A beautiful warm day here in Lewis. Donned wet suit, went forth and swam iin the sea, to the disgruntlement of two (unidentified) ducks (probably sea ducks) who paddled off, quite unimpressed.  Luckily a bit too early to be inspected by artic skuas and bonksies, who have yet to arrive.  A bit cold, to say the least.

Later saw a small tortoiseshell butterfly see off another - a pity because there's enough flowers blossoming in our garden now to satisfy them both.  Queen bumble bees about too, not seeing each other off.

Add in three redwings feeding on the lawn, actually ignored by our normally grumpy pair of blackbirds, making a good day for our wildlife. Oh, and lambs sunbathing.        

Bees out and about in the sunshine.  Very important people, bees.  Time we all took looking after them seriously. 

House sparrows continue to serenade us throughout the mornings, despite gales, heavy rain, and sleet.

We now have 2 robiins. Will they fight or will they mate?  And EIGHT blackbirds yesterday a.m.  Impossible to work out who was chasing who...

A lot of gales this last week, which has not prevented the sparrow choir from coming each day to the shelter of our big hebe bush and performing jam sessions.  Spring like this morning has brought other visitors among the usual chaffinches, greenfinches, sparrows, blackbirds (sometimes 6 in number!) and the lone songthrush and lone robin.  A reed bunting and a twite do show here sometimes but not regularly. Nice to see them both this a.m.  The peregrine, almost a daily visitor this last week, missing this time. Thankfully!  

Following my blog back last year, when I discovered a mysterious object on our beach, last weekend an object was found (said to be 'a submarine market' or a 'training device', depending which paper you read) - this time a special operations team was flown in from the mainland, the area cordoned off, and the object destroyed by a 'controlled explosion'.  Makes me wonder if it was the same object (missile like) I found on the beach back then, in which case its wandered the local seas for several weeks.  And wonder also why there was such a lack of initiative on the part of police and coastguard last time.  Be nice to see a piccie of said object - nothing on net as regards either 'training device' or 'submarine marker'.  Mystery continues.   

For nearly ten years we had a starling who sat on our roof, and practised buzzard calls - he was so good he fooled us often into searching the sky, while he chortled away on the chimney pot.  Alas, this summer he's moved on, but this a.m we had a young one on our neighbours roof doing lapwing impressions - not the full 'tio but all the preliminary quiet sounds made by lapwings.  NIce to find skills live on generation by generation , espcially in birds.  

The two posts below remind me it's time I got a camera!  

  Our friendly neighbourhood robin was discovered by my partner in the house a day or two back - and he seemed reluctent to go, despite every door and window being open. Obviously casing the joint for some purpose.

On my bedroom floor lies my Pilates worksheet.  He must have inspected and passed it  - his seal of approval is bottom right!                      

Living in the Outer Hebrides certainly brings variety to life.  Normally our beach is inhabited by ringed plovers, turnstones, hooded crows, seaweed and odd dogwalkers with their charges.  But on Sunday I found what looked like a missile, about half a metre long, labelled 'Danger - Do Not Touch' with what appeared to be spanish or portuguese writing.  Got home and rang the police.  FOUR HOURS (!) later a police team appeared, by which time the object had gone.  Oddly, not washed away by the tide, which was going out at the time.  A mystery - was it picked up by a local, left on the beach as a practical joke, or what?  NEXT DAY, the Coast Guard turned up to investigate.  Just hope whatever it was isn't too dangerous!