A Wednesday Ramble around Bayble

I went for a ramble this morning. It turned into a stroll which in turn became quite a long walk.


I wouldn't be any good at shearing sheep, either.


Rosebay Willowherb is one of the flowers out since last week when I walked this route.


Honeysuckle was another.


A juvenile Hooded Crow.

I heard my first Corncrake of this holiday but it remained as elusive as all the others I have heard over the years. The following video is not very inspiring insofar as its view is concerned but if you turn your sound up you will hear the Corncrake. It sounds like someone rubbing their finger along a comb.




Field Scabious.


I'm not very good at identifying grasses but that doesn't stop me appreciating how attractive they are.


Bayble Island from the jetty.


Scotland's flower.


This is a female Common Blue. Unlike the male she usually has brown upper wings covered in bluish scales with orange spots. Occasionally one is lucky enough to come across a fresh specimen in which the blue scales are really bright and have not worn off.


The female has a brown background to her underside whereas the male has a bluish grey one. She has her abdomen curled under her because she is in the process of laying eggs on the Birds-foot Trefoil plants.


That little dot is an egg!


A juvenile Twite. Normally a bird of the uplands in the rest of the UK, the Twite can be found at sea level in the far North West.


At the bottom of the croft - just the stiff climb back up and I'll be home in time for lunch...

 

Another day gone

I'm only nine hours behind...
Behind what?
Behind in reading the postings of my fellow bloggers.
As soon as I get near catching up someone posts a new blog.
One day...

Granny made a comment on my Butts and Pieces posting about having given up wood-turning because she could never achieve the standard she set herself. How often do we do that in life? I remember attempting - very briefly - as a child to learn the piano. Because I couldn't instantly play Beethoven's Piano Concerto, I gave up. Later in life I tried again and had I learned my lesson? Of course not. After having mastered the first few bars of Fur Elise I gave up. It required too much effort and, more to the point, I felt I would never be good enough to satisfy myself. The same applies to painting. Every now and then I have a spell of painting and sketching but rarely is the result up to the standard I would like to achieve. But there is one big difference here. I carry on. Just occasionally one is satisfactory and, more to the point, the process of trying is enjoyable. It can be hard to accept that we aren't all brilliant at what we attempt but everything is relative. I expect Michelangelo was rarely satisfied with what he painted but it looks pretty good to me.


Fortunately I am less exacting in my photography. I often photograph things 'just for the record'. So whilst I have lots of better photos of Common Blue butterflies I am just as pleased to have got this one today because it is the first time I have seen one here on the croft. Indeed, so far as I can recall it is only the second Common Blue I have seen on Lewis - the other being at The Bridge to Nowhere.

There were lots of other things on the croft and when I have time they will go in a posting on my Hebridean blog but for the moment here are :-


A pair of mating Green-veined Whites.


A beetle - as yet unidentified. It appears to be a species I haven't photographed before.


A hoverfly - species as yet unidentified. Yes, it's a hoverfly not a bee. One can tell by the veins on the wings. So there is no need to be afraid of this chap, it doesn't sting. It uses its similarity to a bumble bee to deter birds from eating it.

I know not everyone gets as excited as me about insects, so to round the posting off in typical style - with something completely different...


A still life.

May you all have a still life today.