Bog Myrtle & Peat

As a brief postscript to the previous note on larsen traps, I’ve noticed crows becoming more and more pro-active when it comes to finding food. Perhaps I am just getting better at noticing it and this is nothing new, but I’ve found crows killing frogs several times, and have even seen them carrying off young adders.… Continue reading

After a long, busy spring, I headed out a few nights ago and drew my crow trapping to an end for the year. It has been a particularly demanding slog in 2015 because I now live further away from the Chayne, and the long pilgrimage around my traps became longer and longer as the weeks went by.… Continue reading

One of the strangest arguments to emerge from the various anti-grouse shooting campaigns is that blackgame are being persecuted on driven grouse moors and that a ban on driven grouse shooting would result in a massive upsurge in blackgame numbers. From a scientific community so devoted to “evidence-led” policy, it is quite startling to see this… Continue reading

I was bombarded with ticks while stalking yesterday afternoon, and as I lay in a myrtle bog of midges waiting for a particularly fine buck to stand up and show me more than just his head and shoulders, I found that I was picking them off me with increasing disgust. The buck lay down for… Continue reading

Having recently moved house, this summer has provided some great opportunities to get to know my new surroundings, despite the fact that I am within six miles of the farm where I was brought up. There are nightjars and black grouse within a short bicycle ride, but I was particularly intrigued by the idea that this area… Continue reading

Bizarre to find that the buck I shot on Tuesday morning has quite pronounced canine teeth. These are loosely mounted on the top jaw, protruding about 5mm into the mouth, slightly asymmetrically. I’ve never seen this on a roe before, but I am assured that around 15% of roe have canine teeth of some sort. I… Continue reading

Having been working on blackgame throughout April and May, I have missed several prime opportunities to get out for a roe buck. The usual pressure has been relieved by the fact that I was given half a lamb as a wedding present in April, and I haven’t had an empty freezer to motivate me, but with the… Continue reading

I had a great opportunity to get to see another side to dunlin while in the Outer Hebrides, and I must admit that I liked what I saw. Dunlin come to the Solway in massive numbers every year, and they become as common as midges down on the foreshore, where they often mass in anonymous swarms which tinkle against… Continue reading

Interesting to note that the most effective fly of all during a fishing trip to North Uist was one that looks very much like a heather beetle. There were one or two beetles to be found in the heather above lochs Fada and Sgadabhagh, and some evidence of beetle damage in previous years, but it… Continue reading

In an attempt to cheer myself up after the gloom and doom of the curlews on the Chayne, I had to post this picture of an oystercatcher with its chick which I found on the South West corner of Berneray. I learnt a huge amount while I was in the North, and my return home has been… Continue reading