Confrontation

I recognise the grating sounds of anger of an annoyed robin but yesterday, as I was trying to relax in the back garden during a few moments' sunshine between the showers, I heard robin anger of unprecedented fury - to the extent that I took this photo of the source, what I thought was a lone robin but which turned our to be....

....the noisy robin apparently confronting a silent robin.

Was the one that was silent a female, and the noisy one an amorous male? This seemed unlikely at this time of year. Or was it....

....a very dominant male trying to frighten away a possible territorial rival? If this was the case, the rival seemed quite prepared to hold his ground in silent belligerence.

I didn't see the final outcome because I was distracted by....

....what I thought might be the last butterfly of the year, a red admiral.

A Damp Day

To make a change from yesterday's gusting winds today dawned still, and very wet, with large puddles along the tracks and....

....spiders webs picked out by raindrops. I walked up the hill to the point where I could see....

....Silver Rock clothed in mist.

It was always my intention to climb this hill for it must have a fine view all around but particularly across Loch Fleet - but I never got round to it and now it's probably beyond me.

At least the weather suited some, for there was a good selection of....

....fungi to be admired, including these two puffballs and....

....this tiny gill eking an existence out of a pile of chipped pinewood.

After yesterday's thrashing of leaves and branches the hills seemed very quiet, the dominant sound the calls....

....of hundreds of pink-footed geese trying to find a field where they would be left in peace to feed on the barley grains left by the harvester.

A Torrent of Wind

The garden has been blasted all day by a southwesterly which has gusted up towards force 6, and the morning started cold, the thermometer just reading 12C when we first went out but struggling up to 15C as the morning wore on. However, despite these adverse conditions, the insects....

....have been out in force in our back garden, wasps, hover flies and several species of....

....small bees, all managing precarious landings on plants they were waving around madly in the wind. There was almost a sense of desperation, as if they knew that summer is moving over indecently quickly to give way to autumn.

To my considerable surprise, two butterflies were out in this chaos, a very smart red admiral which, surprisingly, chose to feed on verbena plants which, on the end of six-foot stems, were describing wild arcs in the wind, while....

....the peacock wisely chose the michaelmas daisies, which were much more stable.

There's no sign of change in the weather tomorrow except that the wind is shifting into the northwest and increasing in speed, gusts up to gale force being forecast for lunchtime tomorrow.

Latest Robbut News

I'm sorry to tell it, but the latest news of our resident rabbit, Robbut, is not good. The last definite sighting of him was on 3rd September when he was in one of his usual places cropping the succulent grass. A few minutes later....

....and to our considerable consternation, we noticed a second rabbit near him - seen in this picture half-hidden on the right.

I'm sure readers will understand our concern at seeing Robbut with another rabbit, as two-plus-two in the rabbit world has a nasty habit of making ten. And while we love our resident rabbit dearly, we're not sure we want our carefully-tended garden to be turned into a rabbit warren,

That said, events moved on fast for we had a fleeting view of the second rabbit - seen in this picture - before the two of them took fright and disappeared into the pond area.

We were hoping for further sightings in the subsequent days but these did not occur, probably because one of our daughters came to stay for a week and she never goes anywhere without her two precious dogs, one of which is the lurcher featured in a recent post, here. At this point the rabbits, very wisely, disappeared, since when we've not seen any sign of rabbit activity in our garden, We keep hoping Robbut will return, though we're not sure we're that keen on him bringing a lady friend with him.

A Roadside Camp

This is a picture of a typical roadside camp during the weeks Michael Atkinson and I spent hitch-hiking in North Africa in 1964. Michael is to the left, still rolled up in his sleeping bag asleep even though the sun has been up for some time and the air is hot. My belongings are on the right, 'airing'. To the right of them the bank slopes up to a road very like any long, straight road in France with trees lining it, but this isn't France, it's Algeria, recently independent from France after a truly horrid war.

At this stage of the outward journey we were still trying to get back to Southern Rhodesia but, instead of crossing the Sahara as we had originally planned, we were heading for Egypt in the hope of going up the Nile.

Looking back, the whole journey was a terrible risk but we seemed, in those far-off days, to be capable of carrying on whatever the journey threw at us. In a few minutes Michael will wake and we'll make breakfast out of whatever we happen to have in our rucksacks. Then we'll pack them, walk up to the road, and hang out a thumb - and we never knew who would draw up and offer us a lift. It was part of the excitement of the day.

Rain

Last night's rain was heavy and prolonged enough to turn the plantation ditches which have been dry for months into small but....

....raging little torrents, to the extent that we had to take some considerable care in crossing them. 

We mustn't complain about the rain - not yet anyway - as we've spent weeks moaning about how much we've needed it.

The slugs and snails are thoroughly enjoying the change and taking the opportunity the damp weather to attack the fungi with a vengeance. It was promising to be a good year for fungi but....

....the caps hardly appear above ground before the wretched molluscs have....

....had a go at them.

Some they don't touch. These blackening waxcaps come up in the same place every year but are never eaten. They have other problems, particularly the men from the council who come round regularly to strim the area of lawn where they're attempting to grow.

Nor do they seem to bother these beautifully delicate little caps growing on a pine log. Perhaps the resin puts them off.

So, with the rain and the fungi and the slugs and the now-vacant....

....fenceposts where, just a few days ago, the swallows rested, it really does feel like autumn.

Mid-Atlantic

When I accepted a job teaching at a secondary school in Jamaica the normal way contract teachers travelled to the island was by 'plane but we, despite having a small child, wanted to do it by sea.

This is one of the few photographs I have of that 1973 journey from Amsterdam to Kingston, and it shows how much the world has changed since those days.

The Amersfoort was a Dutch cargo ship which followed a route that took in several islands in the Caribbean and some countries in Middle and South America. It had accommodation for twelve passengers who had an almost free run of the ship, and ate meals with the officers.

So we would wander the decks of the ship with our small daughter, taking her to exciting places like the prow of the ship, whence we could look vertically down to where the bulbous bow of the ship sliced the gloriously clear waters of the Atlantic.

The photo was taken in mid-Atlantic in trade wind weather - a steady breeze with blue skies broken by fair-weather cumulus clouds. Around us the ocean stretched emptily away, the view only broken by occasional fish such as porpoises or flying fish, and floating mats of seaweed.

In those days there was little regard for health and safety. To access the viewing point, Mrs MW and our two-year old had to climb a vertical steel ladder and then hang on tightly to the metal guard rail. It was windy there - the ship was modern and fast so, to add to the trade wind, there was the slipstream of the ship. The two of them are wearing sandals, there's nothing like a lifejacket in sight. There could have been the most awful tragedy - but we were careful and the result was an exciting experience.

All this was brought to mind by a recent visit from that little girl, now fifty-five years old and mother to two daughters of her own. I doubt whether she remembers the experience, which is a shame.