Ospreys are welcome visitors to Scotland, over-wintering in Africa, and we have them fishing on the Tweed near my house (alongside the salmon anglers). It's great when we can tolerate wildlife even when it overlaps with commercial interests. Salmon anglers seem to have more complaints about canoeists than wildlife! 

Suddenly we have lots of Orange-tipped Butterflies around, especially near the flowers of Red Campion. Nice. 

There might have been "tornadoes" causing havoc in the USA recently but this one was practising low level flying again today, only this time right over my head! This image isn't cropped!

There is nowhere as beautiful as the Atlantic North West of Scotland when the weather is good and April was the best in 100 years. Glorious sunshine and temperatures in the twenties (deg C).  We had a good trip to Mull and another to Gairloch. Stunning scenery. There are links on the home page if you want to see more.

Kittiwakes nesting on a cliff are jammed together and often minor fights break out. They have amazing white plumage, red mouths and yellow beaks. 

The pretty little seaside town of North Berwick houses the Seabird Centre, recognised for it's work to conserve local seabird populations. Just offshore are a number of islands which provide nest sites for thousands of seabirds such as gannets (one of the finest gannet colonies in the world) puffins and others. Note the palm trees, even though Scotland is as far north as Canada the influence of the sea keeps the minimum temperature at a reasonable level.

Don't say you don't get variety here! This is a volunteer blacksmith in a restored Swiss blacksmith's forge making nails! 

I was astonished this morning to see a partridge sitting on my garden fence. All the more so since it was clearly one I had not seen before, so I grabbed a couple of frames and then realised it was a red-legged partridge. It's amazing what turns up here. This species was re-introduced to the UK some time ago and seems to be doing better than the grey partridge. It's also a very nice looking bird, more commonly found in southern Europe.

Gannet followed by Kittiwake. Lots and lots of seabirds on the cliffs now, the Shags have eggs, all others except Puffins (at this location) are busy sitting on their eggs. Lots of Guiilemots on the limey cliffs ledges too. Gannets are very busy hunting for food.

Near Schaffhausen in Switzerland the river Rhine passes through a narrow gap and created the Rhine Falls, a massive amount of water floods through the gap and the sight is spectacular. If you have the normal stereotype of the Rhine then it's a pleasant surprise to see.