More Signs of Spring

I'm a selfish person. I must be, as I like it when we arrive to find the car park at Littleferry empty so we have the reserve to ourselves. As it turned out, the place became quite busy, with half-a-dozen dog-walkers and one unusual couple, like us, without a dog.

It was a beautiful morning, plenty of sunshine but with a brisk southwesterly. We started from Loch Fleet, where the tide was coming in fast, and then progressed northwards along the beach in the direction of Golspie. As seems normal these days at Loch Fleet, there was precious little to see: two oystercatchers, four cormorants, what might have been the first sandwich tern of the season, two crows, two skeins totalling perhaps a hundred geese heading north, a few skylarks singing joyous songs for us and, to my considerable surprise, a butterfly being blown in across the beach, presumable having flown across from the loch's south shore.

We made our way back along the edge of the forestry where, in the more protected sunny spots, we saw a bumblebee and some flies, and then....

....the year's first caterpillar, a rather beautiful one which, despite some effort, I have failed to identify..

A Good Day

We set off for the village this morning to collect the daily paper, taking the 'scenic' route through the forestry, along paths which always offer chances of some interesting sightings - and today was exceptionally good, starting with....

....two roe deer, this young buck in velvet and what was probably his mother. These may well be the same pair I saw a week ago higher up in the forestry, except that this time the buck gave me....

....a few precious moments in which to grab some shots of him.

Then, as I tried, unsuccessfully, to get a shot of a squirrel in Squirrel Alley I noticed....

....a couple of very small birds darting around in the upper branches of a nearby tree, and realised that they were....

....goldcrests, a tiny bird which we've heard often enough but not had a chance to snap some good shots of them. This was rectified magnificently by this individual who came....

....closer and closer, finally moving into a spot unobscured by vegetation where there was good light for the camera.

For me, encounters like this, and the satisfaction of coming home with some promising pictures to play with, are tremendously therapeutic, particularly on a dismal, rainy morning. Yet Mrs MW and I appeared to be the only ones wandering the paths through the forestry.

So, thank you to the two squirrels, the two roe deer, and the two goldcrests for the pleasure they have given me today.

Servants - 2

By the time we left Mombasa in 1961 we had four household servants. They were, from left to right, Mlalo the garden boy, Saidi the head boy, Ouma the cook, and Kitetu the dhobi boy - there is a post about them here. The picture was taken on the day my brother and I left Mombasa, I think in 1960, to return to school in England, knowing we would not see them again for ten months.

I'm not sure how apparent it is from the picture that I am very upset. Although it was sad to say goodbye to my parents, I was almost more upset about saying my farewells to these four - after all, my parents were responsible for sending me away to school in a cold, wet, grey, far-away country.

I have great difficulty in describing my feelings for these men who took some pride in serving us, feelings which had evolved ever since Fatuma was my ayah, except to say that they were those one would have for very special friends. These men served me - in that they cooked my food, washed my clothes, made my bed and much, much more - but they did far more that was nothing to do with the master-servant contract. I liked their company. I respected their views. I learned their language, I ate their food with them. I had difficulty not crying when I said goodbye.

I liked to think that they liked me but I really have no idea what they thought of me. They had to be careful because I was, in a way, part of their employment package, so they didn't want to upset my parents as jobs locally were difficult to find. Yet they had to serve me, and sometimes my demands were probably quite unreasonable.

Read any book about a white child growing up in Africa, and it will probably include description of the relationship he/she had with their domestic servants - Peter Godwin's autobiography Mukiwa, is a good example. It is a relationship forged by thousands of children across the tropical lands of the then British Empire. I know that I benefitted hugely from it.

Oystercatchers

This morning's walk took me along the old coast track to the north of Dunrobin Castle, the weather grey with a light southwesterly and the tide high, but the air must have been exceptionally....

....clear because the wind turbines out in the Beatrice field were easily visible.

Any shingle beach not covered by the tide has been broken up into sections, each of which belongs to....

....a pair of oystercatchers. These will be building a nest at the top of the beach, above the high-tide line, little more than a scoop in a patch of gravel, and will start the heavy task of protecting the eggs from the hoards of local crows and the dogs that are walked along the path just up from the beach.

I counted four pairs, all of them already looking pretty exhausted, though some had the good sense to take their nap on a rock offshore.

All this was good to see as I've been worried about the lack of oystercatchers in the places where they are usually plentiful. Now all I can do is wish them luck in bringing up their families.

Servants - 1

From birth I was quite used to having household servants around me and, often, very close to me; and later Mrs MW and I employed servants ourselves. In my younger years my relationships with them varied hugely, and changed with time; and they influenced me tremendously. So, for example, the young woman in this photograph ensured that I spoke KiSwahili as well as I spoke English.

Fatuma was engaged as my 'ayah' shortly before I was born in Dar-es-Salaam in January 1945. Her job was to look after me through most of the day. My parents placed considerable trust in her, including allowing her to take me down to the nearby beach to meet the other local ayahs with their charges. Fatuma also looked after Richard when he was born, and stayed with us until 1950 when we moved to Mombasa. There were other servants at the big Upanga Road bungalow and at the new house at Oyster Bay but I don't remember them and my mother doesn't mention them in her 'Life'.

I know we had two servants in our first house in Mombasa, a cook - whom my mother sacked when he made a mess of Christmas lunch because he was drunk - and Ouma (left), who started as our house boy but persuaded my mother to train him as our cook - which she did, with great success.

Early on, I think Richard and I must have been a considerable nuisances to 'the boys' who worked for us. For example, I remember using my catapult to lob stones into the soup Ouma was cooking for dinner which, inevitably, came to my mother's attention and caused me to be given a severe dressing down as well as an explanation of how important, how invaluable they were to us - my mother couldn't go out to work without them.

They did more than cook and clean and wash and iron and look after the garden. I vividly remember Richard and I being left in Ouma's charge when my parents went out for an evening. He cooked and fed us supper, put us to bed, and kept an eye on us until our parent came home, often in the early hours of the morning. I don't know what modern society would make of two small boys being cared for by a man with filed teeth and scars across his cheeks - but my parents obviously trusted him absolutely.

Lochs, Forest, Links and Beach

This was Loch Fleet this morning, sunny but with a strong northwesterly blowing and the tide falling fast, not that either of these bothered....

....the small flock of shelduck feeding on the muddy bottom of the loch.

We walked through Ferry Woods, past Loch Unes where, hopefully, the summer will bring us some damsel- and dragonflies, and then....

....out onto the links where NatureScot has, for reasons I can't fathom, decided to grub up some of the many thickets of gorse on the reserve, and on....

....to a beach deserted of life except for a couple of waders, perhaps redshanks, some gulls, and....

....a dead oystercatcher.

The sense of desertedness extended to the human race. On a one-and-a-half hour walk we saw no other humans, though from the prints along the tideline someone had already been there, in the company of two dogs.

Retracing our steps to the car we spotted a red kite and a common lizard, the fact that the latter was active testament to the growing warmth of the earth which, hopefully, will speed spring upon its way.

More Signs of Spring

Spring is usually late to arrive in our corner of northeastern Scotland but it does seem early this year - and when it gets going everything happens at double speed as the season, and summer, are short. So we have pussy willow bursting out all over the place. This is, I think, goat willow rather than the very similar-looking grey willow.

Things may be happening fast because we are seeing good amounts of sunshine but the flip side of this is that we've had little rain. As a consequence, our pond is drying up, not good news for the three pond skaters which have appeared even though they're not supposed to be out until April. On a more serious note, Scottish Fire and Rescue are warning of the high risk of wildfires up on the very dry moors.

There are places along the verges of the farm track above our house where large numbers of foxgloves have established themselves. There seem to be some which have germinated from seed while others have overwintered, while....

....in the same sort of places marsh thistle is coming on quickly, forming beautifully symmetrical bouquets of purple-green leaves.

We seem to have plenty of robins this year, singing joyfully - or threateningly - from the best vantage points on the tops of the trees. This one was vying for territory with another male which was just across the other side of the track.

I don't know where this character has appeared from but he was in our front yard yesterday evening, the first pheasant we've seen up this end of the village. He may be rather smart - in appearance rather than intelligence - but he's noisy and eats far too much of our small birds' grain.

Deer - At Last!

In July 2018 a wildfire swept through large areas of the the estate forestry on the slopes of Beinn Bhraggie, a conflagration sufficiently serious to merit inclusion in the national news. The land has since been cleared and coniferous trees planted, though by the time this happened the gorse had re-established itself.

None of this matters particularly except that, on this morning's walk, I wandered up into the area looking for dog violets as I had found an early flowering of them there last year and, to my considerable joy, spotted two roe deer on the far side of the clearing. Unfortunately, one of them saw me at almost the same moment and let out a bark that sounded very much like a dog's, causing the two of them to high-tail it into the trees.

That this small event matters to me is because it's been months since we last saw a roe deer in the local forestry. With the amount of walking we do, we're accustomed to seeing them not infrequently, particularly in winter, so something has happened to make a sighting so unusual.

It can't have helped that, a few months ago, the area was hunted over and, we're told, a deer shot not far from this spot. This saddens me as having wild animals, particularly larger ones like roe deer, living close to me is important in my life. It provides an excitement, a frisson of fear, that sharpens my senses, that makes me feel more alive. That is why I found the tented encampments that we used to visit in Tanzania so enjoyable, for the animals that passed in the night often included larger and much more dangerous beasts than roe deer.

More Small Birds

It's the ideal time of year for photographing small birds like this male yellowhammer. For a start, the deciduous trees, while beginning to come into leaf, aren't fully out so birds are easier to spot.

The males are taking considerable risks in exposing themselves in prominent positions and singing loudly to attract sometimes unwanted attention, but that's what it takes to win a mate.

In between the singing they need to fuel up, so they're coming into our garden and feeding on our offerings even if it means risking coming uncomfortably close to where we're sitting.

Very often the feeders are crowded, so it's necessary to queue - and siskins are rather good at upside-down queuing.

The other joy of this time of year is that the males are in their very best finery. This is one of two or three song thrushes which are singing in the trees that border the rabbit field just up from our house. None of them is very proficient at singing, not yet, but they'll soon be in full-throated song, and that will be a joy to listen to.

Meanwhile, we have another first of the year - the first dandelion is out on a sunny bank not a hundred yards from out front door.

Small Birds

We now have half-a-dozen or so male chiffchaffs in the open woodland up the track from our house. They're all singing at the tops of their voices - which doesn't mean they're easy to find in the matted branches of the trees, so it took some time to....

....manage a close-up of one of them. I still can't believe that this small bundle of feathers was the other side of the Sahara desert a few weeks ago.

If the chiffchaffs are long-distance commuters, this is the epitome of the stay-at-homes, a pretty little female house sparrow, one of a small colony of the species which, although it's only a short distance away, never gets as far as our garden.

Another demure young lady is this female chaffinch, one of an argumentative group which dominates the feeders in our garden, their only serious rivals being....

....an unusually large 'charm' of goldfinches.

I'm pleased to say that we're now seeing rather more siskins in the garden than we had a few weeks ago, often in the company of the goldfinches.

And this is our resident back-garden robin, singing from a perch at the top of the highest fir tree, which, while it gives him a useful overview of his territory so he can be quick to see off any rivals, also gives him....

....a panoramic view out over the Moray Firth.

Rabbits' Return

After what has seemed a rather hard winter for our local rabbit population there are signs that it is recovering, with plenty of freshly-dug holes in the banks beside the track which passes our house and, sad as it may seem, more first-hand evidence from....

....a sad corpse in the road.

The local hoodies were quick to take advantage of a meal but, when we passed it, we were fairly certain that it had been diseased - there has been myxomatosis in local populations in recent years.

Happily, when we walked further up the track we were surprised by the number of rabbits out enjoying the late afternoon sun.

The increase in rabbits is certainly good news for the buzzards, another species of local wildlife which has seemed to be having a very hard time.