Guess who's back, Back again...

Hiya peeps...

I've just enjoyed an amazing weekend of pan-species listing shenanigans with a couple of great guys; Ali who drove up from Fife and Pete who drove up all the way from Dorset. They both visited Skye in 2018, which was the first time we met each other, and Ali popped up for a few days last year too. We very successfully botanised the shit out of Beinn Edra on Saturday and then visited Spar Cave and a few choice spots along the Elgol Road yesterday. Ali set off homebound after breakfast this morning, but Pete stayed on a few hours longer in order to scoop up a few extra bits 'n bobs which Ali still needs (there's been a bit of friendly rivalry and banter going on between the two of them this weekend, Pete's PSL is just marginally higher than Ali's so every lifer counts for both of them!) This long weekend of PSL adventuring and full-on immersion with like-minded nature nutters has revamped my enthusiasm for life and has blown away the cloud of inaction that's sat over me for some time now. "Inaction" I hear you say. Hmmm, right.

The inaction began for a couple of reasons, I think. Firstly the weather was shocking! On the few days that it wasn't raining sideways, it was still far too cold to see any insect action. Secondly, after yet another drunken lockdown evening, a few of we live-in folk at the hotel ended up passing around one of those inflatable things you put around your arm to take blood pressure readings. It turns out that my blood pressure is really high! So I quit drinking that very night (well, I quit just as soon as the bottle was empty...), stopped the midnight snacking and 3am bedtimes, tried to regulate my diet somewhat and generally worried about my health levels, a worry that only worsened when I went to bed and felt a weight in my chest and experienced the weirdest sensation that I was breathing through a wet rag and hence unable to draw a decent lungful of breath. This went on for a week or so, but it only ever happened when I lay in bed trying to go to sleep. Some nights I sat upright and skipped sleep altogether, other nights I was just too exhausted not to sleep but I worried that the sensations I was experiencing were a precursor to a heart attack. Eventually, on probably the seventh or eighth night of this, I actually thought I was about to asphyxiate, flipped into some kind of a panic attack and drove myself to hospital, which is 16 miles away. I arrived to find I couldn't get in (lockdown duh!) had to call NHS 24 who were shit and, after 40 minutes on the phone to them, told me to go home. Sixteen miles later I was home again and had just driven into the driveway when the doctor at the hospital called asking me to come in straight away... Another sixteen miles later, now at 4am, I was back and having an ECG alongside various other tests. The great news is that my heart gave a very clean ECG, there's nothing wrong there at all. My oxygen levels are at over 98%, clearly I wasn't having issues sucking in clean air. But the doctor could hear bowel noises at the top of my left lung which means I have a hiatus hernia pressing on it (and not that I'm full of shit, which was what I thought he was going to say at the time). Some types of hiatus hernias apparently cause the symptoms I was feeling (silent reflux irritates and inflames the throat, hence the feeling I couldn't draw a breath, weight in the chest when laying down horizontally) and so it turns out I'm not dying just yet after all, happy days. My blood pressure, though still high, is slowly lowering due to a lack of late night grubfests, shedding a bit of excess weight and no longer demolishing a bottle of red every evening....

So yeah, the thought that I was going to die dampened my mood for a while, but knowing it's just a stupid hiatus hernia has calmed my mind immensely. I finished a month of pills to lessen my stomach acidity levels and clean up a suspected ulcer and that was that. The weather was still pretty shite, but I at least was alright. Then I received some really bad news. 

I started this blog back in 2017, which is when I moved up to Skye from the south of England. I travelled up with a beautiful, crazy wee lass. We were in love, life was great. Except we fell out and then she was sacked. She moved elsewhere, I stayed put, and that was the end of that. Last year she moved back up to Skye, somehow we got chatting and once travel restrictions eased we began a casual kind of relationship once more. She found work out on Barra but before I could visit, she had to rush back to England, quite literally overnight, to take care of her very unwell mother. We kept in touch, we hatched some mad plans for our future together, she was moving back up here once lockdown ended and we hoped to make our lives together work out properly this time around. Life was looking good for us, we even started a countdown to her arrival back here on Skye. And then she suddenly and very unexpectedly died, just a month after her 34th birthday. This happened in April. It took a very long time for the post mortem to happen and my little Pixie Lass was finally laid to rest just five days ago. The service was live-streamed for those not able to attend. I watched online, tears mingled with smiles as different folks recounted their memories of this very special little lady. Then the live feed ended, I went back to work and then began making plans for Pete and Ali's arrival a couple of days later. It's true enough that I've been somewhat out of kilter of late, but these past two days of hardcore natural history immersion has freed me from the apathy I've been feeling for a while now. 

So there you go, explanation given. Onwards and upwards, Gibster.

I'm not going to do an almighty catch-up post, you'll be happy to hear. I'll whack in some pics of a few things that were particularly notable to me and then I shall crack on writing up the exploits from this weekend. 

I probably jinxed myself in my previous post (written in early March!) by stating that spring had sprung. Yeah, for all of two days! Then there was snow, hail, rain and cold, cold weather. I watched Sand Martins flying through a hailstorm knowing there was nothing I could do for them. At least the local Blue Tits, Chaffinches, Robins etc are well catered for with the bird table and feeders, but hirundines...? I suspect the cold weather extended too far for them to outrun it, I fear they perished which is sad to consider. It makes me want to shake an angry fist at all climate change deniers, it actually makes me that mad. Eventually there was a run of warmer weather, though it was still unseasonably cool, more Sand Martins arrived, along with Pied and White Wagtails, Wheatears, loads of Meadow Pipits (I maxxed out at 186 birds in one flock working a grassy field) and then Willow Warblers, Cuckoos and Greenshanks. The Pink-feet all departed northwards and Lesser Celandine followed by Whitlowgrass followed by Wood Sorrel and Ramsons pushed forth into flower. Spring did arrive after all, a little later than expected but here at last. A couple of weeks ago it became warm, uncomfortably warm at times (I don't 'do' heat very well) and summer arrived along with an incredible algal bloom which has turned the sea around Skye an amazing tropical turquoise colour. Anyway, have some pics. 

March - 

 

Corkwing Wrasse and the Candystripe Flatworm

April - 

The first Wheatear of the year, female Liancalus virens and Galathea strigosa

May - 

Golden Eagle, Silver Birch (mega on Skye, but this was planted) and a White Wag on my lawn

I shall compose a proper blog tomorrow, covering the weekend just gone. No more long gaps, eh.