Bog Myrtle & Peat

We’ve had a strangely active year for mink on the river below the house. The traps have been working busily since the start of January, and one in particular has caught eleven mink in three months. That’s a fair number of mink by anyone’s standards, and there are five really notable things which are worth… Continue reading

I don’t want to dwell on cowpats, but it’s interesting to follow the gathering momentum which now stirs around the oat stubbles where some of our beasts are being wintered. Alongside hay and a ration of rolled oats, the cattle are being fed on a sheaf of whole oats every afternoon. I’ve written before about… Continue reading

I did a quick loop around the hill this afternoon, counting grouse and checking on their progress before breeding begins. It seems that what we lack in numbers, we’re making up in pristine quality. I only found a handful of pairs, but the birds were glitteringly perfect and strong. They’ve a good deal of progress… Continue reading

Reading on through Derek Ratcliffe’s book on Galloway and the Borders, it’s strange to discover lists of wildflowers which used to be abundant in southwest Scotland. Their names are creepily unpleasant because while many used to be common, I’ve never heard of most of them. This is partly because botany is not my forte, but… Continue reading

Wading birds are coming home. I find teams of golden plover on the hill, and I wake to see the fields full of lapwings. It’s easy to rejoice after months of silent darkness, and I reach out to these birds in joy. But even in a moment of optimism, there’s something odd and malformed about… Continue reading

Spring comes at night under the moon and the hurl of stars. It comes in the drilling morse of oystercatchers which rally round the silty floods under cover of darkness. And it comes in the giggling flare of shelducks, and the drift of woodcock above the willows. Now there are wagtails bouncing on the dyke… Continue reading

It’s been interesting to look back through some old photographs in Derek Ratcliffe’s brilliant book Galloway and the Borders from the New Naturalist series. Some of the NN books are overpowered with scientific data, but this one is a beautifully readable account of the Southern Uplands since the late 1950s. It has a heavy preponderance… Continue reading

Driving out to dinner on Wednesday night, a beautiful stoat soared across the road in the car headlights. She was gone in a heartbeat, but I’d seen enough to mark brown forelegs and a brown head, then a brilliant white cape to the bristling tip of a black tail. I’ve seen less than a dozen… Continue reading

Can’t resist another irresistibly tiny postscript to the oat crop of last year. I’ve laboured the many differences between feeding bruised (processed) oats and wholecrop (bundles of oats which were simply cut, dried and stored). We processed the oats by feeding them through a bruiser which is designed to crack the tough outer shell of the… Continue reading

I’ve been away for the last week. Not only away from this blog, but also travelling around Scotland as part of a series of events for the Soil Association. We held three meetings for farmers and crofters in Galashiels, Ardgay and Skye, and the days were focused on rush control and livestock grazing. I worked… Continue reading