Blog
Fox-cam catches cubs on film
My fox-cam came up trumps at the start of May with video footage of the vixen coaxing two of her cubs out the den for one of their first forays into the outside world. There are four cubs in this den and over the next few weeks they will grow rapidly and soon outgrow...
Meet the bee-fly – cuteness personified
Is there such a thing as a cute insect? Well, yes, there most definitely is because I saw one last week – a bee-fly; a little rotund ‘furry’ beast with an impossibly long proboscis. My garden is a fine place for spotting wildlife – not because it is especially rich in...
‘Snow piercers’ come into bloom
"The grass is spangled with thy silver drops," wrote the 18th century poet Charlotte Turner Smith in a tribute to the snowdrop while another contemporary described this wonderful winter flower as “a beauteous gem” that springs forth “amid the bare and chilling gloom”....
Ghoulish screams of the night
It is like something out of a horror movie, a long drawn out scream that breaks the still January air. It is so sudden and so ghoulish that it’s enough to send shivers down the spine; a shriek that spins the mind into hallucinatory overdrive. What kind of hideous...
The diversity of seaweeds on our shores
The mass of tangled kelp along the strandline of this East Neuk beach was at least a foot deep in places, a mix of yellow-brown flattened fronds and thick tubular stalks. At the base of each stem were intricate stubby tendrils that would have attached the seaweed to...
The strange world of lichens
On one of my regular walking routes there is a patch of forest where the pine trees are heavily adorned with silvery grey lichens that hang from the branches like feathery tufts. It is a most compelling place, especially on winter mornings when the atmosphere is damp...
Autumn down by the river
The floor of the small strip of woodland behind our house is thick with fallen leaves, a multi-coloured carpet that rustles and gives gently under the heavy pad of my footsteps. I scoop my hands into an accumulation of leaves by the side of the path and already I can...
Bird Club book sale
From this Saturday (1 September) and throughout the month of September, visitors to the headquarters of the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club (SOC) in Aberlady can take advantage of 50% off all second hand books. The collection ranges from bird identification guides for...
In tribute to the blackbird
It is late afternoon and I’m sitting on a garden chair soaking up the August sun; its bright warmth a soothing tonic that relaxes the very soul. I sit so still that a male blackbird alights on the lawn only a few feet away and looks at me quizzically with a cocked...
A real dazzler of a moth
It was the white that stopped me in my tracks, not a shiny brilliant white but more a shimmering paleness that shone out from the grass and heather of this Perthshire moor. At first I thought it may have been a flower but when I crouched down closer I realised it was...
Slow worms can move pretty fast!
Okay, so I know this is a totally weird thing to say, but if there is one thing guaranteed to excite me when out for a country walk, it is finding a sheet of corrugated iron lying on the ground. It is like coming upon a treasure trove, for the chances are there will...
In search of the blaeberry bumblebee
I’ve been trying to photograph blaeberry bumblebees but have not been having much luck as they are rather shy creatures that tend to buzz away just as I’m about to press the shutter button of my camera. Indeed, it is somewhat fortuitous that no-one has stumbled upon...
‘There is a flower, the lesser celandine….’
This random yellow scattering of lesser celandines across the floor of my local wood have an irresistible appeal that draws me every April, especially since in among these sun-spangled flowers are drifts of pale-petalled wood anemones. It is a soothing tonic of yellow...
Lamb’s tails adorn our woodland edges
Lamb’s-tails – what a wonderfully appropriate name for the hazel catkins that are now adorning our hedgerows and woodland edges. More a bush than a tree, the hazel is a fundamental keystone of our countryside yet so often over-looked because for much of the year it is...
Where have all the greenfinches gone?
Greenfinches are scarce visitors to our garden nowadays, which is a real loss because they always bring so much colour with their green plumage and bright yellow flashes on wing edges and tail. When I was growing up in Edinburgh in the 1970s, greenfinches were amongst...
The racy sex life of the dunnock
I have been watching a pair of dunnocks in the garden and it is easy to see why this is a bird that many people overlook. It does, after all, have rather unremarkable brown-streaked plumage and a tendency to feed out of sight beneath shrubs and bushes. But appearances...
Our sleeping world
Tidying up the garden in preparation for winter, I came across three hibernating garden snails hidden beneath an ornamental rock. Huddled together, I was immediately struck by the attractive and intricate patterns inscribed upon their spiral shells. One of the snails...
Why are there so many jellyfish in the Mediterranean this year?
I’ve been lucky enough to twice visit the Spanish island of Mallorca this year to engage in my passion for snorkelling. The Mediterranean is such a diverse place for marine life and on almost every dive I come back having seen something new. One feature this year has...
Why the humble woodpigeon is one of our most successful birds
I was out walking the dog through a stretch of thick pine plantation in Glen Devon when I stumbled upon the half eggshell from a woodpigeon lying by the path’s edge. Once the eggs hatch in the nest, the mother woodpigeon will deposit the empty white eggshells some...
Autumn life on the River Devon
Down by the River Devon the first of the autumn leaves have started to swirl in the air whenever the wind blows, alighting gently onto the water’s surface before being carried downstream. I like the autumn; the chilling of the air and the turning of the leaves. The...
Haunting calls of tawny owls fill our night air
Over the next few months as the nights get perceptibly longer, our tawny owls will in turn become increasingly vocal as young birds try to make their mark and form territories. The owls hoot and screech from just after sunset right through to dawn, making it one of...
The trembling aspens of Strathdevon
Most mornings I trek up a small hill overlooking Strathdevon and one of the joys of the walk is a small group of aspen trees growing by the side of the path. At first glance these trees appear rather unremarkable, but looks can be deceptive, for when the wind blows...
The importance of the pioneering rowan
At the head of one of the narrow glens dissecting the Ochil Hills there is a fine rowan tree I know that maintains a tenacious foothold in a rocky fissure. Nothing unusual in that you might say, but a couple of years ago a mistle thrush built a nest in its upper crown...