Home

With neither seed nor peanuts in the feeders most of our garden birds had deserted us during our absence, though they were quick enough to return once the food was available again; within a day we'd seen sparrows, chaffinches, greenfinches, dunnocks, blue and great tits, blackbirds, jackdaws (with very demanding young in tow), and collared doves, the main absentees being the coal tits - I hope to change this as there are now sunflower seed feeders out for their exclusive use.

One of the first birds we checked on our return was the pair of house martins nesting under the gable end of the house. The parents are very busy back and forth so, although we haven't seen them, we're fairly certain they have young in their well-built nest.

For the first couple of days of our return, the Highlands were kind to us, with sunny days and warm nights - which was just as well as, after two weeks on the ship, we'd grown accustomed to temperatures above 25C. In the sunshine the bees were busy on what I call our prawn plant, along with a few hover flies, but the insect population as a whole is significantly down. During those two warm days I spotted only one butterfly. Perhaps they knew that....

....the weather was about to turn, with a very damp northwesterly bringing heavy rain and a threat of thunderstorms.