Spots

We walked through the woods by Dunrobin Castle yesterday afternoon and found just one butterfly on the wing, this speckled wood basking in momentary sunshine. With the sudden change in the weather today, to rain, some of it heavy, driven in off the North Sea by a brisk nor'-nor'-easter, it feels like the end of summer, so this could be the season's last butterfly.

We came home to a new visitor in the garden, a song thrush. It was squabbling in a most undignified way with the tribe of house sparrows on the front terrace over seeds which I think were being blown off the toadflax, a plant which has thrived this year.

I'm anxious to make this bird very welcome because I would like to think that this is the male who sang so exceptionally beautifully, even by song thrush standards, down in the woodland of Golspie Glen through the long evenings of midsummer. I want him to have a good winter so he's fit and ready to nest again next spring and, hopefully, serenade us again.