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 21st) 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 (4th 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 (16th 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.
Coigach Spring ~ June 2020
We began May lounging around in blissful midge-free sunshine, waiting for rain to plant up the raised beds and a new wildflower meadow. But the compulsory Spring storms didn’t disappoint, even throwing in a spot of ‘lambing sleet’. Deep puddles strewn with shredded leaves and gorse flowers are a classic May sight, as is the brown seaward face of trees and shrubs: delicate baby leaves burnt by the salt-laden wind.
Just before these salt-scorching storms, a hillside was scorched in an accidental wildfire. Miraculously (and thanks to the diligence of the firefighters who battled it) nobody was hurt and the flames largely spared the precious woodland that lines the burn tumbling off the hills and down through magical fairy pools. All the hillsides gush green briefly in June with deer grass and bracken, but beneath the flush of grass this burnt patch is still black as the ravens who cronk above it.
Elsewhere on the hillside, insectivorous butterwort is joined by its midge-eating partner sundew. Heath spotted orchids and bell heather are emerging; cotton grass nods in the bogs. Orange-tip butterflies flit around the shins and a large red damselfly warms itself in the heather. In soggy ground yellow flags are unfurling and warm air is heady with bog myrtle (which is said to repel midges – but really, does anything?). A dainty fringe of mauve wild thyme, yellow tormentil and white heath bedstraw freckles the roadside. Clumps of bird’s-foot-trefoil and sea pink make a pretty ensemble on licheny sandstone, whilst Achnahaird’s field of sea pink is an almost-preposterous luxury.
Any lowland walk at this time of year is accompanied by the tchak tchak of a Stonechat: black hat and back, crisp white collar and blush-orange chest, sparrow-sized. Recently I thought I’d seen a pair of massive ones, as big as blackbirds, sitting on a fence … but they turned out to be ring ouzels, probably just passing through en route to breed on higher ground. They’re on the UK Red List of Conservation Concern, as are several other birds we might consider common: the shag, curlew and our favourite alarm-clock cuckoo.
The wildlife charity PlantLife promoted #NoMowMay, which we happily embraced in our garden. The lawn is now thick with lacy pignut and magenta northern marsh orchids. ‘Our’ swallows swoop low over it, hoovering up a rich insect meal. Lately they have been joined by house martins, who somehow resemble dumpy flying penguins but are no less agile than their long-tailed cousins.
Lockdown has kept me off the sea for the first time in a decade; I have no idea what the birds and beasts are doing out there. I heard the puffins had passed through in April… but where have the terns chosen to nest this year? How are the fulmars, eiders, black guillemots? Any cetaceans? I feel I’ve been neglecting these old friends, but I don’t expect they’re too bothered. Nature: unaware that the human world is racked with chaos and torpor, and oblivious to the distraction and sanctuary it offers us when we stop to notice.
This piece first appeared in the ‘Coigach Newsletter’, June 2020.
Wilder Words 