Right in the middle of the road outside – what should there be but a newt. They are supposed to be nocturnal and shy, but this fellow was up and about in the middle of the day and didn’t seem very scared of us. I was concerned that he might get run over so I […]
Well that is the vegetable plots dug and the deer fencing up around them. I don’t think much to the instructions that came with the cage – it just said ‘make a 14″ deep hole for each pole and hammer it in to the ground’. Well that may be all very well in some gardens, […]
Another big night for wildlife here. Firstly – we finally saw our friend the pine marten in the flesh for the first time. He seems to have been visiting the feeder much earlier – around 9pm rather than 2am, and last night I just glanced out of the window and there he was – this […]
I tried an experiment for my Dad’s (84th) birthday and made a traditional Scottish ‘High Tea’. For non-natives – this is a sort of combination between afternoon tea and dinner. You have a simple but filling cooked dish, followed by a variety of baked things (largely of the sweet variety). It is eaten about 6pm […]
The sheep have returned. Two of them this time – and although we have gently shoed them a few times (cats are scared of them and they keep eying up the plants) they keep coming back. We have a fragment of wall that belonged to the former house which burned down (we think immediately post-war), […]
Things are definitely getting going now and the polytunnel is pretty crowded with seedlings. Yesterday I took my life in my hands and moved my first early potatoes which were growing in containers outside in order to free up a bit of space. I now need to get the deer fencing up as a […]
Our Doctor’s Surgery seemed to have converted itself to a Vet this morning. I presume this is for an April Fool – but it would be even funnier to turn up with one of the cats in a box and say that he needed a worming tablet. I don’t think the cats would find […]
Today R and I walked part of the Cowal way. We took the Helensburgh minibus from Lochgoilhead this morning and got off at Artgarten. The idea was to be able to do a longish walk in one direction without having to loop back to get the car. So this was part of the Lochgoilhead to […]
I was out walking at around 7am today and just coming round the road near the loch I heard a loud drumming noise. It was a woodpecker – unfortunately I only got a brief glimpse of him (not enough to identify his exact species), but he was making enough noise to make up for his […]
These are the creatures we have seen in the immediate vicinity (our garden or within a mile of the Donich) since we moved in back in October. Pine Marten Badger Fox Otter Red Deer Red Squirrel Short tailed vole Field mouse Bat Heron Buzzard Falcon Garden birds -Tits (great, coal, blue), Robin, Chaffinch, Blackbird, Thrush, […]
