I was visiting my friend Mark Fawcett this morning and so we decided to pop over to Cley once we had finished our musical tasks. We just visited one of the hides but did see the long-billed dowitcher well, and there were a lot of ruff and black-tailed godwits and plenty of avocets, plus both …
This afternoon I had a short walk at Titchwell. There were fewer people there than I had expected on a Sunday, perhaps because it was already about 4pm when I arrived. It was fairly windy but dry, and I managed to add one new species to my list, a lovely black-necked grebe on one of …
Brenda writes: “There was a bumper crop of moths overnight, around 150! Dark arches however were much less numerous today – only seven. By contrast I’m sure I’m getting a lot more broad-bordered yellow underwings this year; 18 today. There were also 22 shuttle-shaped darts, but today’s winner by miles were the large yellow underwings, …
Brenda writes: “Today it was good to take stock of the flowers as I went round the parishes refreshing the noticeboards. There was nothing new until I was leaving Wighton and noticed a patch of vervain. In the moth trap there was lots of variety and one new moth which, pending James’ verification, I think …
I started very early for my drive home today – 0515! But this did mean that I had covered a fair amount of ground by lunch time, even with car charging stops. I almost decided to carry on straight home without any wildlife detour, particularly as it was raining until well south of Newcastle. But …
Today was my final day in Scotland before heading back to Norfolk, though hopefully we’ll both be up here again at the end of next month. I decided to drive round to the other side of Bennachie and go to the official visitor centre, really just because I’d not been there yet. The centre itself …
It was actually my 60th birthday today! After all the recent concerts and the trip to Dungarthill the day itself was a little odd as I was on my own in Scotland! I had a few errands to run in the morning and then spent most of the rest of the day doing decorating, then …
Brenda writes: “On my second night back home there was much more traffic in the moth trap including elephant, poplar and privet hawk-moths but today’s star was an oak eggar which is a magnificent moth. I also had a nut-tree tussock. We saw them every night in Scotland back in June but this is my …
For the second and final day of my mini-jaunt around north-east Scotland I got up early and was on the road at 6am (very rare for me to be up that early!). But the great thing was that the (mostly single-track) roads were completely empty and so I was able to dawdle along, stopping at …
I decided, on a bit of a whim, to have a road trip over the weekend, and so – having first finished off a bit of decorating in our kitchen which I had started yesterday, I headed off for the west coast of Scotland. I had booked a B&B in Torridon, near to where some …
