Bog Myrtle & Peat

Up to my neck in wading birds over the last few weeks, I’ve been hard-pressed to keep on top of my notes and journals. Every day seems to bring some new fragment of evidence or discovery, and in writing this quick article, I’ve had to force myself to make time for my computer to record… Continue reading

Lapwings are almost defunct in Galloway. A small population of the birds has survived on an RSPB reserve where they are protected by a devastatingly expensive badger-proof fence, but in most other places they have become a piece of half-forgotten history. Two pairs of lapwings still return to a wet field which lies between my… Continue reading

I’ve spent the last few weeks looking at wading birds as they go into the breeding season. My eye is naturally drawn to lapwings and curlews, but I mustn’t overlook the oystercatchers which breed here. I’m conscious that these birds have declined by almost forty percent in Scotland since the mid-1990s, but that’s misleading for… Continue reading

With dry days and the nights so cold, it’s fair to guess that my oats were sown too soon. I’ve been looking forward to revisiting cereal crops, and it’s been fine to see birds and beasts responding to my work in a new field where the grass ley was almost fifty years old. Thrushes crammed… Continue reading

I’m a big fan of the Working for Waders project. It’s made a huge effort to encourage dialogue and promote partnership working for wading birds in Scotland, and I’m really glad to see gamekeepers and farmers taking a lead, particularly since both groups often feel marginalised and sidelined by big conservation projects. The Working for… Continue reading

You want some nice images? I’m your man buddy; I can sort you out, trust me –  the inside of my jacket is hung with bits of nice… and countryside stuff? – I’m a fuckin one-stop-shop, I am. Here, look at the hare as he runs in the frost and with running he puts up… Continue reading

When all is fed and done, we meet at the hill-road for a fox. It’s nine fifteen and there’s fag smoke and plastic mugs of coffee in the back of a truck; gunslips slick with mirk and dog slavers. Sleet runs about your bunnet brim and it’s good to see your pals again. Foxes come… Continue reading

The oystercatchers returned in the darkness, and now the snipe are drumming. Spring is coming, and it’s a matter of hours until curlews drop back into the glen. I won’t see so many as I did last year, and my only consolation is that I’ll have more than I will in years to come. They’ll… Continue reading

I made myself a table. Days passed in the work, and at first the pine was rough upon my hands. Then it was hard to tell, and now my hands are the harder of the two. I snuffed up the motes of dust and blew woodsnot into a rag. I polished that grain until it… Continue reading

Have you given much thought to dying? And have you wondered how things will go when you’ve gone? Well here’s what I’ve gathered, for the little it’s worth. Your family will take time from their lives to dig through your barns and stack your stuff in piles according to the value they place upon it,… Continue reading