SO, WE’RE nearly at the end of 2020 and I think we can all agree it’s been a strange one.

Although there were a few positive signs late on with prospective vaccines, it really was a pretty lousy 12 months.

However, in amongst all the misery, I, and many others, have found that even fleeting moments of contact with nature can put a smile back on your face.

With that in mind, I’d like to bid a fond(ish) farewell to the year by looking back at some wildlife highlights, as reported by assorted East Lothian rangers.

These inspirational moments don’t have to involve rare or difficult to find species. Personally, the arrival of swifts cheers me up every year without fail. This year, my first sighting was over the River Esk in Musselburgh in mid-May. I was watching a group of swallows and martins feeding over the water when I noticed the familiar sickle-shaped wings of three swifts in amongst them.

Similarly, some of my colleagues said that their favourite moments included spotting the first conkers and an encounter with a young hedgehog in an urban garden. One positive side effect of lockdown was the chance to see and hear common species such as skylark in relatively undisturbed conditions.

Sometimes it can be something more exotic that inspires us. There were several reports in early July of an unusual large fish seen in the Forth from Musselburgh and Portobello. This turned out to be a swordfish, only the third or fourth spotted in Scottish waters.

Another surprise visitor was a juvenile sea eagle which was seen along the coast near Yellowcraig. Apparently, this was a bird which was released into the wild on the Isle of Wight, but decided to fly north and spend a couple of months in the Lammermuirs, which must have given the local wildlife something to think about. It also left a trail of excited birdwatchers on its long journey south again.

Colleagues in the east of the county were lucky enough to have several sightings of dolphins – including around 50 seen from Whitberry Point near Tyninghame. They were leaping and twisting out of a sea that was as still as a millpond. I’m actually rather jealous that I didn’t see this myself.

For some, the highlight was encountering species that were once rare becoming more common. Holly blue butterflies have been found in East Lothian in tiny numbers for a few years now. This year, they were seen in coastal areas from Longniddry to North Berwick and inland as far as Haddington and East Linton.

OK, let’s finish off with some wildlife that we can all see, and hear, this month. Pink-footed geese are probably familiar to most of us. Breeding in the Arctic, they head for our shores in late summer/autumn and thousands may spend the winter in the county. You can hear their yapping calls as they fly overhead from virtually anywhere in East Lothian – whether you’re in a nature reserve or on a busy high street.

So, I guess the moral is that however bad things can seem, there’s always the opportunity to find something good in the natural world. In our everyday lives we often lose touch with nature, but it’s always out there and, if we treat it with respect, it can repay us with uplifting moments of joy and beauty.