Summer....

So we had a beautiful day, and the temperature managed to  exceeded what the BBC forecast.

A Summer's Day

Every morning over breakfast I visit the same list of websites, starting with the BBC News, the BBC Weather, the Meteorological Office weather - because the two often differ considerably - and this one, Windy.com, where I select the Temperature tab. This gives the wind directions and the surface temperature which, between them, give a pretty good idea of the weather prospects and, in particular, whether we are going to see a summer.

The map above was this morning's, with the wind coming off a cool North Sea, and we duly had a rather cloudy day with light rain by early evening. However, it's possible to run the map forward for about a week, and this....

....is the map for tomorrow. The BBC and the Meteorological office are forecasting maximum temperatures in Golspie of 25C and 23C respectively, which will make it the hottest day since May.

With proper summer days so rare here, we need to make the very best of it, so an expedition and - dare we risk it? - a picnic are planned, but.... where shall we go?

Sadly, there's a low pressure area moving in from the Atlantic which will draw yet more fronts in to the British Isles, so on Saturday we'll be back to temperatures more typical of Golspie's climate - with daytime maxima of around 17C.

Avian Nuisances

Golspie has more than its fair share of gulls, with the herring gulls making a particular nuisance of themselves, especially along the seafront where their bad habits are encouraged by people leaving things like chips around or, worse still, actively feeding them. They're also a pain to householders, using the chimney pots as nests and waking everyone up at three in the morning. However, we had to smile at this pair who have chosen a house with a flourishing garden.

As if the gulls weren't enough, the village also has crows in abundance - rooks, carrion crows, hoodies and jackdaws. The jackdaws are a particular nuisance to us, coming in to our back garden to steal the small birds' food. Sadly, they seem to have had a good breeding year, but it was good to see the parents being harassed by their young.

I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies: at least here, unlike in Felixstowe, there aren't too many wood pigeons, though we do have the occasional pair coming in to the garden to look for food.

Aerial Activity

We were disturbed last night while watching the news at ten by a helicopter circling around Beinn Bhraggie which....

....from this close-up, looks like one of HM Coastguard's Search & Rescue machines.

We learned this morning that it was part of a search for a missing 77-year old trail biker who didn't return home as expected in the afternoon.

Another helicopter, perhaps a police machine, was over the ben at eleven this morning, but the latest news is that the pensioner was found safe and well after he was, to quote the BBC, "....traced on Tuesday in the local area," which sounds very embarrassing for somebody.

This afternoon the sky was marked by something very unusual these days, a con trail. It could be the RAF hunting a Russian intruder but it might also be a passenger 'plane offering the latest in holidays for those who love flying but don't want to risk facing quarantine on their return - a flight round and round in circles over the UK.

A Herring Gull's Lunch

This is one very proud herring gull who....

....has caught something he's....

....not quite sure what to do with but....

....which he's certain that....

....given a bit of time and space he....

....will be able to work out how to....

....eat it but....

....just at the moment he's a bit flummoxed - and he's not helped by the two humans who simply won't go away and leave him in peace.

To Backies for Eggs

We walked up to the old crofting township of Backies this morning in bright sunshine but with a forecast of imminent rain. Many of the fields which have been down to meadow this year are already harvested and the silage piled in large rolls wrapped in black polythene.

The roadsides verges are now dominated by long grasses, some already yellowing, and there are relatively few new wildflowers able to fight their way up through them, though this one, just under a metre tall, had managed to grow through and produce flowers of spectacular purple. We think it's a comfrey, though it's a late starter and may, from its brighter colour, be a hybrid called Russian comfrey.

There are also more toadstools appearing, some in bright colours, this being one of two which must have shot up through recently mown lawn in one of the very neat houses which are scattered throughout the crofts.

We were in Backies to collect half-a-dozen of our favourite eggs and on the road near the corner we came across what we take to be hedgehog poo. We hadn't seen one of these poor beasties in ages, not even flattened on the road, until a couple of nights ago when I saw one scampering across the playing field opposite our house, sadly in the late evening when a photograph would have been difficult.

Also near the egg cupboard, Mrs MW saw a large dragonfly zipping along the road, something rather bigger than the four-spotted chaser and two damselflies which has been the very disappointing count for us so far this year. So we made our way home via the skating pond in the hope of seeing one there but by the time we reached it the rain had arrived, and dragonflies don't like rain.

Golspie Beach

It's high summer - albeit a rather chilly one - with the schools closed and people able to travel to holiday destinations, yet Golspie's beach remains stubbornly empty. This is a view looking southeast along it, taken just after midday, with three people visible along its length.

While for us it's a beach which tends to lack excitement - though there have been marked exceptions - it's a lovely beach for children, with miles of sand, very little indeed in the way of litter, and.... no crowds.

We asked a local whether this emptiness was normal, and he assured us it was: Golspie isn't much of a tourist destination except during the annual gala week.

We usually find something to catch our interest, and this was it, the clear tracks of a bird, from its feet about the size of a small crow, but its footmarks step into a drag mark, so something is projecting down from the front of the bird that's scraping along the sand as it walks....

....perhaps more clearly seen in this picture. These tracks ran for a hundred metres or so along the beach just above the high-tide line.

We tend to walk back along the path along the top of the sea defences, a path which sometime runs along the edge of the carefully-mown golf course and sometime through wild meadow. At one point we found some six-spot burnets, the second colony around Golspie, all looking in rather better shape than the Littleferry ones.

We also saw plenty of butterflies including some beautiful tortoiseshells and meadow browns and....

....a couple of female common blues, again hugely outnumbered by the males.

Gentians

I couldn't identify this wildflower which we found at Littleferry on Tuesday despite over an hour of increasingly frustrated thumbing through the three big books I have and a fair amount of clicking on the internet. I had sat back, almost giving up, when a memory struck me, of....

....walking at Sanna in September 2014 - link to Kilchoan Diary post here - and finding the first gentian I had ever seen.

The reason I hadn't found the mystery flower is that the colour one associate with gentians is purple, but this particular autumn gentian Gentianella amarella ssp septentrionalis, is a less common white variety mainly found in the northern half of Scotland - see link here.

Memory, at my age, is so fickle: I have no idea where the connection to Sanna came from. However, we have other memories of gentian, in the form of an antibacterial, antifungal medicine called gentian violet that was used on us in our childhood days, in my case to paint between my toes to deal with athletes' foot.

To Littleferry Again

We were at Littleferry again yesterday, a place which is breathtaking in the variety of wildflowers it has to offer. Although the ling is far behind it, the bell heather is now in full bloom and....

....the orchids, while over their peak, still have....

....some glorious blossoms to enjoy.

In the very busy insect world, many of the last visit's species are still on the wing, including the common blues, where the female (above) seems to be in very short supply, being outnumbered by the males at least 20:1.

The six-spot burnets are still around, in smaller numbers and looking distinctly worn, with spear thistle a popular food host, while....

....there are now little cushions of wild thyme everywhere. However, it was the new flowers which made the walk so enjoyable. They included....

....common toadflax, which looks a bit like a wild snapdragon, and....

....rosebay willowherb, which seemed a bit out-of-place here as I was told long ago that it was called 'fireweed' from its ability to colonise London bomb sites quickly during the blitz.

The delicate Scottish bluebell, or harebell, has appeared in large numbers since our last visit, however....

....it was the flowers which we couldn't identify which were so special, including this delicate four-petalled bloom which is about six inches high, colonies of which were growing in only a couple of places.

A few hours at Littleferry are a tonic for the spirits. We walked very gently through this magic world and only left because we were getting tired and the sun, after early promise, had hidden itself behind clouds, but we have promised ourselves that we must return, perhaps weekly, to watch this place wind itself down into winter.

Comet NEOWISE

At twenty past midnight GMT last night the clouds finally cleared and we had a chance to search the northern sky for Comet NEOWISE. Despite the hour, the sky was still far too light but the Plough was easy to find - at top left - and we knew that the comet was somewhere below and slightly to the right.

A good pair of binoculars was enough to find it, the camera was deployed and....

....began to produce some fuzzy results. This was taken on an eight second exposure but even that short time is enough to draw out the stars as the Earth rotates. The comet, and particularly its tail, is rather disappointing because the contrast was so low but....

....a bit of fiddling with the settings produced this image, the best we're likely to get.

The Poser

This young robin alighted just outside the window as we were having lunch and, seeing me reach for the camera, made sure....

....that I saw his best possible profile, posing....

....just like a professional model until he was....

....satisfied that I had captured him at his best.

Robins have bundles of character. We still remember with great affection a robin at Matenderere who, when we came home, used to meet us at the gate and accompany us to the front door. Then, in the early evening, he would come to the upper terrace where we were enjoying our sundowners, to be fed.... Bombay mix.