Author: Richard Lindsay

I promised to post pictures of the return journey from the Thurso workshop, but there were so many (given that the journey through the far north was this time in daylight) that it’s taken a while to sort through them. A Bank Holiday is the ideal time for doing that – especially when the weather outside is so grim (click on images for full size – browser back arrow to return).
 
We should, of course, start in the Flow Country and see something or our study site, so here it is, hemmed in by windfarms. To the left is the large summit of Morvern and the low ridge of Scaraben, while to the right are the twin peaks of Ben Griam Mor and Ben Griam Beg (of which more later):


 
Working in the far north (level with John o’Groats), it’s as well to be aware that the weather can change in minutes. This bank of high cirrostratus nebulosus and cirrostratus fibratus heralded a dramatic drop in temperature and a scramble from shirtsleeves to thick warm windproof clothing as we took the last few samples of the day from the bog:

 
Leaving my little team to continue, I headed south the following morning, starting at the northernmost railway station in Britain:

 
The sky was looking pretty ominous by the time we departed Thurso and I was concerned that it might mean that I would have 16 hours of grey landscapes and skyscapes to photograph:

Fortunately things started to brighten up as we passed from Caithness into Sutherland, weaving our way through the various forestry plantations planted on the peatlands during the 1980s (and now being removed, sometimes by the same contractors who planted them, because it is recognised that the whole Forestry Grant Scheme was a mistake):

The train station at Forsinard, in Sutherland, is both the train station and the RSPB Information Centre. The RSPB has been one of the most active bodies in the restoration of the peat bogs from the afforestation of the 1980s. They have felled and begun restoring huge areas (although these are still small compared to the total area that was planted):

 
To promote and display the bogs to best effect, a Flow Country consortium has constructed a Viewing Tower which allows visitors to view the patterned peat bogs from above. This is an inspired move because it is, quite frankly, almost impossible to appreciate (or even see) the quite dramatic patterns which characterise these northern peatlands. Simply to find our way around in them, we have to use aerial photographs because it is possible to walk right past a major area of pool patterning without realising, so low-relief is the structure of the bog surface, and it is quite impossible to see the nature of the pattern without viewing it from above. The Viewing Tower allows a bird’s eye view, and in some weird way this remarkable piece of architecture blends into the bog landscape. It’s just possible to catch sight of it from the train:

 
Travelling south from Forsinard, the train passes through one of the remaining un-afforested blanket bog landscapes, a huge peat-dominated plain broken by the twin peaks of Ben Griam Beg (to the right) and Ben Griam Mor (in the background):


 
Some considerable time later, the train emerges at the coast at Helmsdale:

 
There is then a very long and winding journey round most of the firths which massively indent this eastern coastline. Having swung all the way inland to Lairg, the line finally swings back to the coast and crosses the Kyle of Sutherland at Invershin:

 
After that the landscape becomes softer as the train wends its way along the coastal margins and through the agricultural lands to Inverness:

 
Departing Inverness, I was overjoyed to discover another bunch of drunken lads clutching boxes of lager staggering onto the train, so I quickly hopped into another carriage. One journey like that on this trip was enough. There were therefore high hopes of some good views as we headed south to Edinburgh. Unfortunately, the lady in charge of the catering trolley took to sheltering near the doors with her trolley from the drunken lads next door whenever she could, which rather closed off that option for everything facing west. The Cairngorms, however, were to the east, so a few shots were obtained, but alas the stunning view from Dalwhinnie of snow-covered Ben Alder looming over Loch Ericht was not:


 
I did get this, though, which I think is Glen Garry:

 
Passing over the Highland Boundary Fault between Pitlochry and Perth, the line slid gently into a wholly agricultural landscape which (apart from the distant hills) could have been anywhere from Northumberland to Essex:

 
The rape fields look the same wherever they are (this is close to Edinburgh):

 
Then heading south from Edinburgh it was clear that a great deal of ploughing going on, much to the delight of the gulls, feasting on worms and grubs:

 
Heading south towards Peterborough for the final leg, via Ipswich, then home, the light slowly faded over the fields as they whirred past our Virgin East Coast Pendolino train:

A gentle and short walk down to Asda this morning (for haircut…) produced no end of wildlife – provided you are prepared to include plants as ‘wildlife’. It really does feel as though summer is on its way, with that slight haziness caused by dust rising in the atmosphere, cumulus just fading into the blue horizon rather than being hard white cauliflower heads, and everything busy as bees.
 
The first thing that caught my eye was the fact that the elder bushes are now coming into flower, their huge flat flowering heads forming essential platforms for a great many insects to feed, find a mate, or be eaten by passing birds. These white platforms will become dense sprays of black elderberries with magenta stalks in autumn:


 
It may not look much compared to a soaring buzzard or the riot of colour that is a goldfinch, but we swear by the berries from these elderflowers. While elderflower drink is extremely refreshing on a summer’s day, the tincture of berries (available as ‘Sambucol’ from Boots and Holland & Barrett, for example) seems to keep us largely free from the worst of cold and flu symptoms.

 
Then a strange sort of strangled, high-pitched great tit call from a nearby birch sapling attracted my attention. I couldn’t think what it was until I spotted… – a great tit fledgling calling to its parents for food – and they obliged:



 
Having been fed, it set off to explore the word around it a bit more:



 
There were a great many alarm calls as I came to the little ancient pathway (now made largely redundant by a tarmac pathway the other side of the hedge):

 
It soon became obvious why. Just along this 100 m stretch, the local hunting population was prowling:




 
In the woody shade of the ancient pathway there is a surprising variety of plantlife, including wood avens (Geum urbanum) now fully in flower. After flowering, the seeds have large hooks which catch in the fur of passing animals and so are spread more widely:

 
Some of the oaks along this ancient way are quite incredible in their gnarled and hollowed-out old age. This one still has a largely intact trunk, but the tangled form of the branches above a huge stump suggest that it has had a long history of pollarding:

 
Emerging from the ancient lane I spotted a blue tit performing acrobatics under the eaves of a block of flats, probably looking for spiders and sleeping moths:

 
But then a little further down the hill I came across this wonderfully acrobatic magpie, doing the same thing:


 
Heading back up the hill after being shorn, I spotted this collared dove, obviously extremely proud of having found something exceptionally pleasing with which to decorate its nest:


 
The poppies are also now in full flower – but their flowering is a brief affair because the petals are so fragile – which makes them even more suitable as an emblem of youth cut down in battle:

 
In the gardens, the ornamental roses are also in full bloom:

 
And so we glide gently into summer…

On this very day, 23 years ago, Dave Chambers and I set off into the early morning sunshine in a battered Belgian VW Golf, towing a tiny boat called Merlin. We were heading for Brittany, where we planned to spend the next month based in the Port Rhu Maritime Museum, Douarnenez, from where we would explore the Breton coastline – a coastline with a deservedly fearsome reputation. One flaw in this plan was that we had omitted to inform the Port Rhu Museum of our plan…
 
Dave intended to live on this boat with me for two weeks, then would head off to explore the Breton countryside for two weeks while Ceci came to to join me for a further two weeks on Merlin. Dave therefore had his own set of adventures in the argoat of Brittany…
 
You can now read about our collective adventures in an Amazon Kindle e-book. A further version should be available through the Apple iStore for use on iPads shortly, while paperback and hardback versions (with illustrations!) will be available through Blurb Publishing (and probably through Amazon) within a month or so.
 
It was a magical four weeks. I hope that you enjoy them as much as we did:

Two-day workshop based at the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) in Thurso, Caithness, and organised by the University of Nottingham to talk about remote sensing and peatland mapping. The early mornings and evenings offered the opportunity for wildlife watching.
 
To start with, the centre of Thurso was ringing with the calls of rooks nesting in the trees of St John’s Square. The young are already pretty much teenagers and are as hungry as wolves (click on photos for full view):


 
It’s extraordinary to see the bulging chin pouch of the parent just completely empty after feeding the young:


 
Afterwards the youngsters sit waiting for yet more. I was intrigued to find out where the food was coming from, and noticed that the parents kept flying north, to the coast:

 
I found all the rooks strutting round the beach along with several jackdaws, turning over seaweed for sandhoppers and things:

 
The kelp beds themselves provided some lovely shapes and colours – aided here by Photoshop:


 
Flitting about amidst the kelp was a redshank – and I suspect various turnstones but their camouflage is so good I just couldn’t spot them:

 
The oystercatchers, on the other hand, were hard to miss with their constant piping, flashy black and white wing bars and brilliant orange-red legs and bills. Very entertaining to watch them doing a sort of hokey-kokey walk from time to time:


 
Out on the peatlands, the skies were a gorgeous blue with not a trace of the rain which helps to create these peat bogs. All rather fortunate for the workshop!

 
After a day spent out on the bogs, we were taken to a secret spot on the coast in hope of seeing puffins. There was one, but with my camera it was a tiny white dot. The scenery was, however, quite stunning:

 
The fulmars were wheeling about on their stiff wings above the crashing waves and along the cliff faces:


 
At the end of the second day we had the opportunity to visit the REAL northernmost point of mainland Britain – Dunnet Head – which lies just a few miles west of John o’Groats:

The cliffs around Dunnet Head are breeding grounds for a great many sea and coastal birds – but of course everyone wanted to see puffins. While everyone else went puffin hunting, I headed off to find ravens, which also nest on the cliffs:


Having been disturbed by a band of puffin hunters, the raven then flew round and practically right past me – too close for the camera to cope with zooming and focusing! Managed to catch a good view of the huge beak, though:


 
Joining the puffin hunters, there was much excitement about a couple of puffins on a ledge – but closer inspection revealed the nearer bird to be a razorbill:

 
Then a very obliging puffin came waddling out from its burrow to stand there displaying its essential puffin-ness:

 
Meanwhile the fulmars continued to wheel around along the cliff edge and I continued to take many photographs of empty sea with just the hint of a fulmar tail at the edge of the photograph. If you take enough photos, at least one will work just by sheer luck:

 
From the high point of the headland we could see all the way back into Caithness, bathed in the evening light. In the middle distance the regular lines within the brown of the peat bog indicate where domestic peat has been cut in the past:

 
Driving back down from the headland, my PhD student, Jerushah, and I stopped to capture the yellow of the gorse, plus a little male stonechat:

 
Then in the meadows in Dunnet itself we spotted this curlew, feeding hungrily while its mate flew overhead calling with that liquid whistling call that marks the edge of the peat bogs and the start of the in-by land:

 
Photos from the 16 hour journey home will follow soon.

I’ve been to a workshop, then doing fieldwork, up in the Flow Country for the past week. I’ll explore what we did in a later post. For the moment I’m just going to post images grabbed during the 16-hour train journey from Colchester to Thurso, a journey that began at dawn in Colchester but as night fell I was still an hour away from Thurso, so the last part of the journey (through the Flow Country) was completed in darkness, alas.
 
The route was Colchester, Peterborough via Ipswich, Edinburgh, Inverness, Thurso. Interesting to see oil-seed rape (colourful, but depressing in terms of biodiversity) all the way from Colchester right up into Sutherland (as always, click on image to see full view; browser back-arrow to close image):
 
Journey began through the mists of the North Essex and Suffolk coast at Manningtree, heading towards Ipswich:


 
After Ipswich the train headed off westwards across country towards Peterborough, and, although there’s the odd oil-seed rape field, it’s clear that there’s been much ploughing in recent weeks:






 
By the time we’d arrived at Peterborough to join the Virgin East Coast Line, the sun was well up, and the journey northwards as far as Newcastle was a patchwork of green fields with (possibly) winter wheat alternating with the blazing yellow of oil-seed rape fields:



 
The sky hazed over after Newcastle and created some rather interesting spectral landscapes:



 
Then, at Edinburgh, the train to Inverness was just about to leave when a crowd of young lads piled on staggering under the weight of multi-pack lager boxes, so I spent the whole journey to Inverness wedged against the door being blasted by music from their portable speaker/iPhone combo. Several passengers complained but it made not a bit of difference. Consequently I only managed one half-decent photo and missed the various views that I’d been planning to catch. Rather frustrating, but at least I managed one over towards the Cairngorms near Loch Insh:


 
Dusk was approaching as we left Inverness, and by the time we’d passed Invergordon there were various interesting skies developing, including some rather fine altocumulus lenticularis clouds formed over the distant hills:




 
Crossing the Kyle of Sutherland (which flows out into the Dornoch Firth) just before Invershin, the light seemed to increase slightly:

 
Then the cloud thickened and the last of the light faded as we went past the 100-foot high statue of the much-reviled Duke of Sutherland (due to his role in the Highland Clearances – his reasons are open to debate but the effects of his actions are not), perched on Ben Bhraggie overlooking Golspie:

 

A largely botanical day today between home and Colchester North Station, but started with the mallards still occupying a front lawn a very long way indeed from the nearest water. How she will get her ducklings down the hill to the River Colne, I just can’t imagine, even with the assistance of her two male companions. I can see duckling chaos ahead… (as usual, click on image for full view and browser back arrow to close image):

 
The greater stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) has been forming white drifts in the shade of woodland margins for a couple of weeks now:

 
The meadow buttercups (Ranunculus acris) are now tall and in full flower:

 
A magpie, looking as though it has come off second-best in a fight with a crow or a pair of jays, was skipping through the daisies:

 
Growing out from the base of someone’s wall, the amazingly hardy herb robert (Geranium robertianum) manages to flourish where almost nothing else can grow – it forms deep crimson patches in the loose dry ballast between the railway tracks at Colchester and Stratford Stations:

 
On the grass verge leading up the Colchester North Station, the common field speedwell (Veronica persica) now forms bright blue buttons of colour amidst the grass sward:

 

A mixed bag of things from yesterday and today.  Emerging from the house this morning, I was confronted with a pretty wild sky – cirrus going through the spin cycle
(As ever, click on image to see full size, then browser back arrow to close):

 
Yesterday, the sky began with fair-weather cumulus on the Abellio Greater Anglia train journey from Colchester to Stratford, as here, over New Hall School just to the east of Chelmsford:

 
…but things clouded over towards evening, so as I was waiting at Galleon’s Reach DLR station, things were rather grey, but then the male kestrel turned up – and a close examination of the photo suggests that it has a wire or something tangled round its leg (I don’t think this is a falconry jesse from an escaped bird) – so, animal welfare concerns!

 
Today, despite the wild morning sky, things remained blue and calm all day, so the views from the train of the Marks Tey oil-seed rape fields, the oak tree pair just after Hatfield Peverel, the view up to Galleywood and the oil-seed rape field looking towards Billaricay, all looked full of the joys of summer. Even the wind from the train window wasn’t too chilly today:




 
Once on the DLR from Stratford, the bright sunlight lit up the DLR carriages in the glass walls of the Newham Council offices beside the Royal Albert Dock (with a little bit of help from Photoshop):

 
Then the large mirror on the platform end at Galleon’s Reach DLR gave lovely swirly images without any help from Photoshop:


 
Standing waiting on Platform 10 of Stratford Station for the train to Colchester, a goldfinch was twittering and warbling for all it was worth while perched on the overhead lives above the commuters, giving them all a subliminal sense of pleasure, I suspect (in Japanese metro stations they play birdsong), but not one of them looked up at the bird just above them:


 
Just a sunset over the oil-seed rape fields at Marks Tey to finish – again, rather a wild cirrus sky but this time streaky rather than swirly:

 

Bank Holiday weekend, so visited Munnings Art Museum and Garden Cafe in Dedham, mainly for the Cafe and the Gardens, as we’ve visited the Art Museum before (all are very good and well worth a visit).
 
Settled onto an outside table at the cafe, daughter was most excited about seeing the ponies again:

 
Entertained for a while by jackdaws picking up horse-hair for nest-lining:

 
Then a buzzard flew over but I was too engrossed in stealing some of my daughter’s cream tea to catch even a half-decent photo.
 
Finally a mistle thrush started quartering the field, stopping, listening, digging, and generally collecting a goodly supply of worms for its nestlings:





 
A wood pigeon feather caught my eye as we wandered round the gardens near the amazing lime tree:

 
Then later, while driving over to SeaPets to buy Daphnia for our goldfish – Michael (Fish) and Sam – I spotted this distant anvil which was probably dumping rain on far-away Braintree, but it just sort of smeared and dissipated:


 
The waste ground where I pulled over had a few nice things too – pale version of red campion, and bluebell (the bluebells are currently creating a gorgeous blue mist over the floor of High Woods, Colchester, the woods on the train line as it runs just to the west of Colchester, and the woods just to the east of Shenfield:


 
Spring…!!!

Working much of the day so I largely missed some ‘crazy skies’ – according to my daughter. A brief trip out towards the end of the day caught the tail end of these huge cumulus congestus and cumulonimbus calvus, although by then they had largely drifted off to Brightlingsea and the coast (as usual, click on images to see full size, then browser back arrow to return to blog).
 
The last of the cumuloninbus drifting eastwards towards Brightlingsea from Myland:

 
The tree-top gives a sense of scale to these massive clouds:

 
A gull rather than a plane this time (see previous blog 26th April 2016):

 
A hedge sparrow, or dunnock, instead of being its normally shy and secretive self, was pretending to be a robin by singing lustily from the top of a cherry tree – producing a rather Japanese effect:

 
 
Heading off the the fields as the sun finally disappeared below the horizon, there weren’t enough clouds to create a golden sunset, but there was still enough to give some interest to the sky:

 
Coming across a dandelion seed-head it seemed worthwhile trying a few close-up shots together with the sunset:


 
Final view of sunset before heading home:

 

Another busy day, starting with a big surprise (as usual, click on blog images for full view – and on a computer it is worth looking at the larger views, use browser back arrow to leave image).  Walking down to Colchester Station from Myland I pass a set of large bushes and small trees which are always bursting with the sound of sparrows, though the bushes are so dense that only the occasional sparrow is visible.  Today it was silent.  Very strange.

Then as I walked past, this bird that definitely wasn’t a wood pigeon burst from the bushes over the nearby rooftops.  By the time I’d grabbed the camera it was soaring above me, rapidly gaining height – a sparrow hawk:

No wonder the sparrows were silent. One of them had probably been providing breakfast, so to speak.
 
Having put the camera away because I was nearing the busy station, I suddenly found myself surrounded by another blizzard of goldfinches (see previous post 26 April). They were scrambling all over a horse chestnut tree:

…digging into the large knot-holes – for insect grubs, I suppose (unless they were seeking tree sap):

 
The grassy bank on the approach to the station was covered with the tiny purple flowers of common storks bill (Erodium cicutarium):

 
Finally on the train, the sky was fair-weather cumulus all the way into Stratford:



St Andrew’s Church, Marks Tey, looking particularly fine with all the willows, poplar and ornamental plum bursting into leaf.

The fields of two poplars to the west of Marks Tey.

The oil-seed rape field between Marks Tey and Kelvedon.

The conifer copse just to the west of Witham.

The fields between the railway line and the Hanson Aggregates tower (just hidden) to the east of Chelmsford.

Fresh ploughing over fields near Ingatestone.

Oil-seed rape fields looking towards Billericay.

The Lone Oak to the east of Shenfield (actually opposite Mountnessing) coming into leaf.
 
Finally arriving at Galleon’s Reach DLR Station from Stratford, I thought these next two were each worth a picture:

Not waves on the sea, but very high, very fine cirrus, rolling on waves in the upper atmosphere.

…and a delightful set of dragon’s teeth drawn out from an aeroplane contrail.
 
Meanwhile London City Airport was as busy as ever, with planes taking off towards the O2 Dome and Canary Wharf:

 
In the evening, heading home, I was waiting on Galleon’s Reach (elevated) DLR Station platform when a kestrel started hunting over the waste ground near the station:

The light was pretty dim by now, but there was just enough to catch the key colours- a male kestrel, with chestnut back and grey head and tail. Then the DLR arrived and chased it off:

 
Just one final picture, of the O2 Dome at dusk, from Canning Town DLR/Jubilee Line Station: