Lost Rabbits

Recently, we've been very worried that we'd lost our rabbits. There used to be plenty, along the hedgerows around the fields, digging up the house lawns, even threatening people's precious garden plants. We used to see them hopping along the road in the direction of a neighbour's house because she fed them. She had a favourite she called "Mrs Rabbit". Over the last couple of months we've hardly seen any.

There was evidence that some might still be around - this small scrape had a few rabbit droppings in it - but many of the....

....rabbit holes have looked disused.

We know that, a couple of years ago, myxomatosis swept through the local rabbit population, and that people used to find them in a pitiable state, but we've seen no distressed rabbits.

Today's snow has clarified matters. On our walk up into the forestry this morning we saw a few rabbit tracks - not as many as we might have expected but enough to prove that there are sill some around. However, near our house we found two sets of tracks....

....one, from bottom right to top left, clearly a rabbit, the other, heading towards our neighbour's house, possibly a fox.

2025

Wishing everyone a very happy, healthy

and prosperous new year.

Flooding

We knew we wouldn't be able to get down to the village today by our normal walk through the woods - the flooding burns prevented us yesterday - so this morning we tried by following the paved path down to the A9 and then along the pavement to the village. The fields by the railway line give some idea of the amount of rain we've had - over 50mm in the last 48 hours, according to my rather inaccurate rain gauge - but what we hadn't expected....

....was to find both the A9 and its pavement flooded just by the entrance to our village hospital. Cars were getting through but....

....the police turned up while we were watching to....

....put out a couple of SLOW notices warning of the flood.

The A9 is the main arterial road from civilisation to the south of us to Caithness, Sutherland and the Orkneys, yet the company that maintains it on some sort of contract to the government seems not to bother about....

....regularly clearing the drains so any floodwater goes DOWN them and doesn't come UP them.

First Day at School

While there are more important milestones in life, one's first day at proper school is usually one of the more memorable. Mine was recorded by my mother who was never very good at taking photographs - she's managed to get her shadow in the shot.

I had been to a nursery school but, in 1950, headed off from our new house in Oyster Bay, Dar-es-Salaam for the European primary school. The uniform....

....is a bit strange, though the hat with its badge is fairly normal for schools in tropical lands. I also like the shorts my brother is wearing, held up by what appear to be integral braces; and I do wonder what was in the little woven bag I'm carrying.

In fact, I have no memory of this day at all. I look remarkably happy so perhaps I took it all in my stride and didn't suffer the trauma that some children do.

Littleferry Birds

We were greeted when we arrived in the car park at Littleferry today by a small skein of pink-footed geese flying overhead, some 35 birds in all, and....

....the first warnings that bird 'flu may be on its way back. Happily, we saw.... 

....no dead birds along the high tide line, not necessarily because bird 'flu has yet to arrive here so much as there being very few birds around. Along with a second, larger, skein of geese the only shore birds we saw were a cormorant, a curlew, and....

....a small flock of about thirty eider.

I checked back on posts written at this time last year and found one relating to a walk at Littleferry when, just like today, there was precious little to report in the way of birds.

Squirrel Mystery

On our way to the village this morning, walking through dark, dank woodland, something moving at the bottom of the Scots pine in the left foreground of this picture caught my eye. On closer inspection it turned out to be....

....one of the small, introduced population of red squirrels. Even from close up it was very difficult to work out what it was doing. At times....

....it seemed to be burrowing into the soil, as if to bury or excavate a nut, at others....

....it curled up, shaking, staying still for a few moments before....

....moving around and then, at one point, rolling down the slope, recovering, and....

....climbing back to the tree and curling up again. At no point did it seem to notice me.

I assumed it was sick - but the squirrel looked to me to be too healthy to be suffering from one of the diseases, such as squirrel pox, that are killing red squirrels.

That it wasn't diseased was borne out by its disappearance by the time I passed the pine on my way home, some half an hour later.

There is one other explanation for its behaviour. Shortly before we found it, we met a dog walker, with two dogs, who would have passed the site a few minutes before. Could one of the dogs have chased and caught it on the ground?

Happily, a few minutes later as I approached Squirrel Alley, I spotted another, very healthy red squirrel.

Wishing all our readers a

merry Christmas feast.