Peace

I like this spot. It's the small quarry where the seep of water appears and runs into the ditch along the side of the forest track, a place where, as I did this morning, I can sit on one of the boulders and watch the lone golden-ringed dragonfly patrol up and down, up and down, presumably defending what is, in his world, his territory.

It's a peaceful spot. Occasionally a dog-walker passes; occasionally the dragonfly lands and then takes off just as my camera focuses on him; occasionally a bird sings. But today all that peace was disturbed by what sounded like a large and very angry hornet...

....buzzing above the tops of the pine trees where the kites and buzzards usually wheel and call.

It took a minute or two to find the cause of this interruption to the peace of my world: a drone, the sort of thing one associates with Ukraine, I would guess following and checking the power lines that cut through the Bheinn Bhraggie forestry.

So I sat and listened to the drone, until the RAF woke up over at Lossiemouth, so the dron'se whine vied with the roar of fighter jets preparing for war. But the dragonfly continued his patrolling and, after a bit, a willow warbler started to call, not the wonderful cascade of falling notes of his spring song but a slightly mournful single note, cheep-cheep-cheep, as if all this noise and disturbance was too much for him and it was thime to turn south, south to Africa.