Graceful and insubstantial but beware of the sting in the ‘tail’. This is not an invitation to a beach picnic, just a suggestion that the next time you see a large amorphous blob of jelly stranded on the shore that you stop and have a closer look. Try to imagine it drifting in the sea, […]
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
I enjoyed reading the recent summary of insectivorous plants in the Outer Hebrides and was reminded of it whilst taking part in my ritual but futile summer Horsetail pulling. Like many, my garden is riddled with horsetail and we have an uneasy truce. It grows, I pull it up, it grows, I pull and so
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
Like many people I run a moth trap in the garden. It gets put out on suitable nights from March through to November. The best nights are those with low wind speeds and overcast humid conditions. Evenings with heavy rain and high winds are definite no trap days. In the morning, hopefully, there will be
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
