Large Reds

Today's beautifully sunny morning was marred by a chill easterly breeze but it didn't prevent us from sitting for a few minutes on a bench overlooking the old skating pond and watching a duck with her two ducklings. 13C isn't the sort of temperature which is likely to tempt a dragonfly but the sunny warmth of the wood of the little jetty brought out....

....the first large red damselflies of the year to bask in the sun. Only three appeared and, as best as I could tell, all were males. They were very active, perhaps either to keep themselves warm or to establish some sort of pecking order ready for the appearance of the females.

House Martins

We have been watching these house martins for some two weeks as, initially, they showed interest in each other (24th May), then....

....started showing interest in setting up house together in the gable-end of our house (29th May), an on-and-off process which continued....

....through the end of May into June until, in the last few days, they....

....have really got cracking on the job of building a nest, with almost constant to-ing and fro-ing for mud.

Today, one of them was working on the inside, with the nest looking almost finished, to the extent that, under the watchful gaze of one of their neighbours....

....the next generation was being started.

We drove to Littleferry this morning to see if the northern marsh orchids had started their annual spectacular display across the links and they had - that is, they had started but it was far from the usual 'spectacular' as the dry weather has hit them hard. This picture shows one of the largest; most were very much smaller.

Never mind. As they say, "one man's meat is another man's poison," and the beneficiary of our increasing drought has been....

....the purple milk vetch, which is growing in small florets and in big bunches like this, and in a subtle variety of shades.

So we wandered the paths, seeing upward of half-a-dozen people and sundry dogs and enjoying the masses of wildflowers - the tricolor pansies in particular - before....

....moving on to the beach and its miles of almost deserted sands.

There wasn't much to remark upon except....

 ....a number of tests of sea potatoes being pushed up the beach by the rising tide and the....

....dismal lack of shore birds. In the hour for so we wandered along the beach we saw this group of eider feeding just off the mouth of Loch Fleet, a small flock of waders, a couple of oystercatchers and a few gulls. Our only other excitement was two seals watching us from the incoming waters in the entrance to Loch Fleet.

Sports Day

The local primary school held its sports day today on the field opposite our house which put me in mind of sports days seventy years ago when I was at the Mombasa European Primary School. I never seemed to be able to excel on such occasions, this picture bearing witness - this was the obstacle race in which one of the challenges one had to overcome was take a bite out of a bun. I simply could not manage it.

If I was discomfited so, I am sure, was my father who, on the sports day shown here, had been persuaded to assist. It was the sort of event he would have disliked intensely, the only positive side being that he probably escaped as soon as he decently could and went to the Club for a beer or two.

Seven Weasels

We must walk along the coast path north towards John o' Groats several times each week but it's a rare occasion to see something as elusive as a weasel - which we did today, at the gate across the track at the far end of Dunrobin Castle's grounds - if only a fleeting sighting. What one does not expect is to see more weasels, which we did as we walked back, in the long grass to the right of this picture when....

....a loud squeaking, very like the noise made by young birds in a nest, drew our attention to another adult weasel, just visible above the dandelion in this snatched shot, running away from us. However, when the squeaking continued we poked around to find....

....a small face watching us, one of five young in a rough nest....

....in the long grass. 

They looked very like kittens, squirming together to find the most comfortable spot, and not too worried by our interest until....

....two of them became sufficiently concerned to find a hole, perhaps their original nest, in which to disappear.

It's interesting that both weasel adults were seen in the grass at  the back of the beach, and that the adult parent was setting off, presumably to hunt, in the direction of the shore. It's not surprising therefore that we haven't seen either oystercatchers or ringed plovers nesting along the beach this spring.

The Flowers of Skelbo Woods

Skelbo Woods are a ten-minute drive south of Golspie, just off the busy A9, so traffic noise is a constant background to the ubiquitous birdsong, but the well-maintained paths were ideal for a gentle Sunday stroll whose main interest was in the plant life, including....

....the first thistle in flower this year, a very fine marsh thistle.

Water avens is also in flower - we've seen it before in Golspie Glen - but we didn't appreciate when we found it today that it might be....

....related to this total different looking plant growing nearby. I think it's large-leaved avens, Geum macrophyllum, which doesn't belong here, having escaped into the wild after being introduced from Asia or North America. For some reason it's reported to have thrived best in the Inverness area and up into northern Scotland.

A Walk on the Estate

It's a wonderful time of year to be out in the countryside, with a late spring causing the animals and plants to hurry into action, spurred on now by some fine, if not yet very warm weather. Just a walk along one of the forest tracks through the Sutherland Estate land produces plenty of interest.

There are still remarkably few butterflies on the wing. This is a green-veined white soaking up the sun on a frond of bracken.

The birds too are playing catch-up. As well as the hoards of young hopping around in our garden, on our walks we see them in their proper habitat: this is a young dunnock standing on one of the old moss- and lichen-encrusted stone walls on the estate.

Amongst all this mass of life I do have my favourites, and this is one. It's common butterwort which favours damp conditions where insects are tempted onto its leaves by the sticky fluid it excretes; once trapped, the leaves slowly curl round the insect and digest it.

By contrast, I shouldn't like this flower, blood-drop emlets, as it is native to North America and has escaped into the wild, but I can't help but be attracted to its warm colours.

There is so, so much to see and learn. I had no idea what this was, a deciduous tree with what looked like pine cones, but a little research enlightened me: it's alder, perhaps Italian alder, one of the wide variety of trees on the estate which, at one time, must have had gardeners dedicated to the acres of forestry.