Continuing with the general “autumn” theme, I thought it was worth including this picture which I took on the road into work this morning. Around a hundred pink footed geese came sweeping in to the barley stubbles above the coast at Auchencairn, and it was a hair raising experience to hear them roar as they Continue reading

It was a fine clear morning on the Chayne this morning, and despite the wind, the conditions were actually quite mild. Coming back off the hill after visiting my partridge pens, I came across this roe deer in a scrubby stand of pines and bracken. I am getting to know this deer, which is one Continue reading

At this time of year, squirrels always become extremely conspicuous. Two or three of the little blighters scuttle across the road every morning when I go up to the Chayne, and it’s always great to see them cartwheeling around the place with expressions of tremendous self importance. As they start stocking up for the winter, Continue reading

The past few days  have been totally exhausting. Settling a black lab puppy in to its new home when all it wants to do is bite, howl and excrete in prodigious quantities has proved to be quite a chore. Bit by bit the little hound is settling into her new life, and her nightly choral Continue reading

I bought a ton of wheat at the end of August, but the tiny trickle taken by chaffinches from my feed hoppers over the last two months has made me question my ambitious logic. Thankfully, the last few days have seen a real influx of visitors to the feeders, and I’m now starting to wonder Continue reading

With the onset of autumn, I can’t help looking forward to receiving visitors. I heard my first pink footed geese of the season a fortnight ago, and I’ve been scouring my home patch of Solway cost with binoculars for the past few days. Each year I get a couple of morning flights at the wigeon Continue reading

Continue reading

Having spent the past few months painting black grouse to illustrate a book, the temptation has always been there to see how others have painted wildlife through the years and to take inspiration from other artists. The most famous British wildlife artist has to be Archibald Thorburn, whose paintings of gamebirds are some of the Continue reading

Barn owls have been really conspicuous this summer. There has hardly been an evening’s lamping in which a barn owl hasn’t played a part, and they pass though the beam of my lamping torch so often that I hardly even notice them anymore. The same could hardly be said until May, when to see a Continue reading

I don’t plan to turn this blog into a sinister gallery of deformed rabbits, but having posted about a Three Legged Rabbit that I caught with my ferrets in January, it would be odd if I didn’t mention the unusually arranged pair of ears which I came across this evening. With the exception of myxomatosis, Continue reading