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Summer Lekkin’
Also just worth recording in brief the fact the blackcock continue to display and call into June, despite the fact that a close encounter last night revealed that the moult has begun and the feathers on the back of the head and around the collar are beginning to get tatty. I picked up a few… Continue reading
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Emperors
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
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Adder ID
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
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Greyhen’s Clocker
Having been confined to the doldrums of dysfunctional BT internet for the past ten days, I have been building a backlog of posts and images which should have been up on the blog by now. I hope to be able to work these through over the next week, and thought I’d start with a quick… Continue reading
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Snipe Chicks
The past few days have been extremely busy up on the hill, and my lack of activity online has been partly to do with many, many hours outdoors, stravaiging through the moss. Perhaps even more fundamentally, there has been no internet access in the house since a stunning thunderstorm struck on Tuesday night and lit… Continue reading
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An Unlikely Decoy
It is always worth having a few tricks up your sleeve when it comes to catching crows, so that when you have a totally dud year with the larsen there is at least some kind of backup plan. Far be it from me to write blog articles about crow control, but it is worth relaying… Continue reading
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Peat Cutting
It was a stunning afternoon to be up on the hill taking the first cut of peat for the year amidst rumbles of thunder and a riot of skylarks. Green hairstreak butterflies lingered in the milkwort, while a blackcock blazed casually past in the stillness. The moss itself was breathing the warm, soft smell of… Continue reading
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Film Debut
As part of my attempts to find out more about the nesting curlews I discovered yesterday, I was out on the hill this morning just after 3am. A great deal more to come on these curlews, but couldn’t resist posting this very distant “record shot” photograph of one of the new blackcock which are making… Continue reading
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Curlew’s Nest
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
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Stoats and Sea Trout
The spring traps are all working very nicely as the spring progresses, and I wanted to offer this blog’s faithful readers a deal after another stoat brought to book this morning. When I have remembered, I have been collecting stoats’ tails for the past six weeks and I now have about half a dozen in the freezer.… 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 