‘LE BOTIN’ AND AN ‘UNEXPECTED EVENT’ November 1st 2016 “Inspiring Impressionism” was the title given to a recent exhibition of art at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. It claimed to bring together for the first time paintings by Monet, Van Gogh and Daubigny. “Who” I hear you ask, “was Daubigny”? Surely, a super […] Continue reading → 
Mid Summer Bird Moments Near, Further and Afar. Near : An early morning walk to Yetholm Loch on June 14th revealed a placid, tranquil scene. Seventy mute swans were swimming idly, unmoved, unhurried, just leisurely floating . A shelduck, groups of mallard, a few gadwall, a heron and moorhen shared the open water. Nearer the […] Continue reading → 
THE COLLEGE VALLEY IN MAY Mounthooly and the Hen Hole: with its welcome visitors and absent friends. A round trip on my old Armstrong bike of twenty eight miles followed by a walk of three miles saw me completing my annual visit to the head of the College valley. May 3rd was a bright and […] Continue reading → 
“Time is but the stream I go fishing in” (Henry David Thoreau) My two stepsons, Joe and Sam, were keen boyhood fishermen and so naturally Yetholm loch was a favourite haunt. Tackling up, hooking up herring dead bait, untangling snags, tying on spinners, cultivating maggots: we did it all in pursuit of the pike and […] Continue reading → 
Yetholm Loch in winter February 10th 2016 As the ‘Birds’ homepage notes, one of my local bird habitats is Yetholm loch. Tucked away beneath the surrounding hills, between the farms of Lochside and Lochtower, the loch is just over half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. It is a beautiful place, […] Continue reading → 
“PROFITING FROM UNPROFITABLE LAND” January 2016 Two days after our encounter with the barn owl along ‘Melton Mains’, I ventured out again for a late afternoon walk. The weather had changed, snow melted and still dank greyness had returned. As I made my way from dyke to pond and beyond to the river no barn […] Continue reading → BIRDS UPDATE January 17th 2016 “The pieces of unprofitable land are what I like, best seen in winter.” These words by Molly Holden rang true for me on January 17th as I took a late afternoon walk along side a drainage ditch which borders the Bowmont river flood plain. My family have always known this […] Continue reading → CECIL STUART EMDEN a short biography Cecil Emden was born on December 31st 1889 and died in February 1980. He had been an Emeritus Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and its former treasurer. An earlier collegian had been Gilbert White, the famed eighteenth century naturalist and author of the classic work, ‘Selborne’. This common heritage […] Continue reading → “We are all islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep” (1) Earlier this year, I picked something from my archive of personal memorabilia which prompted more than the customary smile of recognition and brief perusal. It was a small ‘album’ entitled ‘Bird Portraits: a series of British Birds illustrated […] Continue reading → 01.01.16 – BIRDS January 14th 2016 Wind and rain have given way to snow and our first frosts of winter. Hence on all fronts the bird life around Innisfree has required special attention. Our four hens (Bluebell, Snowy, Sunshine and Clucky ( courtesy of our daughter and granddaughters’ naming ceremony) welcomed release from their closed […] Continue reading →