, ancient and long-extinct relative of the ammonites.

Had I been able to take history at university - I wasn't, because I didn't even have an 'O'-level in the subject - my research would have been into the development and spread of the lateen sail, seen here on an ngalawa off the Tanzanian coast. I suppose the reason for this interest lay in the fact that I had seen lateen sails through my early life in Tanganyika and Kenya, and because....

....a lateen sail, seen here on an Omani dhow, has always seemed to me to be exceptionally beautiful.

I would also have loved to have been an expert on the semi-precious gemstone tourmaline. Its elongate, elegant natural crystals are so much more special than most other semi-precious stones because they come in such a variety of colours: colourless or in umpteen shades of pink, red, blue, green, yellow and black. My favourite variety is indicolite, which runs through rich blues and greens. More, and very unusually, the colour of tourmaline crystals can vary both along the length of the crystal and in zones from a central axis.

I suppose that, if I had organised myself for my retirement, I could have become the world expert on something but I allowed that opportunity to slip by. In any case, by the time I had spent years becoming that expert it would probably have been too late - I would have been forgetting all the precious facts so fast I would soon have ceased to be the world expert.

Photos of goniatite and tourmalines courtesy Wikipedia.

Peace

I like this spot. It's the small quarry where the seep of water appears and runs into the ditch along the side of the forest track, a place where, as I did this morning, I can sit on one of the boulders and watch the lone golden-ringed dragonfly patrol up and down, up and down, presumably defending what is, in his world, his territory.

It's a peaceful spot. Occasionally a dog-walker passes; occasionally the dragonfly lands and then takes off just as my camera focuses on him; occasionally a bird sings. But today all that peace was disturbed by what sounded like a large and very angry hornet...

....buzzing above the tops of the pine trees where the kites and buzzards usually wheel and call.

It took a minute or two to find the cause of this interruption to the peace of my world: a drone, the sort of thing one associates with Ukraine, I would guess following and checking the power lines that cut through the Bheinn Bhraggie forestry.

So I sat and listened to the drone, until the RAF woke up over at Lossiemouth, so the dron'se whine vied with the roar of fighter jets preparing for war. But the dragonfly continued his patrolling and, after a bit, a willow warbler started to call, not the wonderful cascade of falling notes of his spring song but a slightly mournful single note, cheep-cheep-cheep, as if all this noise and disturbance was too much for him and it was thime to turn south, south to Africa.

A Hot Day

We have no less than nine buddleia of various sorts growing in the garden, planted specifically for the insects and, particularly, the butterflies - so it was very gratifying yesterday to see the sun out almost all day, light winds, and a temperature which soared to 24C, with the result that the butterflies came out in force. On one buddleia shrub alone I counter nine peacocks and three red admirals.

So we had plenty of butterflies but the number of species was limited to just four - one of the whites, the red admirals, the peacocks, and a couple of tortoiseshells.

We also have about ten verbena bonariensis in flower, some over 6' tall, two lavenders in exuberant flower, and....

....three clumps of michaelmas daisies just coming into full bloom, all these along with many other flowering plants, yet the number of insects they have managed to attract is worryingly small - a few bees, hardly any hover flies, no wasps....

I talk to people on my walks in the forestry and many have also noticed that the insects are really suffering, whether from the grey summer or for other reasons. So, while it's very disappointing that all the flowers we have grown for the insects are not being fully appreciated, my main feeling is of worry. Why?

The New Wheels

So we've sold our last car - see earlier post here - and have now picked up its replacement, a mobility scooter. It's a great little machine but the grim fact is that our society is built around the car and one of these, eco-friendly as it is, is no replacement. However, it ticks many of the boxes that we wanted - like, it has a range of 30 miles - and is fun to drive. So at the moment we've been steadily increasing how far we take it each day until tomorrow, when we hope to drive it in to the centre of the village.

While the vehicle is very easy to drive some of its greatest problems arise from the state of our pavements. It's part of the car culture that, if at all possible, when a hole has to be dug into the highway it's into the pavement, one 'advantage' being that the subsequent repair can be pretty rough-and-ready.

There's a remarkably wide range of scooters at a variety of prices but we went for a middle-sized, middle-of-the-range machine which was comfortable, simple to drive, and had a waterproof console: amazingly, some scooters don't, so one has to cover the console if it rains. I also liked the manufacturer's sense of humour: to accelerate one presses the hare button, to slow down, the tortoise.

The law permits a maximum speed of 4mph on pavements and 8mph on the road. So to travel on a pavement one selects the 4mph button and then there is the option of five speeds, from a crawl to - in the case of 8mph and the top of the five speeds - quite an exiting ride.

A number of things remain as problems to be solved - like, how do we get out to Littleferry if we only have one machine. We'll see how we get on but, if the experiment is a success, we might buy a second so we can add racing each other to the birdwatching.

The Changing Seasons

That we have skeins of geese passing through is a sure sign of the changing seasons. In summer we hardly see one; starting in autumn their numbers rise to a crescendo by mid winter, before falling back with the coming of spring.

The geese are evidently taking their time in their migration, for the skein you see here is travelling north, not, therefore, as part of a migration but in a daily movement between fields where they are feeding, and their overnight roosts. They'll probably move on, in the right direction, as soon as they have refuelled.

Here is another sign of oncoming autumn, rowan branches crowded with berries, a sign too that the coming winter season may be a hard one. Perhaps we should expect a hard winter, after last year's relatively mild one and the peculiarities of this damp, cool, grey summer. Another is seen in the hazel trees where....

....there are masses of cob nuts, perhaps, to my unscientific eyes, twice as many as this time last year.

Then there is the wider heather family. The brightly coloured bell heather is already dying, its flowers brittle brown against the pale lilac of the more recently flowering ling, while the cross-leaved heath, at bottom right in this picture, was first to flower but is still in sturdy bloom.
 

We still have a few butterflies in the garden - red admirals, peacocks, tortoiseshells, a painted lady - sad, small numbers which come out to play only when the sun warms them for a few minutes. 

Far hardier are the speckled woods in Speckled Wood which are on the wing - just - even when the early-morning atmosphere is still miserably damp.

We've been quite worried about Robbut who has been AWOL for a few days, we thought because the neighbouring cat with the wild cat markings had been in the garden; and last night, thinking that Robbut was away, we even allowed a couple of dogs in - but this morning he was back, and very much at home.

Robbut

Our rabbit, which is now regularly to be seen in and around the garden, has a name. It took us some time to decide on one as we wanted something that reflected his mischievous character - for example, he is now....

....regularly stealing the birds' grain.

Mrs MW came up with the name Robbut, taken from.... 

....a book she was given way back in 1952. It was a present from her mother Bea, given her while the family was on a caravanning holiday in either South Wales or Cornwall.

It's the story of a rabbit which isn't satisfied with the way things are but which discovers that, very often, what you have is far better than any of the alternatives.

Coastguard

Before eight this morning we became aware of a helicopter out over the firth which, when it came a little closer, turned out to be....

....one of HM Coastguard's machines, evidently tracking back and forth in search of something or, more likely, someone. It was later joined....

....by the Invergordon lifeboat.

I spent thirteen years of my life in Kilchoan as a volunteer coastguard, an occasional job which saw many tragedies - as I fear is unfolding in the Moray Firth today - but also much enjoyment and, on good days, satisfaction.

It was good to be part of a team which had considerable responsibility, covering, as it did, a large and very remote area. More, it was one of the few cliff rescue teams on the west coast which meant that it could be called upon to use its skills in areas outside West Ardnamurchan. We trained hard, we responded to calls at any time of day and night, we spent many hours in what was often fairy hopeless searches. Because I had time on my hands after the sale of the shop I genjoyed checking all the equipment every month, which....

....included taking the vehicle for a run if it hadn't been used in some time.

When I left the service I was treated to a 'jolly' in one of the Coastguard helicopters, the only time I've been in a helicopter, and a thrilling experience.