When the tractor came to plough up all that remained of last winter’s rape, it seemed almost sacrilegious to disturb the turfs which had been allowed to gather a halo of buttercups and docks. Hares frisked through the plantains, and geese flopped up from the loch to land and browse through the fresh growth. The Continue reading

While trawling through the internet for black grouse related paraphenalia (as one does on a horrible Saturday afternoon), I happened to find this fantastic picture by the Scandinavian artist Bruno Liljefors. I have posted about Liljefors on this blog before and he did some fantastic black grouse artwork during his life, but something about the Continue reading

This has been a great year for emperor moths, and I must have seen almost a dozen since the end of April. Usually I only see one or two, but both males and females have been quite conspicuous on the hill. I even found a female’s forewing hanging in an old spider’s web below a Continue reading

One of the major features of the past few days has been the quantity of adders moving around on the hill, and one very small area in particular has consistently shown good numbers on consecutive days. Amongst this group, there are three very consistent individuals who are always within a few feet of where I see Continue reading

Purely by accident, I happened upon a curlew’s nest this afternoon while changing crows around between my larsens. The hen bird got off silently almost at my feet, and there was the nest; naked and vulnerable on the open hill. Curlews are so dear that to see their eggs lying out in the open was Continue reading

This afternoon might possibly have led to one of the most exciting discoveries I have ever made on the Chayne. Walking back from checking my larsen traps on the back hill this afternoon, I put up a pipit from her nest almost at my feet. By standing back and craning my neck, I could see Continue reading

The recent flood of hairy caterpillars on the Chayne has coincided beautifully with the arrival of the cuckoos, and I had a great opportunity to watch a cock cuckoo wiping the bristles off a drinker moth caterpillar at close hand on Friday. As a finale, the cuckoo pinched one end of the caterpillar in its beak Continue reading

It so happened this evening while driving off the hill that I noticed a tuft of feathers sticking out of the molinia on the roadside. Slamming on the breaks and sending the dog slithering into the passenger footwell, I leaped out of the car and went over for a closer look. It turned out that Continue reading

I am gradually learning through an exchange of blogs with Nicholas Milton of the Guardian that the greatest thing a conservationist can do is identify a problem. Contrarily, the most foolish thing he can do is suggest doing anything about it. If I understand his blogs correctly, Nicholas Milton has discovered that the adders in Continue reading