Night & Tay

After finishing my wedding cross-stitch (only 16 months after our ceremony!) I started on a quick piece which I’ve been looking forward to stitching for a while – a kingfisher. One of my favourite birds and one which is guaranteed to bring joy to my day when spotted. In honour of my cross-stitch kingfisher, here are some details about these fantastically flashy birds and my top tips for seeing them.  The cross-stitch - photo by Jen Concerning kingfishers Kingfishers are distinctive birds with bright blue backs and an orange front, and are widely distributed across the UK, yet despite this lots of people have never seen one. Let’s learn a bit more about these frankly fabulous birds and then I’ll share my tips and locations! Kingfishers are famous for their diving skills, and for good reason, they are amazingly adapted for this way of fishing. They position themselves on branches up to 2m above the water waiting to spot their prey.  Their eyes have two focal points, which allows...

Autumn is my favourite season for many reasons, but the spectacular colours are definitely up there. Since it’s halfway through September (no, I don’t know where it’s gone either!), the leaves will soon start to fall, so it’s high time to get out and enjoy the autumnal colours!   Why do trees change colour in the autumn? Hang on, science lesson incoming! The green colour of leaves comes from chlorophyll, the chemical which plants use to absorb energy from sunlight. However, as the days draw in and we get less daylight in autumn, trees produce less chlorophyll, this means that we can see the other pigments in the leaves – carotenoids and xanthophylls, which provide those gorgeous autumnal oranges and yellows. Photo by Jen-Shemmings-Payne Sometimes you’ll see bright red leaves, these are a bit more complicated, and are caused by chemicals called anthocyanins. These are released by the tree as it pulls the last of the nutrients out of the leaves and back into the branches. Anthocy...

I recently picked up a copy of 1000 places to see before you die and it’s got me thinking a lot about what I would put on my list. While the book is a fabulous read it’s clear that the author and I have a very different travel style and her list of places to visit in Great Britain (approximately 50 places) was very different to what I would include. This has sparked questions with just about all of my friends and family (sorry everyone!) as to where each person would include in their list and I’ve decided to share mine with you all. So, in no particular order, here are the first 5 places in my version of “50 places in Great Britain to see before you die”. One - Northumbria Coast I know I said no particular order, but this is possibly my favourite place to go, and I would recommend everyone visits when coming to the UK, even if it’s not in all the guidebooks! The Northumbria coastline has so much to see, it’s renowned for its stunning beaches but there’s so much more to this beau...

If you’re an autumn person like me then 1 st September signals the start of the best season of the year, and we’re not letting things like “the astrological start isn’t until the 23 rd ” slow us down because the met office is on our side, declaring that the meteorological start of autumn is the 1 st , woo! I could list a hundred things I’m looking forward to this autumn but that would be quite a dull article, so, instead, here are my top five nature things to look out for. Photo by Jen Shemmings-Payne 1 – Red Deer rut As we discussed last week in the blog post on deer (which you can read here), October is the peak of the red deer rut – where stags (male deer) compete for does (female deer). There’s lots of bellowing and the clashing of antlers as the stags duke it out. It’s a spectacle not to be missed. Here are 3 places you can see the rut: 1 – Cairngorms National Park, Scotland . Scotland is home to the largest population of red deer in Europe and the south of Cairngorms nat...