A wild experience

I am still here - I have not been whisked away by aliens nor eaten by over sized rats. I have been spending time creating, reading about creating, been chasing the local wildlife and photographing local wild flowers.

I made a very interesting discovery this week. I discovered that we have a couple of rare butterflies in a nearby field. The butterflies, the Wall Brown, have not been recorded in the Scottish Borders - ever. I did a little investigation and found out that one has been seen several miles from here and another approximately 10 miles away. As seems to be the case so often recently, I figure climate change is the reason for this. Our summers are hotter and wetter now and I presume that this suits our little winged friends. I am sending a report to the local biological records centre and may even get a mention in the newsletter. Yippee!!!

This is also the time for the bat colony counts for the The Bat Conservation Trust. I have to stand outside in the semi dark and count how many bats come out of the roost in my roof. This is much easier than it sounds as the roost has not been used for a couple of seasons. Another signal of climate change? Possibly. The bats that use it (common Pipistrelles - Britain's smallest bat) are kind of fickle over their roosting sites. They will change sites for no apparent reason. Maybe they will turn up later in the season.

Two nights ago the fox turned up in the field in front of the house. He was chasing rabbits but having no success. So I grabbed my binoculars and took off after him. I can only assume that he is a youngster. He was totally oblivious to my presence and I got to follow him for quite a distance, loosing him only because he turned a corner and I could not get over the fence to follow him. Earlier in the week I also bumped into a weasel. This is yet another rarity in the Borders. We have lots of stoats (weasel's bigger cousin) but weasels are not spotted quite as often.

To top off my week, I was out last night late on (bat hunting!) and shone my torch down the road. Two beady little eyes peered back at me. A cat, I presumed. As I swung the torch beam across the road another set of eyes peered back. Two cats? Nope, as I wandered on down the road a black and white body emerged from the undergrowth and started to walk towards me. It was a baby badger!!! Two baby badgers in fact. I can't tell you how happy that made me. I got so close to them that I could have touched them. They did not seem to mind the torch beam at all and it was not until I spoke softly (I told them to get off the road or they would be run over) that they realised something was up and ran off. An amazing experience. So I have had quite an eventful wildlife week.

There are some arty crafty pics to post but I shall do that later.