I made marmalade today—a rewarding but messy business that consequently involves a lot of time standing at the kitchen sink washing things up. The window by the kitchen sink looks out across the patio, where we have a ground feeder and various other things to attract birds.

The cold weather seems to have brought in a new visitor to our garden. A fieldfare, or so I’m told by people who know more about birds than I do (ie Sophie). And it’s a right bully.

It seems to have taken a liking to the apples that we put out for the blackbirds. It’s a fat looking thing, and you can tell why. All afternoon he’s done nothing but eat and fight off other birds. Sparrows, robins, blackbirds, starlings, none of them can get a look in. The ground feeder currently has several apples on it and large handfuls of suet and assorted seed. The fieldfare seems interested only in the apples, but he’s not letting anything else get close enough to eat the other stuff.

What do we do? Of course, the fieldfare is welcome to come and eat, but it seems determined to stop any of the regular visitors from eating at just the time when they most need to. Should we let nature take it’s course, or should we intervene somehow?

This little beastie was on the water mint in the pond the other day. And this evening Sophie went out to get some chives for supper and spotted a tiny little blue butterfly.

Which moved on later to the green house, giving us a glimpse of the top side of the wings

If anyone can tell us what they are I’d love to know.

One of the delightful things about the islands is the wildlife. We’ve been out kayaking past puffins and over star fish, seen anenomes and crabs whilst snorkelling and been sized up by passing seals. But on the campsite itself there’s plenty to see too, and often at much closer quarters than usual.

The birds are fearless. Sparrows, blackbirds and thrushes wander about the site scrounging, quite happy to eat the crumbs beneath your table whilst you’re still sitting at it, or helping with the washing up by picking the remaining grains out of your muesli bowl. Sophie managed to get a thrush to pick up cake from within about 15cm of her, though it wouldn’t quite take that final step and eat from her hand.

Swallows dart about the campsite at low altitude feeding. Up at the farm barn there’s a nest and the adults seem quite happy to dart in and out whilst Ben, one the campsite owners, works on his landrover. This photo is a couple of days old now—when we walked past yesterday most of the chicks had moved out to sit on rafters or the light fitting. On our way back a few hours later one or two had returned to the nest and were being fed.

Even the campsite sward looks as if it might be interesting to those that know about these things; which doesn’t include me. I recognize the eggs and bacon, but I’ve no idea what this little flower is.

In far too few days time we will have to make our way back home. But the journey, too, can bring encounters with wildlife. In the past we have seen both dolphins and basking sharks from the ferry back to the mainland, and some friends we met here have just told us that they have seen minke whales on the journey.

A good few of them seemed rather reticent to go, but they all got the hang of it in the end. Interestingly, the parents carried on cleaning up after the chicks had gone. Could they be working up to a second brood?

(recorded on 16 May 2009)

The mini-meadow is still not a blaze of beautiful wild flowers, but it’s a lot better than it was last year. There’s clearly a lot of different species of something in there—it’s just that it’s mostly leaves at the moment, so I’ve no idea what they are. Not that I’m much better at identifying things when their in flower. We’ve had some campion, and now have a small purple geranium like thing (herb robert?).

There’s a fair bit of yellow rattle (I think) about to come into flower, which, since it parasitises grass should help keep the grass under control and let the flowers through in future.

Our pond is looking rather sad. More of a muddy hole than a pond really. It’s just so long since it rained. We are hotly debating whether or not the last bits of water remaining in our 1000 litre rain tank should be used to top it up. There was some promising looking rain forecast for Tuesday / Wednesday earlier today, but the forecasters seem to have changed their minds again, so there doesn’t seem to be any reprieve in sight.

Sophie planted out sunflowers and sweet peas yesterday. I’m planning on extending the automatic irrigation system to include my attempt to grow grapes in the front garden, although with our storage tank almost empty it’s a bit academic really. Please let it rain soon!

Unfortunately during it’s long and tortuous journey from the video recorder to the internet it got deleted, so you’ll have to make do with this…