May 2020

Early in the Lockdown I had a dream – a dystopian nightmare – in which the world was so broken that even the swallows couldn’t migrate this year. I was therefore extra overjoyed, and so relieved, when at last they appeared (on April 21^st) cruising high overhead, then chattering on telegraph wires, and eventually moving back into the shed.

Yes: the basics of natural order are still (just about) intact and for many of us the unfolding of Spring has felt particularly poignant this year as the world stands still. Some have appreciated the companionship of creatures in the absence of human contact; some have had more time to notice Nature and the Small Things… which are for me the Big Things: essential anchors in life. I think most of us feel lucky – privileged, even – to be in this spectacular place at this extraordinary time. So we thought it would be nice to do a bit of a ‘Springwatch’. 

We are all marooned together on this peninsular, looking out over these views, so I won’t witter on about the exquisite light on An Teallach’s cauldron, or how the Outer Isles hover on the afternoon haze. But here are a few undisciplined noticings of Spring’s progress from the south end of the road. It is not a comprehensive record – in particular I’m missing the shore birds – and I am not an authority… I will enjoy any geeky Amateur Naturalist chat and feedback.

I’m writing in early May when Spring is in full-frenzy, but my first reassurance that winter might end comes in mid-March when the classy wheatears return from central Africa, loitering by a path then darting off – a flash of white rump looping low ahead. Pied wagtails strut cockily on the lawn. In early April (4^th this year) pink-footed geese pass in squeaking skeins en route from their winter on soggy southern fields to the all-night eating opportunities of the Arctic Circle.

Delicate willow warblers arrive a little later (16^th April), flitting about in the stubby catkins; their descending trill is a definitive sound of Spring. As is the cuckoo; quintessential harbinger of Spring bpre-dawn wakeup call. Is the female’s throaty cackle mocking us in our insomnia? The poor, parasitized pipits chase them furiously. 

Sheltered cracks harbour primroses even in mid-winter, but by mid-April there are cliff-fulls of them. Gorse creates its own microclimate, with internal sunshine and full surround-smell. The monochrome heath is now lit with pink lousewort, indigo milkwort and the podgy yellow-green leaves of butterwort. One dawn amongst the brown I spotted my first emperor moth: a female (no huge feathery antennae) – she was many rich browns and buff, with striking eyespots and a flash of red. The caterpillar (in case you ever see one) is improbably green, with spikes and spots.

At dusk I watch a crimson-scarlet smudge in the north west, and Venus gleams above Tanera. A Snipe drums his tail feathers in an aerial courtship display overhead, like a huge elastic band twanging in the darkness. (Is it a rival male at ground level who frantically squeaks in response?) Further off a red throated diver wails hauntingly. The swallows hunting amongst the Spruce-tops have just become pipistrelle bats. This is definitely a very good place to spend Lockdown.  Until the midges come, perhaps.

This piece first appeared in the ‘Coigach Newsletter’, May 2020.