Cairngorms Life

16th.

Been trying something different in my photography, taken loads of shots of the bubbles from the water pump on my pond, on looking through them thought how close this one was like the map of Scotland.

Loads of Primroses coming out and looking at this one, plenty of flowers to come.

If you do not look eye to eye to this particular Red Squirrel it allows you to get fairly close, on this occasion I got about six feet away It knew I was there and looked up all the time to say ” who is this strange thing with a clicking device “? Just love the tufts so hairy.

22nd.

It was a damp, misty morning so no work outside so we decided to go for a run in the car as there was a couple of bridges in the area that are of interest and I wanted to show you. Both outside the National park, hence the blog title “Bridge to Far”.

Just North of Pitlochry the main trunk road to the Highlands is the A9 crosses over Loch Faskally and was a engineering feat at the time as you will see from the next shot, made of concrete.

Self explanatory.

Beside the road bridge is this footbridge to allow people to cross the Loch. Looks fairly normal except it is not and I have only just found out why, even though I have crossed it loads of times. Built in between nineteen forty eight and fifty by the North Scottish Hydro Board it is the only surviving aluminium bridge of this scale and span in the whole of Europe, So when I read this I thought it might be of interest to others.

This is a view under the construction.

Went on after this to the next bridge, this one starts in the village of Logierait and is also fairly unique as the first shot tells you.

Being an old railway track the community have kept the bridge open to save a long detour to get across the river and you will see that the center of the track is laid railway sleepers which you can see in the last (out of focus) shot and also the first one of the bridge. The rumble as you pass over it is a bit alarming as you wonder just how strong the sleepers are, it does have a warning sign stating you cross it at your own risk. But we made it safely in our little car.

23rd.

What a unpleasant surprise to wake up to this morning, we had our first visit of the year by a mole. Right underneath some bird feeders but onto the lawn, a lawn that I repaired last year due to the same thing happening and thought I had prevented the return of the pests ever again. But no, just as the grass starts to grow eruptions of soil appear. I presume the activity of the birds on the ground encourage worms to congregate near the surface and it is easy food for the ****** moles, as I have heard that vibration attracts the worms and the cycle starts again.

Wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t put some flowers on it. Looks like we have at last arrived into Spring, some of my photography friends down in the south of England have said that all their Spring flowers have gone and it is Summer for them. Life is better if you have to wait for things, I say.

30th.

The second from last shot above is the same blue flower that has taken over our Spring flowering this year and in this shot you can see what I mean, just makes the garden look so good and this is not the only bed it is in. So along with the Primroses, on the weekend of the clocks changing, Spring has sprung.

31st

We actually have some decent sunshine today as illustrated by these Tulips being fully open.

Just thought I would add a very old joke here which I think only the British oldies whom remember Max Bygraves songs will get.

A man found that his child’s two Hamsters had died over night and he asked a friend what he could do with them, his friend said “I hear they can make some really good jam once skinned”. So that it what he decided to do with them, skinned them and added lots of sugar, boiled it up until it set , put it in jars and when cold tried it. It was revolting and threw it on the compost heap. Come Spring in the exact place the jam had been placed on the compost heap, up came a dozen Daffodils. So he phoned his mate and told him what had happened and his mate replied “That is unusual you normally get Tulips from Ampster jam”.

SORRY.

So far in this blog the weather has been great, the five days since I published the last one, the temperature overnight has not gone below zero Centigrade and the days have been sunny. which means that above average temperatures for this time of the year, lovely. Then you look at the forecast and when everyone was thinking that is the cold period finished they tell us the temperatures are going to plummet again, you can guarantee come next Saturday, the start of the Brown Trout season it will be cold and the wind blowing a hoolie when I take the steep trek up to Sarah’s Pond to wet my line. Come what may I will ninety nine percent go up, but if I need ski’s then that might be a bit different. Either way the trusty camera will be out if not my fishing rod.

7th.

Just a few shots of the different Crocus that are enjoying the sunshine as much as me.

The first tulips in bloom and also the first Daffodil, both are the miniature versions, still a welcome sight,just got to wait for their big brothers to come out. Also just loved the catkin.

9th.

The warmest and sunniest day of the year so far and the female Honey Bees were out collecting pollen from the Heathers and the Crocus, as you can see this one ‘s hund legs are near maximum full.

10th.

Took this shot as these three very noisy jets flew over us at a height of at least 30,000 feet. Rushed to the computer to look what exactly they were on “FlightRadar 24” no sign of them, so went to the military site I follow and they were not on their radar either? So I am unsure what they were but have never seen this formation of jets high over us before, very secretive.

12th.

Went down to Loch Dunmore today as I had heard we had a visitor eating our small fish and sure enough above is the very thing a Cormorant tried frightening it away but it just flew off its perch onto the water and starred at me, so frustrating.

Then I got up close to the beaver dam, some eight feet tall now and looking at the top branch it is still collecting as the stem is still very white. It is not blocking any watercourse as it is just in a small inlet under the highest footpath around the Loch.

Love the view through Silver Birch trees, though these are only saplings it is still attractive when the sun shines on them.

Had to stop and photograph this small view under the A9 road, showing the shade of the tunnel and the brightness of the sun.

Although I have been pleased to show you our Crocus throughout the garden, this one is a bit of a nuisance and is has decided to come up in the middle of our driveway. So every time I reverse in I have to try and avoid it, because I can guarantee I would be in trouble if I flattened it.

14th

Just when you start talking about Spring, along comes another cold snap and overnight snow on the hills.

15th.

As I stated in my opening remarks today is the start of the Brown Trout fishing season here in Scotland and I always like to wet my fly line as soon as possible into the season. So by ten am it was bright and sunny and no wind so off I went.

had seen it had been cold overnight ( minus three C) but as the sun had been on Sarah’s pond since dawn I thought the water would be clear, but unfortunately the marking you can see on the water is in fact ice and half the water was covered in it.

As you can see it was all nearest the bank I was casting from so two thirds of the line just sat on the ice, I did see a couple of fish rising so spent two hours casting over the ice in hope.

The ice free water was in sunshine , but no fish were interested in my flies, so no supper for me tonight.

A view you have seen many times before from Sarah’s down to our house, even though it looks close it is a mile car ride and a twenty minute steep walk up to the pond.

The view down was glorious and helped take away the numbness from my right hand from pulling fishing line through the iced water. But still a worthwhile couple of hours out in the fresh air at the most glorious, peaceful place you could wish to fish.

The first day of Spring is here and though the overnight temperatures have been below zero for well over a week the days have been sunshine and not a drop of rain to ruin it.So now was the time to replace the rotted roof off the potting shed, an epic job to remove the layers of felt then the old wood before putting a new one on and re felting it. Hard work for an old man like me, plenty of hot bath’s and evenings of relaxing.

27th.

The overnight frosts caused all the snowdrops to collapse, but as soon as the sun came up, these wonderful strong bulbs just came bolt upright again.

The Crocus enjoy the sunshine as well and when the full sun is upon them they burst opeen with such beauty.

Today was a busy day for us, as coming up from England was a week long display practice for the R.A.F Display Team, the Red Arrows at R.A.F. Lossiemouth. They published their route North which included coming within a mile of our house and not much higher than us also. They came in two waves these shots being of the first five and the other four behind them, unfortunately I was so busy watching the first group I missed the second group (at least with the camera. They followed the route of the A9 road the major route North but I was hoping they would have come through our Glen as that is normally the route for most military aircraft heading North.

The three highland ponies in the field in front of our house enjoyed the sunshine also.

1st March.

Once again part of our boundary wall had collapsed and we had the wonderful craftsmen from Dry Stone Walling , Perthshire in to repair it and after a day of hard graft Nathan produced this great piece of craftmanship and a wall that will out live us two by many a year.

Inside the wall he found some wall treasure this squashed up aluminium kettle, an old milk bottle and this lovely shaped door hinge. So I had to try and find something for ta future generation to find and placed a solid iron dumb weight which was used to operate sash windows and buried that in the middle of the wall. Nathan didn’t even know what it was for so future explorers of the wall will never guess what it was used for.

The main task I had while the day time weather was dry was to replace the potting shed roof above the stone wall, as over the years (even before we moved in twenty years ago) the roof had leaked and the wood was slowly rotting away, so off came the old plank style roof (now chopped up for kindling) and on when a brand new composite board roof and new felt. At my ripe old age I felt every part of the three days it took me to complete and it required,as I thought, a good hours soak in the bath each night to recover. Not a true professional job but done to my standard which will out live us two (I hope).

Well as we move forward into March I am already see the trees starting to bud up, the birds that have flown here for the winter disappearing and the local birds singing out for a mate, hopefully we will have the days getting warmer and enjoy what I consider to be the best season of the year Spring. All meaning more chances to capture some decent photography.

It has been since the second of January since I wrote my last blog and I have certainly had withdrawal symptoms. But at last I am up and running again.Though my camera was loaded with 162 photos, don’t worry I am only putting a few on this blog. A lot has happened what with the weather and trips out but I shall not bother with dates just a brief note to inform you of what has been going on.

As you can see our hills have had a fair bit of snow over this period, fortunately not a great deal down to our level, just enough to get out and scrape the drive occasionally (part of my fitness regime).

Then along came “Storm Eowyn (named by the Irish Met Office) , which unfortunately left us with no electricity for two nights when this pole fell down two hundred yards away from our house further down the road. As you can see on the road beside the electricity van the weather was cold and icy and with all the damage the storm caused throughout Scotland it was wonderful that this got repaired as quickly as it did. The power actually came back around three in the morning and the workers had been restoring with a new pole and cables throughout the night in way below freezing conditions, blooming marvelous achievement by the whole crew.

As our house is heated by a combination of night storage heaters and our log burner we spent as much time as we could in the living room huddled around the log burner.

When I eventually came out of hibernation I went up the hill and was amazed to see that a complete conifer wood had been felled beside the road, it was a muddy mess but most of the timber has since been taken away and the tidy up has begun.

No blog of mine would be complete without some garden visitors included . The female Blackbird was really fluffed up and looking miserable waiting for me to feed her . The second shot is a Red Legged Partridge (wonder how it got that name?), not a great shot as it was taken through glass, but it is a rare visitor to the garden so had to include it.

Heard the roar of this plane coming over the house, rushed for the camera, opened the bedroom window and managed to just get a shot of it disappearing into the sunset.

Staying on the theme of transport I saw online that this special excursion train was coming through the village travelling from Carlisle to Inverness. Went down to the station on a very cold day (see snow on yonder hill) and waited in anticipation, due to a derailment of another train it was an hour late, so I was frozen. I had taken a position on the opposite platform so I could get a side shot of it. Typical, as this (between the stations) is a single line track a passenger train going South had to wait in the station for the special to pass, leaving me without a shot. So a mad dash up onto the footbridge enabled me to get some sort of shot, especially having waited so long. so here is a sequence of it’s passing with the third shot showing both engines. Both locos are over fifty years old.

Had a couple of days visiting Edinburgh and stayed at our usual Premier Inn at Leith over looking Newhaven Harbour, cold but sunny and with plenty of food and visiting our great friends, who have just moved here, it was a wonderful trip. The last shot was in our friends house where the sun shone through the window onto this fern casting a great shadow, that I couldn’t not photograph.

To finish our first signs of Spring with loads of Snowdrops out and the Daffodils peeping through the ground.

I have really enjoyed this catch up and from now on I should get back to some sort of normality.

This particular blog is always my hardest to achieve as most things I photograph are of the family opening presents and around the dinner table on Christmas Day and as we are away on the west coast of Scotland with one of our sons for the festive fun, I will not have much time for going out with the camera. So I apologise that this will not be a very informative blog but maybe I will get some shots from somewhere to show you.

24th.

Decided to have some fun with my flash and fitted a very cheap diffuser onto it to highlight the tree and presents under it at my son and partners house, though not brilliant it made a change and focused the view on the subject.

26th.

After having filled our bodies over Christmas with more food than we would normally eat in a week, on Boxing Day we decided we had to get out for a walk. It was a dull cloudy day but unbelievably mild and was just what we wanted and did a great walk of about a mile through a local wood and I became fascinated by the patterns of the Ivy on the trees, some of which had been cut so to destroy it from taking over the tree.

The Moss growing on the stumps was also a fascinating subject.

We ended up at the Loch we have visited many times before though this was the first in Wintertime.

27th.

The village my son lives in is a very active community minded village with a community owned shop, lots of different clubs and events going on throughout the year. One of these is getting various families to take on one number with regard to Advent and decorate a window to include Christmas scenes and that number so that children can go round the village and find each Advent number. Below are a couple of examples, what a great way to bring the community together.

Unfortunately , though I have more shots in my camera to complete 2024, I had my P.C.hacked just after Christmas. So I am restricted to using my clean IPad to contact you all. It has been a pain changing all my passwords for me, but my son in America had the pain of being on the wife’s FaceTime for two hours sorting things out. Still to disinfect (his words not mine) my P.C. before I can use it, so please be patient and as soon as I can I will be up and running.

I will still wish you all a very Happy New Year, it can only get better.

P.S. I saw on FB that if you stand on your left leg until the bells finish on New Years Eve, then put your other leg down, you will start 2025 on the right foot (get it), so I did.

I have just got round to start writing this just a few days before publishing and the weather is even more wintery than last month so me being me I just wanted to show you what I call a proper Scottish winter and instead of the yoyo weather we have had it has stayed “proper” for a week now.

6th.

Looks like a real Christmas tree in the garden, must brave it one year and put lights up it.

Four inches of snow on the back of the bench.

Looking down our drive.

Our house

The obligatory Christmas Robin.

Our local electricians could not go any further with their van last night so had to walk the mile down to the village.

At last the snow plough has been up.

Our small river, The Fender.

So the snow started last night and when we awoke, we were confronted with these lovely scenes. Next day it all went, on a warm sunny day.

10th.

Straight away after a warm day the skies cleared and the cold weather crept in, and we have not gone above freezing since. Culminating in today , overnight we went down to minus twelve centigrade, the lowest we have recorded so far this winter. by eleven o’clock it had risen to a barmy minus eight. So I got in my car and went off in the hunt for some iced up trees and the shots below show I found them. This is just a fraction of the forty odd shots I took and I hope you like them as I enjoyed taking them.

The sun was out, the trees were stunning and the background mountain has snow on it, what more could you want?

The snow plough had been up and salted the single track road so I was able to climb to this special area.

The sun through the iced trees.

Some hardy young cows that stay out all winter.

12th.

Saw the Roe Deer laying down in the field in front of the house some two hundred yards away and due to the undulations in the field was able to get about fifty yards away from her. Of course she saw or heard me and though lying away from me turned her head for me to grab this shot.

Still in the field I looked over towards Schiehallion and got this shot, still minus eight at this time of the day so really cold.

15th.

Just to finish off this blog, FIVE days ago I was showing you shots of after a night of minus twelve, today it is PLUS twelve a change of twenty four degrees in five days , is this balmy times we are all experiencing, yes yes yes.

Back to YoYo.

Well it is nearly pantomime season and my last blog boasted about how mild it is , well now it isn’t. I am catching up on this blog on the eighteenth and having just had a weekend away to Ayrshire (on the West of Scotland) in fairly mild conditions we came back to home at noon to find the overnight temperature here went down to minus seven C and even at noon it is still minus four, so a fair change.

15th.

On the way to our sons we stopped off by the Firth of Clyde at Prestwick, a rainy day and if you look carefully on the brick pier you can see a brave soul actually fishing.

Even though it was raining I went for a walk just as this plane took off from Prestwick Airport and soon disappeared into the mist and low cloud. At the moment Prestwick is being used by American and Canadian air force transporter planes on their way to supply Ukraine.

16th.

My son is head Ranger at Culzean Castle (pronounced with a silent z) so we went for a walk around the extensive grounds and you start off in what was the farm courtyard with three impressive entrances. One to enter from the main drive, second looking towards the castle and the other looking at the Firth, so I have just put the two interesting views above.

The view through another arch is of the castle, the triangular roof structure in the background, is the apartment were General Eisenhower stayed during the war.

A rather beautiful looking glasshouse that is now used as a wedding venue and function area.

As I have stated all through this month that it has been really mild and the three flowers above should no way be out at this time of the year, but they were and I just thought how good this leaf looked.

I can never visit Culzean without photographing this woven statue in the water on the Swan Loch, just love it.

19th.

Back home and the temperature has really plummeted, overnight it went down to minus ten C, not the coldest we have experienced, but still pretty cold. I have a shed outdoors that is purely used for a bit of a gym when I can be bothered to use it. Below are some shots of the gorgeous patterns provided by the cold weather.

The last shot was taken of the whole window from the outside. The others were all taken from within the shed, with the sun shining on it, the green hues on the frost is from external evergreens, soon to covered in lights for Christmas.

21st.

Previously I have put on loads of snow post’s so even though we had a good showing of snow over the last few years, so have decided to not cover what Storm Bert gave us over the last few days. But nothing will stop me from grabbing a few shots of birds in the snow. The Collar Dove in the first shot always seem to be to delicate a bird to be walking in the snow. The Blackbird eating the berries is one of the migrant birds come from Europe identified by the all black bill, most of our native birds are orange , yellow or brown. So it is only winter that we see these black beaks.

20th.

Spent a couple of days in Edinburgh, spending to much money, but enjoying the shops, not enjoying the overcrowded over priced market, loving the food and a walk along the estuary at Leith where we stayed overnight. These were a few of the early morning shots from our walk to work of a bit of my huge breakfast.

Across the Firth looking at the rail and rail bridges at Queensferry.

Looking across to the Kingdom of Fife in the distance.

Newhaven harbour in early light.

The lighthouse at the entrance to the harbour.

It is unbelievable that this mild spell can continue, we have not had rain for well over a week and the temperature has stayed above freezing overnight for ages. Looking back on previous years of writing this blog I have been out clearing snow on many occasions during this period. Having said that I will have most probably jinx’s it by saying this and the weather will change for the worse.

9th.

Went down to Loch Dunmore today just to see what other trees the Beaver has cut down and it has been very busy, with at least twenty trees down, all Willow.

Although no sign of the migratory birds I said about in the last blog, at least the Goldfinches are enjoying them. (I must add that all bird shots on this particular blog are shut through double glazing so may appear a bit soft)

10th.

Being the closest Sunday to the first World War (which ended on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at eleven o’clock ), here in Britain we remember all those that died in conflicts and it is known as Remembrance Sunday. Our village is very special in as much as Blair Castle is the only place in the country to (by royal ascent) be allowed to have a private army, granted by Queen Victoria. So on this special day they are the main focus for the remembrance service. below are some shots I took on that day.

The army mustering outside the castle gates.

Part of the army is the band, here we have the Drum Major and the Head Piper discussing the parade outside the village hall.

The pipe band leading the soldiers towards the War Memorial.

The soldiers in their tartan uniform.

The Granite stone is our War Memorial. The lady by the band gives a lament on the bagpipes later on.

We have a small church service followed by a two minute silence for all to reflect and remember, followed by the laying of the Poppy wreaths. Poppies are a sign of hope for the future as the following year after fighting stopped, the Flanders (France) fields were many soldiers died on both sides, was full of Poppies.

The wreaths are from various organisations, some military others from the council and even local youth organisations. The small crosses are personal family remembrance’s.

12th.

Well the weather has turned a bit colder and in came the European birds migrated over here for the winter. We had a huge number of them flock in, including Starlings, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, a few Fieldfare but mainly Redwings, literally hundreds of them. I said in my last blog that the Rowan berries would be a huge attraction and they sure were, they just eat them hole as the first and last shot shows and in the last shot you can see why they are called “Redwings”.

14th.

Just to prove that we had a real attack on the berries, I have included the shot from the last blog of the tree full of berries and have followed it up with todays shot of that same tree, totally bare of any berries. I can assure you there are none on the ground either as the smaller finches picked up what was dropped.

I see no berries?

P.S.I did jinx the weather, the last two nights have gone below zero C.

We were forecast snow on the hills and we thought just an icing sugar dusting would greet us on the tops of the hills, well it was on the hill tops but a bit more and a bit lower than we thought.

12th.

This was before nightfall .

13th.

Sunrise the next day giving it that pink hue.

One of my southern pals suggested I get some ski’s and climb the Munros for the first run of the winter. One I do not have ski’s and secondly at my age I do not climb Munros.

When you get a wood full of Silver Birch they look wonderful in Autumn.

As do the grasses.

Good job these sheep have regrown their Winter coats.

16th.

No photos but just to say what I meant by the title of this blog, three days after taking this the above shots and I woke up to a temperature outside of eleven degrees C compared with morning temperatures in the minus degrees in the above ones.

17th.

On drawing the curtains back this morning we had a about twenty feet visibility, then the sun rose and slowly burnt the fog off. as it crept up the hill opposite us it gave this magical view of the Autumnal colours, so of course, out came the camera.

Clear skies for once when a Super Moon is visible. This one is a Hunters Moon.

18th.

So mild again today had a walk around the loch where Enchanted Forest is, but in daylight to catch the true Autumn colours.

With roughly three thousand people visitiing the loch every evening until ten thirty at night with all the lights and sound, the night time security have been watching the Beavers at work in the time that Enchanted Forest is closed. As you can see by this freshly gnawed down tree they are still very active.

The frogs from my previous blog where they were illuminated, this is them in reality during the day.

27th.

Picked up a freshly road killed Pheasant yesterday and after I had removed it’s breast for my dinner last night ( marinated in pomegranate juice and port ) , I strategically placed the carcass in the field so that I could photograph what came to feed on it. Here are the results, taken through the dining room double glazing so not great, sharp shots.

A Common Buzzard taking the main share, while a very brave Magpie tries it’s luck to grab a morsel.

As soon as the Buzzard had had it’s fill a second (not so brave Magpie) joined it’s mate to eat up the scraps. Look how clean the Buzzard has eaten the legs.

30th.

Sad day today that is the end of my Trout fishing season and the last time I will game fish until next March, most clubs allow fishing for Rainbows right through the year as they are triploids and cannot breed, but our club closes the season tomorrow so time to clean my gear and put it away for a while. Been a good season though with plenty of Trout in the freezer ready to smoke for Christmas presents.

The wife saw these by the roadside so I stopped and photographed them, not sure what they are. wouldn’t it be a great idea to set up a camera and see what is eating them, may try it one day, I expect it will be something boring like a slug.

Most of the leaves have gone off the Rowans now, so what a beacon of brightness these look to attract the Redwings and Fieldfare when they come over from continental Europe.

The best season in a year to me is Autumn and my wife says that this will be the same old photos, but I am sorry I just love this time of the year. One thing in my favour is (I hope) every year I have a better idea of how to take a better shot and old followers hopefully will see that improvement. So here we go with the same old Autumn beauty that is this wonderful part of the world.

9th.

All the above taken from within the garden.

10th.

Both taken from The Garry River bridge, the second shows just a bit more of the beautiful woodland, I hate the zip wire ruining the shot, but it is there so it stays in the shots.

The view looking south on the bridge.

Above the bridge looking down on the A9 road.

I love this single track road especially in the winter, with a heavy frost on the bare trees is beautiful.

You have all seen this Munro from up the road from our house, this is just a couple of miles south of that view.

That road leads back down to the River Garry and I was hoping to photograph Salmon leaping up these falls. Unfortunately I saw none but at Soldier Leap half a mile south of this spot a friend watched seven trying to get over those falls. But the rock formation on this part of the river is fascinating to look at.