Sanderling Time

They see me long before I see them so they're already moving away, though their retreat is punctuated by quick dashes for a too-tempting morsel washed in by the rising tide. They'll fly any moment but....

....not if I stand absolutely still, because they obviously like this little section of weed-covered beach and, although they'll watch me, it will draw then back, closer....

....and closer - though there comes a point, when they're less than ten metres from me, when they....

....begin to wonder whether they're being a bit too trusting.

I love these busy little flocks of sanderling. We see them as winter approaches, moving down from their summer breeding areas in Siberia and Greenland, and then they'll pass through again in the spring, feeding along our beaches as they travel north.

A Troublesome Youngster

We were walking down to the village this morning on a much colder, greyer day than yesterday when we noticed a large flock of house martins, perhaps as many as twenty, swooping and twittering around one of the gable ends of a neighbouring house. This house wasn't one used by the martins for nesting this year, so it took a few moments to identify the cause of the excitement - a young martin at top left in this picture, a youngster that seemed very loath to take to the wing.

It was never left untended. If they weren't swooping around it, the martins were gripping the wall just below it, calling it, encouraging it to fly - but it was adamant it wasn't doing anything of the sort.

We had to leave them with their problem, but what this scene confirmed is how well the summer has gone for the house martins, despite the miserable weather, and lack of sun and insects.

The martins are gathering now, feeding up ready to fly south. They've given us a great deal of pleasure over the last few months: we hope to see them safely back again next spring.

More Butterflies

In a sunny Speckled Wood this morning I was treated to a fine display of....

....speckled woods, a species which has done well this year.

Back in our garden, we enjoyed visits from some truly beautiful butterflies, first a....

....peacock then....

....a red admiral. However, as the sunshine and exceptional temperature of 21C gave way to grey clouds and thundery rain, one of the buddleias was suddenly host to no less than....

....ten peacocks.

I can only imagine that, somewhere close by on a patch of stinging nettles, there had been a hatching of peacocks, these being the ones which, hopefully, will overwinter in a secluded spot such as a garden shed before emerging any time from March onwards to feed and produce the next generation.

The Verbena

At last - the butterflies have found the verbena that was planted for their pleasure, first a white and then, with considerable excitement on our part, a....

....comma.

We haven't seen a comma since our days in Felixstowe, and the sudden appearance of this one seems typical of what is happening this year: when the sun comes out - it was a rare 18C in the garden this afternoon - just a few butterflies are on the wing, one or two of each species. So, this afternoon, as well as the white and the comma, we saw just one peacock.

Dune Fungus

We walked the sands at Littleferry yesterday and found, superbly camouflaged amidst the marram grass at the back of the beach....

....a small group of dune cavalier fungi.

Tragedy

Yesterday we had two beautiful goldfinches feeding together on the sunflower hearts. This morning we found....

....a goldfinch dead on the ground, presumably killed when it flew into once of the house window's extensive sheets of glass.

A Wealth of Butterflies

After truly dismal weather yesterday, when the mercury struggled to reach 15C and we didn't see the sun, and when 8mm of rain and a keen wind helped to make it seem colder and even more dismal, today dawned fine and, walking through the woods in the direction of the village, we came across our first butterfly, a lone speckled wood. Once out on the open meadow we found....

....several whites feeding on the knapweed.

On our return home, we had the pleasure of the company of....

....a red admiral on our neighbours buddleia and....

....a peacock sunning itself on the gravel path. Then, to complete our day, we spotted....

....a small copper sunning itself on a convenient rock.

After days of seeing very few butterflies, today was a pleasure. 

More Excitements

In search of today's excitement and a daily paper we walked through the woods to the village rather than along the road. It's a much more pleasant walk but we're discouraged from doing it if the path is wet and, therefore, slippery - which today it wasn't as, despite a very cloudy day yesterday, we've not had much rain.

The joy of this woodland walk is that the section shown in the picture, which runs along the back of some houses whose inhabitants put out food, is the best for spotting red squirrels, which we haven't seen in months - but....

....we did see one today, only briefly as we disturbed it on the ground and it obviously didn't feel safe until it was high in one of the big pine trees

By comparison, our garden hasn't offered much entertainment as its wildlife seems to be away on its annual holiday. Very suddenly the bird feeders, even those which offer prime sunflower kernels, are deserted, the only activity being from....

....a pair of collared doves, an occasional chaffinch, and....

....two adult robins which are sorting out who owns the garden by chasing each other all over the place. The young robin which we saw some ten days ago has disappeared.

Small Excitements

So far we've missed out on the Perseid shooting stars and recent auroras, the auroras so strong they were visible in the south of England, but the disappointments were in a small way made up for by Monday's sunset, its spectacular oranges reflected in....

....the colours of this pair of tortoiseshell butterflies. They're the first butterflies to visit the buddlieia we've been at such pains to plant in both the front and back gardens, up until then ignored by all of the few insects which have visited us. Gratifyingly, they stayed all day, most of the time feeding close to each other.

We found some excitement too while taking a gentle stroll along Golspie's promenade, when we stopped to watch this grey heron taking on an eel. We stayed for some minutes as the eel....

....twisted and wriggled and tried to wrap itself round the heron's beak, and a couple of times the heron....

....looked as if it was going to give up the fight but as, rather unwillingly, we left to keep an appointment....

....they were still locked in battle.

Winners & Losers

This summer's peculiar weather has produced some very definite winners and losers in the local plant world. One of the winners is the ling: I don't think I've ever seen so many blooms on it, nor such vibrantly bright shades of lilac. By contrast....

....the white-flowered autumn gentians which we were so excited to find flourishing when we first visited Littleferry now seem to be....

....dead almost as soon as they're grown. We didn't see a single green-leaved gentian plant anywhere on the links, and it was the same last year.

Another winner is the Scottish bluebell - harebell in England - which is flourishing all over the Littleferry links. What I notice, though, is that the plants appear shorter there this year which, again, may be a response to the grey summer we've had.

At Last.... Butterflies!

We spent the morning at Littleferry, in bright sunshine with light winds. For most of the time we wandered the links, watched by what I took to be a young stonechat. But what made the day so special was that, at last....

....the insects were out in force, particularly common blue butterflies, in....

....a variety of bright and faded blues, and small heath butterflies, along with a few....

....larger species - I think this may be a dark green fritillary.

That other insects managed to get themselves into these pictures shows how many were about. I suppose that....

....with it being such a dreary, damp summer so far, they were, like us, making as much use of a fine day as possible.

Dragonfly

I walked up the track into the Beinn Bhraggie forestry this afternoon after a morning during which we enjoyed temperatures which just managed to struggle up to 15C, a few sunny intervals, and some heavy showers brought in on a strong and gusty westerly.

At least the recent rain has ensured that the three little ponds where the remaining newts have gathered are full, fed by a seep of water just visible in the picture above, into which....

....I was thrilled to find a golden-ringed dragonfly depositing her eggs.

The Martins

The house martins seem to have had a very good year for breeding. The houses in the road below us provide a big choice of nesting sites and we're fairly sure that the numbers of martins swooping up to them suggest that the parents have seen the first brood safely into the air and....

....are now coming back to our pond to collect mud to repair their nests so they can have another brood before the season is out.

It's not all been easy for them. We've noticed that....

....crows often perch just above where the nests are, presumably in the hope that one of the nestlings will fall out and provide a meal.

Another problem for the martins has been our big windows into which....

....a number of birds have flown. Most stun themselves and, given the chance, seem to recover. This bird did, but not before it had given us plenty of time to identify it. We think it may be a sand martin but are very open to suggestions. 

Benches

There was a time in the history of the many miles we've walked over our years in the highlands of Scotland when the location of a bench had no importance to us.  We did notice, however, that benches were most common close to car parks, as if they were there to cater for the typical visitor to the countryside whose average walk extends no more than a hundred metres from their car, and were of no interest to us because, if we wanted a rest during one of the long walks we we used to take, we simply found a convenient rock or tussock to sit on.

How times have changed. Now we value benches as vital places to rest our old bones, though we still prefer them if they are in locations where few people disturb us.

The two in the picture above are typical. They look our over the busy A9 to Golspie golf course, the beach and the sea. They're just off a path....

....put in by Highland Council when they were developing the site for housing to connect the village with the Council offices. Because few people actually walk to these offices the path is little used, those who do use it being rare folks like us who have a house on the development and walk in to the village. So, for example, we use it to go shopping when the paths in the woods are unsafe after rain.

Why the Council left this strip of land between the housing development and the A9 is a bit of a mystery. I would have expected them to use it for more housing, but leave it they did and, very commendably, they've allowed it to turn into a wild meadow populated by grasses, oxeye daisies, thistles, fireweed, northern marsh orchids and a rare stand of cowslips - though I suspect these were deliberately introduced.

The meadow should be a wildlife haven but it's surprisingly thin on both birds and insects. As the benches are fairly close to our house, but a good distance for me to walk during my ankle's recuperation, I've spend quite a bit of time sitting on them, watching the steady flow of traffic and hoping to spot butterflies. So far I've seen a half dozen or so, and all of one species, which I have tentatively identified as small whites.

So I sit on this bench, watch the world go by, and bless the Council for putting it there; they even planted two apple trees beside it. These days, Councils are so hard-pressed for money that they probably never consider putting in luxuries like benches, let alone trees. And while they do strim the margins of the path they no longer bother with the hard standing where the benches are.

The last time I sat on it, for about half-an-hour, not a soul passed along the path. It sounds very anti-social, but that suited me fine.