The First Storm of the Winter

Storm Austen missed us but Storm Boelo made up for it by hitting the northeast coast of Scotland hard, closing the A9 in several places, taking out the power supply to tens of thousands of households, and gusting at times to over 60mph. We spent most of the day hoping against hope that we, in our modern, all-electric house, would not lose our supply, knowing that we wouldn't last long if we did.

Our daughter, who has a croft towards Dornoch, lost her power in the early afternoon, but she's well-prepared, with battery storage for electricity, a log stove which does things like boil the kettle, and a Starlink connection which doesn't go down with the electricity. So she can survive quite well for a few days, her electricity board telling her that she won't get her supply back until Tuesday evening.

Yet, despite some fierce gusts during the daylight hours yesterday, walking down to the village this morning there was little sign of damage, the only evidence of the storm that I could find being a couple of trees in the forestry, above, which had come down but been quickly cut up and removed by the Estate.

So last week saw our first ground frost of the year on Monday, and the first storm of the year on Sunday; and we had another glorious red sunrise, which forecasts yet another lively weather day to come.

The Last Butterflies

Well, there was no doubt about this morning's weather forecast - the red sky warning of severe weather to come later today, affecting just about all of Scotland and continuing on through almost all of tomorrow; and with the forecast of cold weather to come - it was 4C in the front porch when we set off for the village at 9am this morning - there's very little chance....

....of seeing any more butterflies on the wing, so I think I can declare this red admiral and....

.....this painted lady as the joint winners of the last butterfly of the season prize, the photos being taken on 19th October.

There is a tension in the air, as if we humans are not the only animals which know that there's a storm coming. As we walked through the woods towards the village....

....hundreds of geese flew over, all calling, as if some of them knew that flying north probably wasn't the best direction.

Interestingly, the geese we've seen (and heard) most in the last few days were pink-footed but these were greylags.

As I walked home a noisy and very aerobatic fight developed in the sky above me recently vacated by the geese. It seemed that two carrion crows - on the right in the picture - were objecting very strongly to the presence of a raptor (bottom left). It was very difficult to identify the raptor but my best guess is that it was one of our local sparrowhawks.

Back to the Woods

We've been in Inverness for a couple of days, drawn there for medical reasons and to patronise some of the city's shops. Normally, it's a pleasant little metropolis and we enjoy our occasional visits but the weather this time was miserable, cold and wet, so what are to me the highlights of the city - the many benches along the banks of the River Ness on which to sit and watch the human world go by - weren't particularly attractive. We were also deeply disappointed in the new, full electric bus service from Golspie into the city centre.

So it was good this morning to be walking in the woods again with....

....not another human in sight and the....

....silent fungi for company.

Not that this is turning out to be the good year for fungi suggested in the early part of their season, partly because the slugs and snails have been unusually active but mainly because the fungi simply haven't shown.

On the bright side, we've had the pleasure of several old friends including....

....a few chanterelles but today's highlight was.... 

....this yellow brain fungus (sometimes called witches' butter).

That I have previously posted about all three of these this year goes to show how disappointing things have been!

Sunrise

Today is one of the special days of the year, the day that, in the great annual cycle of the heavens, we see the sunrise from our house for the first time since spring as it moves steadily southwards towards its winter solstice. In a few days the sun will be rising along the horizon to the right of this picture.

So it seems appropriate that this first sunrise of the winter season coincided with the first ground frost of the autumn, one which coated the grass of the lawns and picked out the gossamer shrouding the gorse. Not that it lasted long. Within seconds of the sun touching it, ice became became water, big drops forming to sparkle like a tiara - if only for a few minutes before they evaporated.

The day then followed the example of the last three, with the sun warming a world without a cloud in the sky, but warming it just enough for a limited range of butterflies to appear. Yesterday we saw two painted ladies and no fewer than four red admirals, but saw no sign of peacocks, tortoiseshells or whites - except for the large white's caterpillars which are still munching contentedly through our precious broccoli. And today the butterflies were even more scarce, just one red admiral and one painted lady.

Each evening, the butterflies have disappeared to the secret places where they can survive another cold night, leaving the garden robin to sing the joys of having a territory of his own.

A Very Smart Squirrel

Yesterday saw another day fine enough to bring a couple of butterflies out, one being our ever-faithful painted lady and the other....

....the red admiral we haven't seen for some days, both feeding on the verbena as the michaelmas daisies are now past their best. It looks as if the fine weather may continue for some days so I'm going to watch the butterflies to see which is the last to be on the wing this year.. 

Our early morning walk into the village to collect a paper was chilly, with the temperature sitting on 6C, but this didn't worry a squirrel....

....which had a luxuriant dark and bushy tail. We also saw two roe deer which removed themselves too quickly for a picture, so here is....

....another picture of the squirrel.

Butterflies

With yesterday's temperature struggling to reach 15C, and with a nasty wind and a grey overcast, we couldn't really expect to see any butterflies in the garden but when this morning dawned bright and warm I set out to record what was coming in to the garden, starting with the butterfly which, this year, has consistently been around, a beautiful painted lady. I expected 'her' to be joined by the other species which has been a regular visitor, the red admiral, but none appeared, their place being taken by....

....this tortoiseshell, a butterfly we haven't seen in some time. It was joined by another butterfly which I didn't expect to see again this season....

....a rather moth-eaten peacock, again a butterfly which hasn't been around for a week or so.

They were joined by a day-flying moth, one which was in the garden not many days ago, a silver Y, this picture showing well how it obtained its name.

It does seem that the butterflies are on the wing as long as the temperature is 15C or over, and as long as there is some sunshine. I'm determined to record the last butterfly of the season which I am betting will be what I have voted in as the 'Butterfly of the Year', the painted lady.

Squirrel Hoarding Time

We 'enjoyed' a rather cool, grey day yesterday, not ideal conditions for photographing squirrels going about their autumn business - which means, mostly, collecting and hiding nuts. This one, pictured from our kitchen window, spent some time trying to get at the peanuts which were in the white plastic tube, a contraption invented to provide peanuts exclusively to the tit tribe.

What the squirrel failed to work out was that it had spent some time sitting on the contraption designed exclusively for our red squirrel population, so that they can see the food through the plastic window at the front and then access it by lifting the lid.... which it's sitting on. Maybe at some point it'll work it out.

A little deeper in the forestry we came across this squirrel which was furious that it had been disturbed while going about it's business which - look closely - is to take some hazel nuts from a commercially-made feeder very similar to mine and carry them off for burial somewhere, hopefully, which it'll remember in deep, dark winter.

There are various statistics on the internet which suggest that squirrels forget the location of over 50% of the nuts they bury. This may be good for the trees which grow as a result but it's pretty tough on the squirrels particularly when another statistic suggests that the average squirrel buries over 3,000 nuts each season: that's a minimum of 1,500 lost nuts.