Bog Myrtle & Peat

It was a bright, crystalline morning on the hill. We had started early to find a doe as the sun rose, but a fiercely cold wind in the north blew all life from the hill. Several snipe rose up from the moss and a lone golden plover passed by mid-morning, but it was otherwise hard… Continue reading

Catching up with my notes over the last few days, it’s crucial to record the arrival of a new team member at the Working for Grouse project. I wasn’t really looking to buy any more heifers this autumn, but I happened to spot a really great prospect when I was down in Cumbria looking at… Continue reading

Following the flurry of snipe, it has been fun to trace their progress through the mud over the last twenty four hours. Most of the birds have now moved on, leaving a few chubby little jacks in their wake, but they have scrawled an extensive network of tracks and patterns on the wetter ground. One… Continue reading

It’s difficult to know what the pigs thought of their final days. They had been born in April, and could hardly be expected to understand the meaning of frost. In its heyday, their pen had been a wonderland of meadowsweet and flag iris, and the piggies had run in curly loops beneath the flowers, their… Continue reading

Since writing about snipe two days ago, I had some great feedback from a knowledgeable reader who advised me to dig a little deeper on global wind patterns for an explanation. He surmised that the snipe I was seeing were coming from Iceland, and the extraordinary animated maps at EarthWindMap bear this out. Clear and… Continue reading

The local farm shop has tall windows so that visitors can enjoy the natural light. To ornament the view, large bird feeders are situated within arm’s reach of the glass, and  small RSPB posters adorn the walls to help customers differentiate between blue tits and great tits. It’s a common scene, made more interesting by… Continue reading

I have sold my bull. We struck a deal on Thursday, and arrangements were made to collect Caerlaverock Dominic at first light the following morning. A thick frost fell overnight. I picked my way up the hill beneath a gallery of stars and exchanged my car for a quad bike. The shed door rolled back on… Continue reading

The landscape is now crowded with thrushes of every shape and size. The invasion began with a few softly spoken phrases on the edge of hearing; flights of redwings against the moon. Matched with a flight or two of wigeon, these were pleasing, gentle signs of progress into autumn. Within a few hours, all subtlety… Continue reading

The weather is almost guaranteed to be horrendous in Newcastleton during the last week in October. Rain falls in blue curtains over the landscape, turning the burns into writhing white ribbons. Langholm Moor glowers over the town – miles of red, autumnal grass lie vulnerable beneath banks of cloud and mist. Black grouse lurk through… Continue reading