Sunshine and Sparrowhawk

We've seen the sun occasionally during the last few days, which makes a pleasant change from the late January to early February record, even enjoying two fine sunrises, interesting because, as the sun moves north, they are the last time we will see it rise from the far horizon until late this year when it moves back south again.

Between times we've seen a miserable mix of weather, with snow, sleet, rain, strong winds and temperatures struggling to climb above 5C and, on a couple of nights, dropping towards zero to give us a hard ground frost. 

My usual wet-weather walks have been curtailed by the estate deciding that now would be a good time to improve the track towards Loch Lunndhaid, which has turned it into a bit of a mud bath.

Whatever the weather the sparrowhawk has been busy in the back garden. When he's in hunting mood he's very good at making use of the planks of the wooden ramp, built to enable old people to get safely down to the back garden whatever the weather.

When he's not in hunting mood he sits in a conspicuous position and surveys his realm - but note the way he has one foot on either side of his perch, perhaps to enable him to swivel round and take off quickly in whichever direction his prey has appeared.

He is a very handsome bird, keeping himself very smart whatever the weather. We have a fine view of him from our sitting room window as do the small birds hiding in the gorse bush at the bottom of the garden; and they have to be very patient as he's quite happy to sit on his perch for an hour or more at a time.

Wintery Littleferry

We were at Littleferry this morning a few minutes before high tide, with the incoming current strong where it's funnelled in through the constricted mouth of Loch Fleet.

It was good to see oystercatchers back after the recent blowy weather. Look carefully at the centre of the picture where there's a lone turnstone with them; and, a little further along the beach, we spotted two sanderlings.

Making our way back across the links, with snow on the hills beyond Brora, we found....

....a dead juvenile guillemot alongside a dog's ball - there's a story somewhere there!

On our way home we stopped briefly on the banks of Loch Fleet, happily in the few moments the sun chose to come out.  There was little to see in the way of wildlife on the still waters of the loch but we did find....

....a small mixed flock of shelduck, some of the males coming in to their mating finery, and mallard.

Sunshine!

This morning, after nearly three weeks of grey skies and strong, cold easterly winds, the wind has backed into the northwest, the clouds have cleared and the sun has come out - so we took a gentle walk along the coastline towards Dunrobin Castle, spending time sitting on our favourite bench soaking up the sun and searching for wildlife.

There wasn't much to see. This boulder spit which is exposed at low tide is usually a prime hangout for the shore birds but all we saw and heard were a few cormorants, redshanks, crows and gulls. The paucity of birds isn't really surprising as this section of coast will have been very exposed to the easterly winds, so normal inhabitants like the curlews will have retreated inland to forage for worms in the farmers' fields.

There was one surprise: having hardly seen any of them this winter, a few rock doves were sitting on the boulders in their usual place near the cormorants - see earlier post here about these birds.

All along this coast there are men in big yellow machines dumping massive lumps of rock to repair the damaged sea defences. This one was just below the castle at a point where the waves now seem to inflict an annual toll of damage.

It's lovely to see the sun and watch the colours reappear in the landscape but , as always, there is a price to pay. The car this morning was crusted with ice and the forecast for the next week is for more frosts, sleet and snow.

Roe Deer Disappearance

Roe deer were a not uncommon sight in the forestry and fields between our house and the village. Sometimes we saw as many as three at one time, and we've seen young which were only weeks old.

All that changed following the hunts that took place across estate lands last autumn: since August we haven't seen a single roe deer.

However, we're beginning to find increasing signs of them. This is a section of our route down to the village which we've called The Avenue, and along it we're seeing....

....fresh footprints almost every day - which is surprising, because there is construction activity on the hill just above it where the farmer is turning over some of his fields to a camping/caravan park.

One of the best places to see roe deer used to be from Roe Corner, where they were often to be seen grazing across this field.

Today, as we walked past this point and through....

....Speckled Wood - so called for the species of butterfly found there in summer - for the first time we spotted....

....fresh deer dung.

So the roe deer are there, but there when we're not.

Never mind. For the time being we need to be patient and find our excitement in smaller wildlife, like this blue tit, pictured in Speckled Wood.

Where Have They Gone? - 2

If some of the happiest memories of my youth are those of the times we had in Mombasa, the unhappiest were those in the ten months of the year when we were at boarding school in England; and the most miserable of those were the years between the age of nine and thirteen which I spent at a Sussex prep school, Glengorse.

Perhaps it is a reflection of this that, after I left, I was never again in contact with any of my fellow sufferers, not even my best friend: I'm at top right in this picture of the school's cricket team, and my best friend, Roger Soole, is standing next to me.

Life at public school was, once one had survived the bullying of the first couple of years, much better, mostly because we had both more freedom and more responsibility.

This picture is of the school prefects in the autumn term of 1962 - I am the only one wearing a scarf - and of these prefects two were particularly good friends. I had other close friends too, and we met outside school, once....

....sailing down the Thames in leaky coracles which we had built at school in the period after we had taken our 'A' levels.

Until my parents retired from East Africa in 1961, my brother and I spent the Christmas and Easter  holidays with a Mrs Groome, a lady whose husband had died in the war. She made her living taking in colonial children during these holidays. She also bred cocker spaniels.

Her house was out in the countryside - ideal for walking the dogs - but we met few children of our age, the only exceptions being the other children, usually two, staying with Mrs Groome.

Of all the people I met during those years in England, after I left Bradfield I kept in touch with only two. One lived close to my parents' house in Sussex, the other subsequently became my best man.

I lost touch with the last of these English friends in 1963 when Mrs MW and I left university to take up teaching posts in Ian Smith's Rhodesia.

See previous post in this series here.

The Resident Sparrowhawk

The sparrowhawk we'd been seeing occasionally has now taken up almost permanent residence in our back garden where there is.... or, rather, there was a good supply of well-fed prey. He spends most of his time sitting on a prominent perch just watching our and our neighbour's gardens. 

Most of the small birds are well aware of his presence and stay away. The consumption of sunflower kernels has therefore almost dropped to zero.

 In the above picture, the hawk is at bottom right and a chaffinch is perched on the branches towards the top left.

Some of the hawk's time is spent preening. Yesterday, he spent a good hour cleaning himself, and only when this was finished did he....

....start to hunt again. Here he's on the ground under the feeders having chased a small bird there, without catching it.

Finally, this morning, one of his hunts was successful - between his talons are the pitiful remains of what might have been a tit which, small as it was, he....

....tore apart and ate with evident relish

Seconds after this picture was taken he suddenly dropped off this perch and shot under the table where we do our potting. Few of the birds go there, the only exceptions being the dunnocks and robins. Oh dear - I like the dunnocks and robins.

Up into the Mist

Loch Lunndaidh lies a couple of miles to the west of Golspie and can easily be accessed from Drummuie along one of the....

....estate tracks. The loch used to be one of our favourite walks - when we first came here we explored the ruins of the clachan at the western end of it - but reaching the loch now is increasingly challenging. However, today, with the rain stopped and the wind dropped, I set off to see how far I could get.

The walking was eerily pleasant, with the mist down over the hills but lifting occasionally to give....

....views down to Loch Fleet and beyond.

There are a couple of gates across the track but they offer pedestrian access. This one used to mark the end of the forestry so on the open muir beyond it we saw wildlife such as red deer and fox but about four years ago the land was fenced, planted mainly with conifers, and the deer culled.

I walked a little further, to the point where, in days gone by, two tracks crossed, a point marked by a signpost which, on a typical day, probably hardly sees a passer-by. 

I turned back there. The loch is another kilometre or so on and I didn't feel I had the energy to make it.

Perhaps I should have risen to the challenge. Perhaps, if I'd had others with me, I would have had the confidence to manage it. But we have always had the determination never to allow our enjoyment of walking Scotland's wilderness to cause problems for others.

A Break in the Weather

This was the view across the Firth just after 8.30 this morning with a weak sun struggling to break through the clouds that have obscured the sky these last couple of weeks; and when we went for a walk....

....it didn't rain, not one drop - which makes a very pleasant change. However, there was still a heavy surf breaking on the coastline below Golspie golf club, the outer bar being formed, I would guess, of the sand the waves have been steadily stripping from the beach.

The sparrowhawk seems to have taken up almost permanent residence in our garden, making life miserable for the small birds. I now think of going down to the back garden to feed the birds as feeding the sparrowhawk rather than the chaffinches, tits, dunnocks, blackbirds, siskins, goldfinches and robins.

It's hard on the small birds but this is a truly beautiful killing machine, and a very patient one: he's not bothered by us as we move around indoors to watch him.

I hate to admit it but I'm hoping to see him make a kill.... in the interests of science, of course.

Gorse in Flower

The weather continues to be truly miserable, with the same east-southeasterly wind that's been blowing for about seventeen days bringing in cold air from the continent and dismal, sleety showers - not that anything worries the gorse growing along the sides of the forest tracks, for it is....

....in exuberant flower. Not only is it proudly showing off its own spring-coloured blooms but it's also playing host to the 'flowers' of a couple of....

....very cheerful fungi, including this 15mm diameter little beauty which I think....

....may be velvet shank fungus and....

....this white fungus which I have failed to identify.

In addition, the local gorse is supporting specimens of the bright yellow witches' fungus, though I didn't find any of that today.