There’s a cold wind in the east. It’s the kind of wind that can pull the meat off your skull and freeze your tears while it does it. We unloaded steel beams as darkness fell. The eight foot girders are heavy, and I felt each burry, fresh-cut edge on my gloveless hands. This steel will Continue reading

I am of interest to an owl. His first arrival was inelegant. I stared at the ceiling beneath a mound of blankets and counted the last few seconds of peace. My alarm is triggered at 6am, and it has become a habit to wake a few moments early. I usually lie in the darkness for Continue reading

Despite my enthusiasm around the recent fall of snipe, woodcock have remained stubbornly thin on the ground. The November full moon usually brings a torrent of birds to Galloway, but aside from a few outriders (and the birds which breed in the woods behind the house), there was very little to see this year. An Continue reading

The snipe landed and moved on. Delighted with their visit, I marvelled at the tiny migrants and their mysterious movements. I could hardly have foreseen that the torrent of waders was just a fore-runner of the main invasion. Walking the dogs on the edge of darkness this evening, we flushed seventy snipe from a five Continue reading

This blog has fallen silent over the last few days on account of a trip to Finland. Once I have caught up with work again I will certainly make time to write in more detail about the vast, bear-infested taiga forest of Arctic Lapland, but for now I can’t resist a quick note about a Continue reading

The last swallows have now trickled through our fingers, and we can finally stare autumn squarely in the face. A pair of kestrels has moved into the rough ground beyond my office window, and I can see them hunting almost every day, often with some success. I was on the telephone earlier this week and Continue reading

As promised, the last few nights have been spent in pursuit of foxes. More on this to come, but the considerable progress I’ve made so far will be for nothing unless the work becomes sustained, systematic and persistent. This will be a marathon, and I am gearing up for an enduring grind. In the meantime, Continue reading

When we moved to this house, we inherited a reasonably large number of pigeons. Most probably have racing ancestors, but they are mainly just a genetic hotchpotch of colours, shapes and sizes. The farm had lain unoccupied for two years before we moved in, and this provided the birds with a quiet, peaceful sanctuary in Continue reading

Can’t resist making a quick mention of the short eared owls which have suddenly appeared on ground near the Chayne. I had a fantastic time watching two pairs displaying over the long grass last week, and having lost track of the time in my enthusiasm, I realised that I had been sitting for two hours when Continue reading

By sheer chance, I happened to stumble across an extraordinary drama while heading up the hill on Friday. Movement caught my eye through the trees as I drove up the road, and I pulled over onto the verge to watch a group of roe deer running wildly across an open field. Wondering what had disturbed them, Continue reading