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.

Stuck

There was a time when Britain's weather was described as 'changeable', and we were told this was because of our proximity to the Atlantic and our exposure to the rain-bearing depressions which came at us across it.

No more. Now we tend to have long periods of the same weather followed by a change to another long period of a different weather. So, at the moment, these happy sheep are enjoying life in a persistent, cold, 20mph-plus east-southeasterly wind bringing wintery showers, a weather which has been 'stuck' since 21st January and shows no sign of letting up for another week at least; before which we had snow and other wintery weather from the beginning of the month.

As an ex-teacher of geography I look to the surface pressure charts which clearly show the reason for our present east-southeasterly - the winds circulate clockwise round the low pressure areas L and anticlockwise round the highs, H. The current arrangement of the lows and highs funnels cold air from the continent across northern Britain. None of which explains the weather's new habit of getting stuck.

We've lived before in places where the weather is monotonous, and I tend to prefer that predictability, particularly in countries where the default weather is nice and warm. So, while tropical counties like Jamaica do have seasons, usually wet season and dry, there often isn't a huge difference between the two.

Both our teaching contracts abroad, in Rhodesia and Jamaica, were attempts to find a warm country where we could settle for the rest of our lives. The way things turned out, we failed, and the present weather makes me regret that failure.

Feeding Station Visitor

In this cold, windy weather, with so many small birds congregating around our feeding stations, it was almost inevitable that this visitor should pop in for a bite of lunch - which he did, yesterday. He missed his intended target so hung around close to one of the most popular sunflower feeders....

....lying in wait for one of the small birds to arrive which wasn't already aware of his presence.

The bright orange-brown striped underparts indicate that this is a male sparrowhawk. Earlier in the week both Mrs MW and I had seen what we're almost certain was a female. There's plenty of prey here for both.

After a few minutes of patient but unproductive waiting the sparrowhawk moved so he was better hidden....

....but after a few minutes moved again, so he had a better view of the garden, moving around all the time as if he was aware that we were watching and was anxious to show off his finery.

Then the small bird he had been waiting for arrived, landing on the fence close behind him - and a moment after this picture was taken he was in hot pursuit as the bird flew high above us but, as far as we could see, he once again failed to make a kill.

Understandably, after he had flown off it took the birds several minutes to start to return to the feeders.

Small Birds

This morning, in order to escape the bitter east-southeasterly which has been blowing for days, I walked as much as possible through the woods where I was reasonably protected, though the wind was causing the tops of the trees to thrash around so much that, if any birds were singing - which I doubt, though it won't be long before the crossbills will be nesting - I wouldn't have heard them.

Inevitably, I had to walk some distance out of the protection of the trees and under a dismally grey sky which, later in the morning, began to give us the first flakes of the promised snow.

The pink-footed geese that pass over each day around 9am were flying low to get out of the wind but still struggled to maintain their V-shaped skeins.

With little to be seen or heard in the woods I came home and spent some time watching the small birds at their feeders at the front of the house. 

The main visitors to the sunflower kernel feeders were the siskins and goldfinches, which were, as always, heavily outnumbers by chaffinches.

However, it was good to see that the siskins were coming to the feeders in some numbers, which they haven't been in the recent past, and....

....that some of them are already very brightly dressed ready for the mating season.

On the far side of the road the peanut feeders were doing brisk business with coal and great tits; but one conspicuous and slightly worrying absentee were the blue tits.

A New Shop for Kilchoan

Following the very sudden closure of the village shop in Kilchoan, which we owned and ran for ten years - see earlier post about the closure, here - the West Ardnamurchan community has decided to build a new shop near the Community Centre. This would, along with the normal goods found at any small shop, provide many vital services for such a remote area - fuels, Calor Gas, post office and newspapers. The projected cost is in the region of £500,000.

To finance this, they have set up a Crowdfunding site. It's at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/kilchoan-shop

High Tide & High Seas

We drove to Littleferry this morning to walk in the forestry - the wind remains unpleasantly strong in exposed areas - stopping off in the village for some milk and to look at the high tide breaking on the sea defences along the front.

At Ferry Woods we walked through the pine plantation to the sea, to find that the sand along this section of the shore has completely disappeared, leaving the gently shelving pebble beach to do a very good job of soaking up the energy of the breakers.

We then spent some time following the paths through parts of the plantation we hadn't visited in some time, remembering that parts of this forestry have trees, several now dead or dying, which are much older than the planted Scots pines.

Crossing the road to the Loch Fleet shore, we found the loch a picture of grey tranquility.

Up until that point we'd hardly seen a bird other than a few gulls and crows, but on the narrow shingle bank in the right, middle distance we spotted....

....a mixture of species, ducks and waders, standing miserably while waiting for the tide to fall so they could resume their feeding. Across the wide expanse of the rest of the loch there wasn't a bird to be seen other than....

....this one little diver, identified as a juvenile goldeneye.

Where Have They Gone? - 1

Where have all the children gone, the ones I knew so long ago when, as a boy, I lived in East Africa?

They have spread across the world as, with the peripatetic lifestyle that was common to so many of them in their upbringing, I think I would have expected. So they are in Australia, in the US, in South Africa and Zimbabwe as well as in the UK and other European countries. They have scattered in the winds of change. 

Yet, despite the decades that have passed, I am still in touch, on a regular basis, with three of them, and on a more occasional basis with two more.

Of the many others, I know where some are but do not hear from or of them, and some - more and more - I know have died.

Wherever they are, and whether they are alive or dead, I am deeply indebted to them because many had such a strong influence in moulding my life; and I do hope, therefore, that they all lived long, happy and fulfilling lives.