Tsuro Settles In

Last Friday we welcomed Tsuro home after an absence which we feared might have been terminal but which was caused by the appearance of a marauding black cat. Well, I'm pleased to inform his growing fan base that we're now, once again, seeing him regularly.

At first it was unrestrained joy at having him back safe and sound but this was tempered when he started to indulge some of his bad habits, like....

....nibbling the flowers off our precious aubretia.

Happily, while he doesn't do too much damage to our planted flowers, he's doing a grand job of keeping down the grass and other coverings on our paths.

We're fairly certain that he's made his home in the marsh grass on the far side of our 'pond' - a 'pond' which, due to the recent long spell of dry weather, hasn't had any water in it for ages. He must be fairly secure in there because....

....we now have two cats coming in to the garden looking for him.

Both of these cats come from the house which is below our back garden and, from enquiries round the neighbourhood, both are active hunters.

So, if Tsuro is planning to stay with us, he's going to have to keep clear of these two - until he grows up to be a big, bad, bold rabbit that even these cats are frightened of.

A Walk to the Hut Circle

As I set off up the track for my morning walk into the hills I was wished good morning by this cheerful yellowhammer, and by a couple of nearby butterflies, a small copper and a peacock. However, the main interest along the track was the wealth of wildflowers just coming into bloom, including....

....the flowers of blaeberry....

....heath milkwort....

....and tormentil, this last, very retiring flower being so emblematic of the highland's hills..

My walk was to the hut circle, about a mile-and-a-half from the house, where I sat on its low wall and enjoyed sunshine and the view. Soon, the circle will be invisible, shrouded by the bracken which is already shooting up; and it will remain so until almost a year hence.

I sat for some time, imagining the people who lived there two millennia or more ago, and concluding once again that they built their houses where they had a view - for the ground drops away steeply on the side the looks out over the landscape.

It is, of course, too much to imagine that it was they who sent a message via the best sighting of the day, one of the.... 

....fritillary family.

More 'Firsts'

This morning we set off in cloudy but still conditions, with the occasional irritating splashes of rain, to walk the coast path past Dunrobin Castle, mainly on the lookout for more 'firsts' of the year - and we were richly rewarded for putting up with the rain, starting with....

....the first grey wagtail of the year, seen where it's almost always found, just upstream of the footbridge over the Golspie Burn. Then....

....we were allowed to approach to within ten metres of a martin, possibly a sand martin, which simply sat and watched us unto we were just a little too close for comfort

The next bird of interest was one which should have been abundant through the winter but which conspicuously wasn't: the starling; and today we only had a fleeting glimpse of a flock of four.

Near the starlings we found the first eggs-and-bacon plant of the year, though this one was very much more eggs than bacon, which was a pity as good bacon can be rather fetching.

We don't associate greenfinches with this walk but this handsome bird may have been attracted to the sea wall by the mass of ichneumon wasps on the wing. Greenfinches are usually thought of as mainly eating seeds but apparently they do enjoy an insect meal.

The real icing on the cake of this walk came almost at its end when we spotted a painted lady - surprising since the weather was hardly butterfly weather and no other butterflies were on the wing.

Wet Walking

We continue to be assailed by a miserable north-north-westerly airflow which holds the temperatures below 10C at midday, and also brings sharp wintery showers of hail interspersed with some of the heaviest, though not unwelcome rain we've seen in months - so taking a walk involves donning all the heavy waterproofs of winter, and taking photos is severely restricted. However, on the bright side, when the sun is out the gorse still burns enthusiastically.

I walked out this morning looking for anything new, and almost immediately stumbled across the year's first lesser stitchwort hastening its flowering before it's buried under rampant bracken.

In this weather, the last thing I expected to find was a large caterpillar - albeit a very unhappy caterpillar holding on to a twig of dead gorse. I think, without certainty, that it's the caterpillar of the drinker moth.

One doesn't normally expect to find something of interest in the bottom of a soggy ditch but these are only the second example I've found of a fungus called bog beacon Mitrula paludosa. There were only half a dozen of these tiny fungi....

....this one, the largest, being about 10mm high.

Shortly after I arrived home Mrs MW called me to the window. Tsuro was back on the lawn enjoying a late breakfast of succulent grass. We were mightily relieved to be able to welcome him home.

Missing

We're very worried about Tsuro the rabbit. He hasn't been seen in the garden since this photo was taken two days ago and it was on that day that we first saw....

....this very handsome black cat.

It comes in to our property from the house that's below our back garden but we've not seen it before so don't know who owns it - not that cats can be 'owned' like dogs are.

The cat was paying special attention to the part of the garden, round the pond, which is, or perhaps was Tsuro's patch. We chased it back down the bank to where it belongs several times but it was back again in no time, and we tried strengthening the fence. Then, today, we've not seen it, so fear that it no longer has an interest in coming into the garden.

Oh dear!

Casting Clouts

Folklore dictates that one should "never think to cast a clout until the month of May be out" - a clout being a garment of some sort - on the basis that it's not uncommon for us to suffer some miserable weather in a month in which people are anticipating the start of summer. The proverb is, of course, partly true, but it's also true - in our experience anyway - that May can be beautiful. In fact, if anyone asks us which is the best month in which to visit the Highlands we always say, "May," for there are many days in May when, if you didn't, "cast a clout," you'd boil.

The other thing about Highland weather is that one just has to go out into it, whatever it may be. So, this morning, in the face of gusty winds, hail, snail (snowy hail), rain and a temperature that refuses to scramble above 8C, we enjoyed a walk in weather which made itself interesting by changing by the moment.

We weren't the only ones out. There were plenty of rabbits busy on the serious business of enjoying the succulent grass....

 ....in fields where none of the sheep was lying down - supposed to be a warning of the sort of wet weather which, if any of the sheep had looked up from their meal, they would have seen heaving over the hill towards them. They were also too busy eating to notice a few small bird swooping between them....

....our second sighting this year of swallows. Now if anyone has some justification for complaining about the weather, it is these recent returnees from the sunny warmth of sub-Saharan Africa.

At Home

Tsuro the Scottish rabbit has made himself very much at home in our back garden. While he wanders all over the area shown in this picture, he's most often to be found in the pond, usually in front of the marsh grass on the far side where.... 

....he sits very comfortably, protected from the weather. There's little chance of him being bothered by the pond filling: it's been so dry here that it would take some extremely heavy rain for its water level to rise.

Tsuro spends a fair amount of time washing himself. Rabbits are cleanly animals which spend time preening their fur. They also have toilet areas away from where they sleep.

Tsuro's fortunate in that he has some very useful neighbours. The wood pigeons, from their vantage points on top of the fences, make excellent lookouts.

So Tsuro has settled in well.  There's only one problem, the inevitable one, and....

....I suppose we're going to have to learn to live with it.

It isn't just the aubretia, we've also seen him....

....having a go at three other plants, though his main diet does seem to be grass.

So Tsuro's welcome to graze on a few of our flowers - as long as he doesn't invite all his friends and relatives to a party or, worse, to come and live with him.