Birds in the Garden

When we first moved into our newly-built house hardly a bird visited the building site that would become our garden. We've worked hard, and at some expense, to rectify that, with some uplifting results. At first our new visitors were the sort of birds that pioneer opportunities - chaffinches and blue tits in particular, and blackbirds, but not, as one would expect, house sparrows. The pioneers were soon followed by an unexpected mass of....

....siskins - that's a young one on the right in the company of a young greenfinch - and goldfinches, both attracted by copious offerings of sunflower kernels. House sparrows arrived late on the scene, as did dunnocks, the former making up for their late arrival by coming in masses. Wood pigeons and collared doves vied with....

....rooks, carrion crows and jackdaws for the seeds that fell from the feeders, in their anxiety to feed both themselves and the youngsters that harassed them, the crows digging up some of Mrs MW's precious, newly-planted perennials.

Our pond has been a great success, drawing not only swallows and house martins for the mud round its edges, used for building their nests, but also both pied and grey wagtails, probably hunting for the pond skaters which mysteriously appeared in quite large numbers.

We've seen yellowhammers, song thrushes and wrens....

....however, no garden is complete without a robin to own it, so we were thrilled the other day when we spotted this youngster under the feeders, and even more pleased that we now see him regularly in the garden.

A Return to Littleferry

Our last visit to Littleferry was almost eight weeks ago, and since then I've had a long haul from the confinement of  a bed in Raigmore hospital to stepping out onto the familiar links with their much-changed population. For a start, the northern marsh orchids have all disappeared, so we looked for excitement elsewhere, finding it....

....in the masses of toadflax in just one small area. However, the dominant change was to the heather which, on our last visit, wasn't in flower but is now a wonderful display of both ling and bell heather, the latter including....

....one small patch of white heather, something I can't recall seeing at Littleferry before.

Sadly, the weather was far from ideal, with a low overcast which threatened rain. We'd hoped for some sunshine as there should have been some butterflies about: we did see a couple of common blues and one that might have been a fritillary so they are there, in sharp contrast to our garden where we didn't see a single butterfly yesterday.

Our walk was a short one as my ankle is still recovering. As soon as we have a forecast for a sunny day we want to be back at Littleferry to enjoy it fully.

Orchid Report

I'm still unable to walk in the countryside, despite my leg being very much better, because the one area which is still painful is the ankle, which has two effects: I haven't been able to drive the car to places like Littleferry and I can't wear a hard shoe. However, I did manage another walk up the track beyond our house, wearing a pair of soft moccasins, and on it Mrs MW spotted this flower, one of two almost buried under vegetation at the side of the track.

I've had some difficulty identifying it. It's not far from a spot where there are several heath spotted orchids so I assumed this would be the same. However, it may be a common spotted, a species which, locally, is far from common: in fact, we've only found it in one other place, Golspie Glen. If it is a common spotted, then this year I will have seen four out of the five orchids growing in this area, the one remaining one being the heath fragrant - and to reach the only place where they grow locally is quite a trek.

Butterfly Decline

We've worked very hard in our new garden to bring on the insects', and particularly the butterflies' favourite foods in time for summer, with some success: verbena, toadflax, lupins, buddleia, and many more are flourishing yet, in weeks of waiting, not a single butterfly has appeared and....

....only a few bees and hover flies. Recent weather can't be blamed, it's been perfect, warm, with sunny intervals and light breezes, although July as a whole has been unusually cold.

It's been a terribly depressing wait, the more worrying as our favourite paper, The I, had a letter in it recently from a correspondent who reported the same dearth of insects in his garden. The only local butterfly which is doing well is the speckled wood, of which Mrs MW reports good numbers in Speckled Wood.

Happily, our patience was finally rewarded this morning when we had an unexpected visitor, a small copper, followed shortly after by....

....a tortoiseshell.

I have been saying this for a long time: there is something terribly wrong in our precious insect world, and their loss, if we would only acknowledge this decline, would be a disaster.

Big Butterfly Count

I'm doing my best with my still very sick right leg to get back to some walking, so today, with the Big Butterfly Count in mind, I managed to follow the track up towards the forestry for about half a mile, the spur being a hope that, somewhere, I might catch a glimpse of that rarest of insects, a butterfly.

In the event, having walked all the way up to the gate and back again, it was only as I approached the house that I spotted one, a meadow brown which, seeing me, landed as close at it dared, stretched out its wings, and said, "Photograph me!"

Watching the Birds

By the time we finished our last African safari, now over ten years ago, I had come to believe that driving around in a vehicle was the worst way to see game, and that either walking out to find it or simply sitting in a hide waiting for it to come to me, were far preferable. Of course, had I been the 'twitcher' sort of big game hunter, where seeing the 'big five' was the ultimate goal, then sitting and waiting for them to oblige would have been a non-starter.

For over two weeks now I have been obliged to do the sitting and waiting, made more difficult by the fact that I have to lie on my back with my sick foot above the level of my heart. Fortunately, our sitting room window looks directly out onto the wooden ramp that leads down to the back garden, and from this we have hung several bird feeders which draw the local birds - particularly as we had also just taken delivery of some very fine sunflower seeds.

So while the beautiful goldfinches and siskins quarrel around the feeders, other small birds like the yellowhammers hop around underneath, enjoying the steady rain of seeds from above. And I, from the vantage point above them, sit and watch their antics with great pleasure.

The Joy of Wild Orchids

For the first time since I spent six days in the large hospital in Inverness, this morning I managed to walk out beyond the confines of our house and up the track that leads to the forestry. I managed a couple of hundred metres, which seemed a huge achievement at the time, but it was sufficient to take me as far as the nearest group of....

....wild orchids. They are a little past their prime and paler than the usual local northern marsh orchids but I was thrilled to see them.

It was a small step in what is evidently going to be a long road to full recovery but it gave me great pleasure.