Christine's walking & birds blog

We did a bit of a route march today, in greyish weather after a rainy period - but we did pause to look for a solitary lesser butterfly orchid that I found on June 20. It was still there on June 26, although this picture was the last one I took on June 24.


There was no sign of it. We both looked around for ages, but were quite sure we had the right spot. It could have been trampled or eaten by a sheep or deer - although the site still held loads of lilac orchids (which species, I'm not sure) and there was no fresh dung around. Unfortunately, it was easily seen from the road; but with no proof that someone's removed it, I'd better give my fellow human beings the benefit of the doubt and assume it was animals.

A bit further on, one at least was still there of the three I first discovered on June 15. The thing is, I wonder if lesser butterfly orchid would be a target for flower thieves; it's declined drastically in England over the last 50 years thanks to habitat loss, but seems to do better in Scotland.

Hooray! From July 3rd, the 5-mile restriction on driving-for-exercise will be lifted. Freedom's in sight.

A warm walk yesterday gave us this dark green fritillary, nectaring on wild thyme - although a small pearl-bordered fritillary chased it away twice.



A dragonfly patrolling a small area seemed to check us out, although it was probably finding tiny insects near us. Now and then I caught a glimpse of a bright green thorax, so this was a northern emerald. No chance of a photo this time, but lovely to know it's still there.

A general letter from the Scottish government and Scottish NHS arrived this morning in the post - and I had a huge fit of temper. I pushed the furniture back and swabbed the kitchen floor with enormous gusto, which exhausted me physically but left me feeling calmer. (It was long overdue, anyway - swabbing the kitchen floor, I mean.) I couldn't help it, I just lost it. This pointless missive gave me nothing at all to look forward to. It's more of the same blah-blah-blah "spirit of solidarity" blah-blah-blah.

What spirit of solidarity? Like this below? We've accepted we shouldn't go up mountains. But the people in at least one of these cars did precisely that - they went up a blooming mountain (my car on the left).


I'd meant to drive to Ardmair only; but there were so many obvious tourists about - two cars with sleeping bags/bedding bundled up against their back windows, and a couple who parked and went down onto the beach, took a selfie, then furtively messed about round one of those stupid cairns people build everywhere and seemed to be stowing some of the large, flat stones away in their boot (more numbskulls) - that I decided to drive on. WTF! If the police stopped me I had a mouthful of protest ready.

In the event I didn't see any police. After taking my picture, I turned back and drove up to Knockan Crag.  The car park was open but the toilets of course were closed. I couldn't see any ring ouzels but meadow pipits, stonechats, and a spotted flycatcher were present.


As I scanned for eagles, I spotted two people on the path descending from Cul Mor - rucksacks, walking poles - yep, hill-walkers. I drove back home, freshly enraged.

A visit to Ardmair a few days ago brought a well-grown ringed plover chick.


A soft, preoccupied "cak-cak-cak" made me look up to see a red-throated diver speeding westwards, over the beach and out to sea.


Presumably, people are hill-walking all across Scotland! Greger and I are too law-abiding for our own good, I reckon. England eased lockdown hugely over a month ago but tomorrow, we'll be entering our 14th week of lockdown with no sign of any relaxing of it and no comfort to be derived from that pointless bloody letter. We're still not to drive our cars more than 5 miles for exercise, which I defied today in my anger, and preferably, we should stay at home. We've stayed at home for 13 sodding weeks! Yeah, I must stay near home while walkers come here from goodness knows where and do the things I'm obediently not doing. It has to, has to stop. By the time we're set free at this rate, the summer will be gone.

A walk up the quarry road brought a nice hoverfly, new for the lockdown. I'm fairly sure it's a Helophilus pendulum. The photo isn't very sharp because, despite bright sunshine, it was a very windy day and even small flowers were being hurled hither and thither.


This hoverfly and a similar one were seen in our garden in Taplow in 2013, so I'd already researched them. The other species (Helophilus trivittatus) has a completely pale face, whereas H. pendulum has a dark vertical stripe, which my photo has (by chance) caught.

A six spot burnet moth was nearby.


But there was no sign of the (large) red-belted clearwing - and the only birds we saw in a short walk were a meadow pipit and a swallow.

On a clear sunny morning it sounded strange to hear the ferry's foghorn; but as we climbed above the town we could see the haar lying like cottonwool along the loch.

Our first golden-ringed dragonfly of the year was patrolling an open space next to woodland.


A smallish dragonfly on the wing remained too far off to identify, but landed at last on birch leaves. I aimed at the general area, and the resulting much-cropped pic shows a male northern emerald with diagnostic pincer-like claspers.


We looked high and low for the bee hawk-moth but were unsuccessful. There was compensation later in the sighting of a new insect, although I'm a bit flummoxed as to which of two species it is.



It's either a red-belted clearwing - or a large red-belted clearwing. The latter has red in its forewing, and is found as far north as Scotland. The former doesn't have red in its forewing and seems to be found only in England and Wales. But does this one have red in its wing? There's just a hint of red where the wing is attached to the body, but it is only a hint. I think I'll put this down as a probable large red-belted clearwing, and go looking for it again tomorrow. At this rate, I'll spend the rest of the summer chasing small creatures that I'm never likely to see again and go completely mad.

By the time we descended into the village again, the haar had almost gone.

Mid-afternoon I set off on a daft quest - to relocate the bee hawk-moth I'd seen yesterday. Greger gave me a lift up to the walkers' car park which cut out the street walk and the initial steepish climb of the quarry road.

It was a still, sultry sort of day, and I walked quite fast as time was limited. What with the steady ascent and several hot flushes (20 years and still counting) I was soon wringing wet; still, I thought, at least with social distancing no-one will be getting close if I start to pong!

Arriving at the spot where I saw it, I started to look around for the insect and for the plants it nectars on. There was plenty of lousewort hidden in the heather but I searched for some time with no luck. However, I did see a couple of butterfly orchids just emerging - on ground that is grazed and trampled by both sheep and deer, and sometimes, cattle. This is probably a lesser butterfly orchid.


Setting off back down the road, I encountered a large black insect crawling on the tarmac which I thought at first must be one of the many beetles you see here. It was a birch sawfly (I think, anyway - but why doesn't it have those really long legs?). I chivvied it onto a leaf and put it on the verge. It didn't appear to be injured, but I don't think they live long after breeding so this one was probably simply on its way out.


Chris Packham and others might wax lyrical about the wonders of nature and so forth, but I find it as terrible as it is wonderful. I mean, I know the mechanics are amazing, but when you think of these creatures hatching from eggs, then spending every minute as larvae merely stuffing their faces, pupating, then triumphantly breaking out into airborne and often striking adults, only to spend a few days ensuring the species continues before dying - then the driven, frantic pointlessness of it all becomes apparent.

We set off from home at about nine o'clock this morning, walking through unbelievably quiet streets - a village drowsy with Sunday lie-ins. I yawned, wishing I was still in bed myself as I didn't sleep very well last night.

I was soon cheered up when a smallish dragonfly darting about between trees landed on a goat willow and turned out to be exactly what I've been hoping to see - a second northern emerald dragonfly, in this case a female. An Ullapool lockdown-walk northern emerald!


We heard the wood warbler again but failed to see it. We wandered on high ground where pools and bogs lay sparkling in the bright sunshine, and where four-spotted chasers ceaselessly patrolled the airspace just above the water.

Back down from the heights, something like a furry bee was on a low bank. My attentions put it to flight, but I just managed a record shot of my first narrow-bordered bee hawk-moth. An Ullapool lockdown-walk insect lifer! The long clubbed antennae can just be seen in the picture.


There were two other interesting sightings. One was of a darkish deer which uttered several sharp screamy calls. It might have been a sika deer; as I watched it flee from our approach, it appeared to be bouncing along off all four legs (known apparently as "pronking"). The second was a group of trees, one of which was rowan, and the rest of which had leaves like those of sessile oak - although the trunks resembled the rowan trunks. More research on that needed. (Later: could be turkey oak - there are some in the village.)

With a couple of dragonflies glimpsed on this bright sunny day - one large, one medium-sized - I feel that summer has at last arrived in the far north. The dragonflies zoomed away drunkenly never to be seen again, so I've no idea what they were - but a pair of large red damselflies proved more obliging. The female is on the left, the male on the right (info from british-dragonflies.org.uk).


My other target creature was sawflies; and I got lucky with one of the largest species in Britain - the birch sawfly (I think).





A strong wind swayed the tops of the birches and made photographing them difficult (they were also at a distance and high up) but getting them in flight was almost impossible. I think I saw one pair mate in mid-air - but I didn't manage to catch that. They're pests, but fascinating pests.

As I walked away I spotted yet another one, slightly closer. I stopped to try for a shot but it flew off - and I was about to walk away when I heard the stuttering trill of a wood warbler from deep within the trees. I used the video mode on my camera to record the trill - although the bird only did the "dyu-dyu" prelude when it was turned off! I caught one or two glimpses through trunks and branches as the bird moved about, but no really good view. Nice to hear, though - and so close! A silent cuckoo was the only other bird of note.    

I'm angry. I'm so angry, I went out into the drizzle and started to chop up the garden trimmings that are waiting to go to the tip - but I was forced back indoors by midges. I'm angry at seeing, for instance, a report of a snow bunting near the summit of a mountain during an "exercise walk", ending with a smug, or perhaps sheepish, exclamation mark. Exercise walk or not, I thought we weren't supposed to be going up mountains. I haven't been going up mountains. Mountain Rescue asked us not to - but, as is usually the weary old case, there's one rule for some and a different rule for others.

Two young people recently drove 60 miles from Glasgow to walk up a Munro. They got into trouble and called MR. The report about the incident stated that they were not adequately equipped for hill-walking. A few days later it was announced that they were being fined. MR then said that it wouldn't be judgemental about people it rescued; but the police were fining them for driving 60 miles - which was actually nothing to do with MR. If there's another statement from MR, I fully expect these two idiots to be declared heroes.

We've entered into the 12th week of lockdown - and still there's no word from Nicola Sturgeon about what's going to happen next. I'm going bonkers. I don't want to go near people - as is usual with me, I prefer to get away from them. I want to walk in the hills - where it's lonely. And I can't. For a start I'm obedient but in any case, if I were to attempt it, I would probably be sent home. Men, as usual, do what they want. There are chaps on motorbikes drifting through the village at weekends - clearly not residents. We've seen a small convoy of boy racers passing through the village. Meanwhile, we, who are residents, have had death stares twice during our permitted walks through the village, presumably after my English accent was heard and we were mistaken for funk-holers.

The trouble with NS is, she's probably never been for a walk in her own countryside. She needs to get those silly heels off and swap 'em for a pair of flatties, and then get out and get some fresh air into her head. Scotland isn't comprised only of Edinburgh and Glasgow.

To put myself in a more positive frame of mind, I looked up the Munro (Beinn a' Chroin) that the lockdown-breaking pair had to be rescued from, and found that I'd been up it in July 2000, on a walk that took in three other Munros. Here's the picture that I'd assumed I'd taken at the summit, with my old Pentax on self-timer mode, in low cloud and drizzle.


The trouble was, the cairn in my picture bears no resemblance to the one shown on The BBC News website. Of course, this was 20 years ago and cairns can change. However, reading up on the hill (of which I have very little memory) I find that there are a couple of tops that can be taken for the highest point on the ridge, with the real summit crowned by a smaller cairn than the lower top. This could be the one. Oh well, I walked the summit ridge so I certainly did the whole hill! Happy days.

A blocked drain at our neighbours' yesterday resulted in us not being able to use much water. The washing machine was paused halfway through its cycle and we've had to use the public toilets near the ferry terminal - which, we were "relieved" to note, were open 24 hours.

Today I walked up the quarry road and glimpsed a spotted flycatcher, but saw very little else until the return journey, when the grass was alive with the lovely orange flashes of small heath butterflies; and a merlin went careering and jinking across the sky beyond the conifers, too fast for a photo. A common lizard was also seen.

A walk round the spit in a freezing cold wind brought a common sandpiper and three dunlin.


And when I got home, Scottish Water had arrived and the drainage problem was quickly resolved. How nice tonight, not to have to drive to the loo before going to bed!