Roe Deer Disappearance

Roe deer were a not uncommon sight in the forestry and fields between our house and the village. Sometimes we saw as many as three at one time, and we've seen young which were only weeks old.

All that changed following the hunts that took place across estate lands last autumn: since August we haven't seen a single roe deer.

However, we're beginning to find increasing signs of them. This is a section of our route down to the village which we've called The Avenue, and along it we're seeing....

....fresh footprints almost every day - which is surprising, because there is construction activity on the hill just above it where the farmer is turning over some of his fields to a camping/caravan park.

One of the best places to see roe deer used to be from Roe Corner, where they were often to be seen grazing across this field.

Today, as we walked past this point and through....

....Speckled Wood - so called for the species of butterfly found there in summer - for the first time we spotted....

....fresh deer dung.

So the roe deer are there, but there when we're not.

Never mind. For the time being we need to be patient and find our excitement in smaller wildlife, like this blue tit, pictured in Speckled Wood.

Where Have They Gone? - 2

If some of the happiest memories of my youth are those of the times we had in Mombasa, the unhappiest were those in the ten months of the year when we were at boarding school in England; and the most miserable of those were the years between the age of nine and thirteen which I spent at a Sussex prep school, Glengorse.

Perhaps it is a reflection of this that, after I left, I was never again in contact with any of my fellow sufferers, not even my best friend: I'm at top right in this picture of the school's cricket team, and my best friend, Roger Soole, is standing next to me.

Life at public school was, once one had survived the bullying of the first couple of years, much better, mostly because we had both more freedom and more responsibility.

This picture is of the school prefects in the autumn term of 1962 - I am the only one wearing a scarf - and of these prefects two were particularly good friends. I had other close friends too, and we met outside school, once....

....sailing down the Thames in leaky coracles which we had built at school in the period after we had taken our 'A' levels.

Until my parents retired from East Africa in 1961, my brother and I spent the Christmas and Easter  holidays with a Mrs Groome, a lady whose husband had died in the war. She made her living taking in colonial children during these holidays. She also bred cocker spaniels.

Her house was out in the countryside - ideal for walking the dogs - but we met few children of our age, the only exceptions being the other children, usually two, staying with Mrs Groome.

Of all the people I met during those years in England, after I left Bradfield I kept in touch with only two. One lived close to my parents' house in Sussex, the other subsequently became my best man.

I lost touch with the last of these English friends in 1963 when Mrs MW and I left university to take up teaching posts in Ian Smith's Rhodesia.

See previous post in this series here.

The Resident Sparrowhawk

The sparrowhawk we'd been seeing occasionally has now taken up almost permanent residence in our back garden where there is.... or, rather, there was a good supply of well-fed prey. He spends most of his time sitting on a prominent perch just watching our and our neighbour's gardens. 

Most of the small birds are well aware of his presence and stay away. The consumption of sunflower kernels has therefore almost dropped to zero.

 In the above picture, the hawk is at bottom right and a chaffinch is perched on the branches towards the top left.

Some of the hawk's time is spent preening. Yesterday, he spent a good hour cleaning himself, and only when this was finished did he....

....start to hunt again. Here he's on the ground under the feeders having chased a small bird there, without catching it.

Finally, this morning, one of his hunts was successful - between his talons are the pitiful remains of what might have been a tit which, small as it was, he....

....tore apart and ate with evident relish

Seconds after this picture was taken he suddenly dropped off this perch and shot under the table where we do our potting. Few of the birds go there, the only exceptions being the dunnocks and robins. Oh dear - I like the dunnocks and robins.

Up into the Mist

Loch Lunndaidh lies a couple of miles to the west of Golspie and can easily be accessed from Drummuie along one of the....

....estate tracks. The loch used to be one of our favourite walks - when we first came here we explored the ruins of the clachan at the western end of it - but reaching the loch now is increasingly challenging. However, today, with the rain stopped and the wind dropped, I set off to see how far I could get.

The walking was eerily pleasant, with the mist down over the hills but lifting occasionally to give....

....views down to Loch Fleet and beyond.

There are a couple of gates across the track but they offer pedestrian access. This one used to mark the end of the forestry so on the open muir beyond it we saw wildlife such as red deer and fox but about four years ago the land was fenced, planted mainly with conifers, and the deer culled.

I walked a little further, to the point where, in days gone by, two tracks crossed, a point marked by a signpost which, on a typical day, probably hardly sees a passer-by. 

I turned back there. The loch is another kilometre or so on and I didn't feel I had the energy to make it.

Perhaps I should have risen to the challenge. Perhaps, if I'd had others with me, I would have had the confidence to manage it. But we have always had the determination never to allow our enjoyment of walking Scotland's wilderness to cause problems for others.

A Break in the Weather

This was the view across the Firth just after 8.30 this morning with a weak sun struggling to break through the clouds that have obscured the sky these last couple of weeks; and when we went for a walk....

....it didn't rain, not one drop - which makes a very pleasant change. However, there was still a heavy surf breaking on the coastline below Golspie golf club, the outer bar being formed, I would guess, of the sand the waves have been steadily stripping from the beach.

The sparrowhawk seems to have taken up almost permanent residence in our garden, making life miserable for the small birds. I now think of going down to the back garden to feed the birds as feeding the sparrowhawk rather than the chaffinches, tits, dunnocks, blackbirds, siskins, goldfinches and robins.

It's hard on the small birds but this is a truly beautiful killing machine, and a very patient one: he's not bothered by us as we move around indoors to watch him.

I hate to admit it but I'm hoping to see him make a kill.... in the interests of science, of course.

Gorse in Flower

The weather continues to be truly miserable, with the same east-southeasterly wind that's been blowing for about seventeen days bringing in cold air from the continent and dismal, sleety showers - not that anything worries the gorse growing along the sides of the forest tracks, for it is....

....in exuberant flower. Not only is it proudly showing off its own spring-coloured blooms but it's also playing host to the 'flowers' of a couple of....

....very cheerful fungi, including this 15mm diameter little beauty which I think....

....may be velvet shank fungus and....

....this white fungus which I have failed to identify.

In addition, the local gorse is supporting specimens of the bright yellow witches' fungus, though I didn't find any of that today.

Dunrobin Woods

This morning, with no sign of any change in the weather, we took the car to the northern end of the village where, by walking in the Dunrobin woodland, we could avoid what was almost a gale blowing along the exposed shore.

It's difficult to find anything very exciting in the woods at this time of year, with the dominant colours greens and browns, but in places....

....the clumps of moss showed themselves in vibrant greens; and those greens contrasted with, in just one privileged place....

....the spectacular colours of a dozen or so scarlet elf cups.

Happily, Mrs MW also found a new fungus....

....a large one, this pile being about 8" high. As so often seems to happen, this fungal fruiting body was not alone, but had three others around it.

To avoid walking into the wind we stuck to the woods as far as the castle and then intended to drop down to the shore to return, jet-propelled, along the exposed waterfront, but the castle had closed the access down to the shore as part of the refurbishment of the building's exterior, so we had to return through the woods.