Back in January a few of us involved in Curracag and the Outer Hebrides Biological Recording group decided to launch a phenology survey we ended up calling Signs of Spring. Phenology is the study of when things happen and for centuries people have systematically recorded when certain natural events occur. Perhaps the most famous phenologist […]
The elegant, soaring song flights of larks embellishing a summer morning are celebrated in the the glorious collective term an “elevation of larks”. Alas there is no such epithet for the Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis). The sound of a male pipit ascending to declare his territory is unlikely to send a poet into raptures, but
As if to tease us, indications of better things to come arrived just as daylight hours reached their minimum. The first tentative daffodil shoots appeared amongst the rapidly dwindling Calendulas in the garden and deep in the hedge a Song Thrush started to sing. Knowing that the worst of winter is still to come I
According to the traditional English carol The Twelve Days of Christmas, on the seventh day we should look forward to the delivery of “seven swans a swimming” which would be a notable addition to any menagerie. It conjures an idyllic, pastoral vision of a septet (or should it be heptad) of swans serenely swimming around
Doing the early rounds of the garden this morning I noticed big holes in some of the rhubarb leaves. The culprit was a large, hairy, black and orange caterpillar – the unmistakeable ‘Woolly Bear’ larvae of the Garden Tiger (Arctia caja). In the hedge a Sedge Warbler was belting out it’s scratchy song and in
Coming soon to a beach near you – the return of Arctic Terns and other summer visitors.
As I’m starting to write this (on the 15th March) I suddenly realise that the Redwings that have been around most of the winter seem to have disappeared. These small thrushes arrive in October from Scandinavia and Iceland. Many pass through the Outer Hebrides on their way to places further south in the UK but some will stay overwinter. In spring they return to their northern breeding areas. At the same time, far away in the Weddell Sea, just off the coast of Antarctica, another migrant species is about to start its long journey back to the beaches of the Outer Hebrides.
