My sky is never empty. At dawn there may be just a lone crow beating a steady path north, or at dusk, the curiously undulating, huge wings of a heron heading to roost in a willow above the ditch. Duck

Mandy Forwood has transformed her home into a sanctuary for her spiky little friends

From you to us

WE nearly owned a cat once. He caused something of a neighbourhood dispute, too. My other half advised keeping our heads down because of it, but I really couldn’t do that when pegging out the washing.

HELEN PERCY is a shepherdess in the Perthshire farming community. She finds herself in this peaceful line of work after a tough past as a Church of Scotland minister, but this drastic change of scener

NEST RECORDS