Every morning I feed our small flock of Soay sheep. It keeps them tame – they are flighty, wily and impossible to herd, but will follow a feed bucket, no problem.
After that I have a little stroll around the field, hoping to spy some interesting wildlife – perhaps a glimpse through the trees of a fleeing Roe deer, or a golden fox striding across the open field next door. Sometimes the blackbirds alert me to the presence of an owl with their frantic flapping and panicky alarm calls. If I’m lucky I will see him silently gliding through the trees or quietly perched, watching intently, on a branch high above me.
I clamber over our giant compost heap – a haven for grass snakes, hoping I might catch sight of one basking in the early morning sun. I haven’t been lucky enough to get a photo of one yet this year, though Malcolm did see one shedding its skin the other day – we have the slough to prove it. (Strictly speaking we don’t have it now as I sent it off to the ARC for DNA testing as part of their research, we do have a photo though!)
My little tour takes me down past our big pond. Often the mallard ducks will be there (we’re still hoping for ducklings) or a moorhen with chicks. The wildflower meadow is growing taller and taller and the flowers beginning to open: blue Meadow Crane’s-bill, purple Knapweed, bright white Oxeye daisies and tall yellow buttercups. It’s buzzing with bees and other insects, with damsel flies and butterflies flitting and fluttering through the foliage their colours glinting and dancing in the sunlight.
I lift the board we placed there, hoping to find an interesting creature lurking beneath, sometimes I am rewarded with a young slow worm or grass snake.
Slow worm Baby grass snake – look closely!
Then it’s back up, through the sheep field, to our garden and a visit to the ponds there in the hope of more duck sightings or, if I’m very lucky, a frog, toad or grass snake.
Never Mind the Bullocks 