CraigardCroft

After doing 500+ blog posts by last December I ran out of steam or maybe it was, " blogger's block" but now things have moved on. Bojo the Clown our incompetent, lying, indolent Prime Minister ha...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2022/08/coco-little-black-number.html

 Five years ago I planted a shelter belt of mainly broadleaves on the western boundary of the croft and have kept the grass under control with a mix of Roundup and strimming but I don't like usi...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2021/12/the-foxes-and-geese.html

  Two weeks ago the French equivalent of "The Guardian", "Le Monde", published a lucid, well argued and well written article outlining the case for banning hunting in France ( I read "Le Mon...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2021/12/two-weeks-ago-french-equivalent-of.html

My first close encounter with an Ardnamurchan otter was twelve years ago in my workshop. I was using an angle grinder and listening to Radio 2 when a young otter appeared at the door,  I switche...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2021/11/three-encounters-with-otters.html

 On Wednesday it was first light at about 6.00 am when we parked the truck, set off into the woods and the wind looking for roe deer. My guide Tony had been out scouting the area the previous ev...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2021/09/the-thrill-of-chase.html

It's the open season for hunting Roe bucks , it starts on April Fools day and ends on 31st October  Halloween. So tomorrow morning out in the woods along the loch there'll be a stalker hoping...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2021/05/roe-deer-stalking-at-first-light.html

Red deer stag Just before the first Covid19 lockdown in March last year  I posted a blog about Scotland having too many deer after a doubling of our deer population in the last 60 years Too ...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/12/hunting-roe.html

This post is a letter to my cousin Ian in California (and my American friends ), we contact each other about once a month on family and other matters. It's to assure him that Americans aren't alo...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/11/uk-government-obsessions-incompetence.html

If like me you feel you are getting too old and slow for "Munro bagging", the obsessive  pursuit of walking all of Scotland's 282 mountains over 914.4m (3,000 ft) there is an attractive alternat...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/10/the-great-wood-of-caledon-pinewood.html

Lynx kitten Fifty years ago on a hot, still, blackfly and mosquito infested afternoon  in northern Quebec I came across two lynx kittens sleeping in the sun on a big flat rock beside the Ton...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/09/improving-chances-of-lynx-introduction.html

 Last week the "Daily Mail" broke the story that our Prime Minister, Alexander Boris de Pfefell Johnson was hiding from the chaos his lack of competent governance has created in a cottage  by t...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/08/you-can-fool-all-of-people-some-of-time.html

 One of the unexpected side effects of Covid19 lockdown here on the peninsula is that many of us have learned to use video conferencing. So, next week we have a ZOOM meeting with Kate Forbes ou...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/08/virtual-meeting-with-our-mp-next-week.html

For the last four years I have been trying to work out how and why Donald Trump was elected President of the United States and why Boris A.B de P. Johnson  persuaded more than half of voters th...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/05/led-by-donkeys-covid19-exposes-whole.html

On Saturday Tobermory was still and quiet; we were still keeping our distance there were no visitors, no cruise ships, I had the ferry, "Loch Tarbert" to myself again and the inshore fishing bo...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/05/lock-down-week-7-at-last-adults-are-in.html

First find a mouse Hens (chickens in the USA) are highly intelligent, they can negotiate complex mazes in return for rewards, they learn quickly, for example they expect me to be out there i...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/05/did-you-enjoy-your-dinosaur-eggs-for.html

Wild goats where they should be... not in town It's quiet out there with very few people about and wild animals are moving into urban spaces. Today's "Guardian" newspaper has a photo of a ...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/04/wildlife-watching-from-ranger-hamzas.html

For one passenger and no cars We've been doing self-isolation in the UK for a week now, it's felt like a string of Church of Scotland Sundays. The village shop / post office is doing a ste...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/03/coronavirus-caravanners-not-welcome.html

No trees too many Red deer  If I look down from my bedroom window in the small hours of a moonlit winter's night there are large grey shapes mooching around in the field that runs down to t...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/03/scotlands-deer-problem-too-many-deertoo.html

The UK terrorist police think I'm a potentially violent extremist despite my white hair, hearing aids, poor eyesight, poorer memory, dodgy knee and the occasional corn on my right foot. Why?......

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/01/white-haired-old-people-violent.html

I have always been lucky, my mother once told me...." If you fell in the harbour you'd come out dry with your boots full of fish". Forty years ago I was lucky to be given a Winston Churchill S...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2020/01/national-parks-were-best-idea-usa-ever.html

Each morning I read the online version of The Guardian (UK equivalent of the Washington Post and France's Le Monde)) and The Times,  to get a balanced view of the world. Photo: Patrick Hend...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2019/11/climate-change-denying-trolls-are-still.html

Sunrise over the Morven Peninsula 15/11/19 It's the 14th November and already this month I have filled the water butt with a hosepipe for the livestock  three times.  It's been unusually ...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2019/11/travels-with-donkeyla-route-stevenson.html

Thirty years ago when The United States lead the world in the field of environmental ethics I had the opportunity to do a Masters degree in "Environmental Values". Now with the world turned...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2019/10/environmental-ethics-in-age-of-fake.html

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, gave us some good news in  the July edition of it's journal, Science. Global mapping of the earth's tree growing potential has shown  ...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2019/10/good-news-on-global-warming-and-climate.html

In February I wrote about the now annual dinner of our old guys expedition group, "Crispy Grey Squirrel at the Roadkill Cafe".  The squirrels I  had in the freezer have gone along with the ph...

http://www.craigardcroft.com/2019/10/the-roadkill-cafe-and-field-guide-to.html