Grey days and dancers.

August, so far, has brought unseasonably cool weather. A few days gave spells of sunshine and others, despite a grey blanket of low cloud, were warm enough for a T-shirt and jeans. But many days, especially during the past week, brought cold south easterly winds, occasionally peaking to gale force. Horizontal rain and cancelled ferries.

The garden of course shrugs it all off, a few plants get battered and leaves that shouldn’t fall until Autumn are torn from branches and cast to the ground, but the garden, like its owners, goes with the flow. Many perennials are discreetly staked and when the gales have moved on, a re-tie here and there, along with a tweak with secateurs, soon sees order restored.

Despite borders being full of colour and alive with the buzz of bees, the gales bring a timely reminder that, for this northern garden, the days of our short summer are numbered. Wriggly tin compost bins are already filling with the cut back growth of faded early summer perennials. Some plants though are only just getting started. Ligularia othello has come into flower this week, timed to perfection, the new flowers taking an instant  battering from an easterly gale. It’s a plant that we grow mostly for its large showy leaves, the golden-yellow flowers a welcome bonus.

In the kaleyard garden, a late summer favourite, Sidalcia party girl, has tall showy spires of white eyed pink flowers. Another kaleyard favourite, a Molinia whose name is long forgotten, has cast up hundreds of seed heads on thin green stems. A close relative of the native moor grass that grows wild on the hill behind the house. On a still day it is easily overlooked, only coming to life when a breeze passes over the garden, seed heads swaying and dancing to the rhythm of wind.

As the year moves on birds that arrived for the summer to weave nests and rear ever hungry chicks are now being noticed by their absence. A half dozen pairs of Blackbirds, who a few weeks ago were run ragged feeding cocoa brown fledglings, have, along with their youngsters, moved on to pastures new. Ditto the Lesser Redpolls who arrive every Spring to raise broods of youngsters in nests tucked low amongst moorland heathers and grasses. A week or two ago we counted adults and juveniles in tens, now just a single pair remains, perhaps hanging back to rear a late hatched brood.

In the wider landscape summer visiting Common Gulls have left their breeding grounds on moor and heath. Like most gulls they’re opportunists and won’t pass up the chance to grab an unguarded egg but when watched from afar there’s a gentleness to their colonies, the birds generally rubbing along together and quickly settling neighbourly disputes with barely a raised wing or ruffled feather. Great black-backed gulls also breed on the moors here, unlike their smaller Common Gull cousins the birds are year round residents. They’re the largest of all the gulls, powerful thickset birds who are merciless stealers of eggs and chicks. In summer the adult birds are always on patrol, gliding along the cliffs or shore on broad wings. Always on the lookout for an unguarded egg or unlucky chick. In winter they feed on the victims of storms and crashing seas, the bodies of seals and seabirds cast upon the shore, are fought over by Black-backs and Ravens.

With the long daylight hours of June’s ‘Simmer Dim’ behind us, a bonus brought by the shorter days, is that the mirrie dancers, the northern lights, are being seen again. Sunday, a week past, brought the promise of a good show. The hardest thing about photographing the dancers is getting something in the foreground, a sense of scale. A roofless clifftop byre a few miles from home seemed a likely spot. It’s an area of coastal heath, grazed in summer by rare breed sheep. As I walked to the byre I passed a small flock of them, in the near total darkness their eyes were lit yellow by the beam of my head torch, they stood their ground, more curious than afraid. With the camera set up all you had to do was cross your fingers and wait, passing the time by counting the spinning on-off beams of lighthouses. Some were closer than others, five of the eight that I could see are in Orkney, three are more distant, warning of hidden dangers along the coast of Scotlands Caithness.