Category Archives: Uncategorized

Arwen. Tolkien’s elvish maiden of legend, fairest of all, Evenstar of her people. But her name will be rather more infamous after this past weekend, a storm of power and fury like many of us have never seen. In places, … Continue reading →

The nights, as they say, are fair drawing in. We’re now into the darkest two months of the year and less than a month from the winter solstice. It makes for long, dark nights but it does mean that sunsets … Continue reading →

Autumn is often a time of misty mornings. Mild damp days followed by chill nights make water condense out of the air and a blanket of mist covers the land. Or, some days, just the cooler, damper places, like up … Continue reading →

It’s been the sort of week where you stop saying ‘late autumn’ and start saying ‘ early winter’.  Oh, it’s been unseasonably mild – we’re still seeing plenty of toads wandering around the reserve, when they should be thinking about … Continue reading →

While our autumn colours are glorious, I’ve known years when they’ve been better and lingered for longer. Why? Well, the wind this year has been the difference! We’ve had a pretty unsettled autumn, with lots of strong winds – and … Continue reading →

This week Loch Davan has entertained a very unexpected visitor. On Wednesday – a female Velvet Scoter appeared. Known as a sea duck we believe she must have been blown off course by the strong winds on Tuesday night. She … Continue reading →

We’re well through October now, and, this week, the Hunter’s Moon was riding high in the sky. By it’s light, and, more importantly, navigating by the stars, came a rush of windthrushes, redwings freshly arrived from Scandinavia. And they came … Continue reading →

The dictionary defines a tableau as “ a striking or artistic grouping” from the French tableau vivant (meaning literally, living picture). National Nature Reserves across Scotland have excitingly been asked to forage natural items to represent our reserves and various biomes as … Continue reading →

What’s in a name? We’re taught, as children, that name calling doesn’t matter – ‘sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me’. But, of course, that’s not true – names, words and descriptions are strongly … Continue reading →

Writing this on a driech, rainy autumn day seven months into a busy season its quite easy to feel a little bit tired of having to react to the reserves’ day to day needs -patrolling, litter picking, strimming, engaging and … Continue reading →