Ships in the Snow

It's been snowing here on and off since yesterday morning but, during the day, any that settled melted almost immediately. However, through the night some of it accumulated on....

....the rooftops, though these deposits didn't last long.

Although the weather really shouldn't be doing this to us in late March, more surprising was the number of ships anchored in the Moray Firth, more than we've seen before.

To the left in this picture is the Jomi, the ship we saw at Littleferry the other day, while the ship to the right is the Wilson Harrier.

From our house the Neuseborg (above) lay away to our left while the Rix Pacific was too far round for us to see.

Why we have this sudden accumulation of ships is a bit of a mystery, particularly as there is no exceptionally bad weather forecast during the next few days..

A Wide, Sandy Beach

It's one of the privileges of living in Golspie that we have easy access to a wide, sandy beach which stretches for miles but which usually has hardly another soul on it.

Today, this beach was so deserted that we also shared it with....

....two seals. This one, from the tracks it left running down the beach, had come ashore during the night's high tide but, by the time we were near it, it was almost back in the sea while....

....this one seemed quite happy to ignore the very occasional passing human.

To add to the interest of the walk a ship lay at anchor not far offshore. She's the Jomi, and this isn't the first time we've seen her off Golspie - see earlier post here.

The wreck in the right foreground is all that remains of the Tones, which came ashore in 1937 - see earlier blog entry here  

A Gloomy Day

The contrast between today\s weather and yesterday's couldn't be more stark: when Mrs MW walked down to the shops yesterday she wore a t-shirt, while today she was back in a winter coat.

The day's general gloom, and an accompanying thin drizzle, made photography challenging, at a time of year when, suddenly, a great deal is happening. So....

....this attempt at a red squirrel was the best I could get.

More frustrating was my encounter with three roe deer, the first since last August. None of them would stop long enough to have their picture taken. Their nervousness is understandable: the estate has been managing its deer population though the winter, and culling quite a few of them.

It's amazing how many chiffchaffs have arrived and how quickly they're spreading through the forestry. I would guess that there is now a chiffchaff every 200m or so along the tracks, enough for me to find one which would stay still long enough for a photo.

Only the other day I was bemoaning the lack of yellowhammers. Well, this male has now arrived in one of the yellowhammers' favourite spots, just by the small quarry where the tadpoles and newts can be found. He was alone but singing lustily so, hopefully, he'll soon be attracting a mate.

Peacock

In the early afternoon the peacock was back in his garden today, sunning himself on a rock and occasionally visiting the heather flowers.

After a long, grey winter it was a joy and a tonic to sit and watch this beautiful creature, and to bask with him in the sunshine and 17C warmth.

First Butterfly of the Year

A few bumblebees have been busy in the back garden during the occasional sunny interval over a couple of weeks now but we did not expect that they would be joined this morning by....

....the first butterfly of the year, a peacock. Not that we should really have been surprised as the weather is perfect for an early-flying butterfly, with clear skies, no wind, and a still-air temperature of over 13C.

However joyful we were to see this butterfly we couldn't refrain from patting ourselves on the back because these first butterflies and bees are dependent for their early appearance on the food in the garden - and we're therefore thrilled that our planting over the last two years while we've been developing the garden has produced some flowers which these pioneer insects can exploit.

Both the pictures of the bee and the butterfly are of the same plant, a heather, one we bought over the internet two years ago. How the nursery managed to persuade a heather to flower at a time when we could still have snow and plunging temperatures is a mystery to me, but it has definitely had the desired effect.

Seen and/or Heard

I like to set out on a walk, as I did this morning, with some sort of purpose in mind. Today it was to count how many different bird species I either saw (S) and/or heard (H) - and I started well with a red kite (S&H) flying above me as I left the house, followed by the very distinctive tapping of a woodpecker (H) in the woodland by the sheep field.

Most of the walk was through this sort of terrain, with the open area in the foreground the result of the fire that swept though part of the estate land some years ago. There I identified buzzard (S&H), chaffinch (S&H) - lots of them - dunnock (H), blue tit (H)....

....robin (S&H), blackbird (S&H), wren (H), wood pigeon (S&H), collared dove (S&H), rook (H), carrion crow (S&H), pink-footed goose (H) and....

....this song thrush (S&H) which serenaded me with an abandon of joy.

Because I didn't count the birds which are close in to the houses because they're being fed by people like me, some of the birds that might have been included in the count included great tit, coal tit, siskin, goldfinch and green finch.

The highlight of the walk occurred along this stretch of track where my Merlin app once again insisted that....

....a chiffchaff was calling. Last time this happened, on Tuesday a week ago - see blog entry here - I dismissed it as an error, but today there was no doubt: the first chiffchaff (H) has arrived. Sadly, although I spent some time searching for him, he was invisible in the dense coniferous plantation.

Which leaves me with a total of sixteen birds either seen and/or heard in an hour's walk.

Introducing Harry

This is not something we normally do, name a wild animal, but this sparrowhawk is exceptional. He's in our garden almost every day, sometime spending time perched on a vantage point where he can wait for a meal to come his way, somethings passing through, at high speed, almost as if he's not really hungry but he wants to remind the small birds that he's around and hasn't forgotten them.

Harry's a good name because it both describes what he does - he harries the small birds - and it sounds princely - and a prince he certainly is.

We're now waiting with some impatience to see if he finds a mate to show off to us, and to the small birds.  If he does, I wonder what we'll call her.