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Moving Moorlands
Worth recording a hot day on the hill near Bankfoot gathering heather turves in order to dress a pen of ptarmigan at the Scottish Game Fair. It turns out that digging 12′ x 24′ of heather by hand and moving it fifteen miles is actually quite an undertaking, and I am grateful for help from… Continue reading
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Curlew Chicks
It was with considerable pleasure and relief that I happened to come across a pair of curlew chicks up on the inbye last night in the setting sun. As I walked up to the gate at the top of the field, a gaggle of clipped yeld ewes ran wildly off in front of me, following… Continue reading
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Insect Life
I have been more than usually conscious of the insect life going around this year as the chick rearing season has been underway. Without insects there are no chicks, and it has been interesting to keep an eye on the various different species which have popped up at this crucial time. Sawflies have been particularly… Continue reading
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Accidental Game Crop
Huge numbers of wagtail and wheatear chicks have suddenly exploded across the low ground on the Chayne, due in part to the phenomenal (and essentially accidental) game crop that I have “put in” this year. I watched a huge flock of more than thirty young wagtails hunting midges and craneflies last night on the darkening, as… Continue reading
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The Moult Continues
As June progresses, so too does the blackcock’s moult. I found an immaculate half black, half white secondary feather blowing about on the moss the other day, and the birds themselves are looking more and more tatty as the days go by. As July approaches, these birds will vanish altogether into the ragged robin. Their… Continue reading
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Industrial Disturbance
Disappointing but not altogether surprising to find that the local forest managers have yet again chosen the end of May and the beginning of June to ramp up their clear-felling exercises in the heart of a marginal population of black grouse. Since the middle of May, three clear-felling operations have started within a mile of… Continue reading
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The Seapie’s Apprentice
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
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Bruno Liljefors (again)
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
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The Song of the Corncrake
Only with a heavy sigh can I cast my mind back to precisely this day last summer when I arrived on the Isle of Tiree. It turned out to be the best holiday I’ve ever had, and the four days spent prowling over the beaches and through the hayfields with binoculars, sketchbook and camera rank as… Continue reading
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Cheerful Chicks
Amidst the developing gloom and gnashing of teeth brought on by the enduring nature of this moderate weather precisely at the peak of the black grouse hatch, I thought it would be cheering to include a couple of photographs of black grouse chicks which I took on the Isle of Arran a couple of years ago while… Continue reading
About
“Shout on, Morgan. You’ll be nothing tomorrow”
Swn y galon fach yn torri, 1952
Also at: https://andtheyellowale.substack.com
Bog Myrtle & Peat 