Author: David Miller

Up real early on a crisp clear morning, scraped the ice off the car & headed up the glen to catch the sunrise. This was the first shot just after 6am.

The moon was going down behind the hills, but just managed to catch it.

Getting brighter & the birds were starting to call, especially the Curlews and could hear the Grouse on the Lek, must try & find it because it is a different one to where I normally go.

The Lek is down in the hollow between the tree in the front of the shot & the farm that is half a mile away behind the tree.

At last the sun is making an appearance just below the cloud.

Sunrise and well worth the rather cold wait, Happy Easter to you all.

An added bonus on the drive home managed to grab these shots out of the car window, initially I only saw one Red Deer stag but then realised there was a herd of them behind him, only about 100 yards from my car. Wonderful, wonderful morning.

I have been trying for ages to take this shot, but a fair few things are against you in your attempt. Firstly I have to use my big telephoto lens which weighs in at just over 4lb & when fully extended (as it was for this shot) is just over 16″ long, is a fair old lump to swing about above your head. My Canon camera has a great & fairly fast auto focus, but the Buzzard doesn’t hover like a kestrel it goes around in circles trying to catch a thermal to go higher. So I have to follow the bird the best I can, wait until the sun catches it’s underneath and (unlike many ) I just take a single shot instead of a burst of shots. On this occasion I was able to get 2 decent shots off before it disappeared over our tree line, surprisingly both of them came out as fairly sharp images, something I had never achieved before. So you can imagine I rate getting this one to show you high up in my favourite shots.

I knew there would be days on my quest to get a shot a day that would be difficult, today I had a migraine, a very rare event for me. But those who have suffered will know that fairly often as part of this you will get an aura of darkness around the eyes, which makes seeing very difficult & looking through a viewfinder on a camera even harder. So I was struggling, but I did notice 2 Thrushes doing what the Crows had been doing, turning over the horse manure to find worms. As I was indoors I grabbed the camera went into the bedroom, stood on the bed (only high latched window in there) opened the window & got a few shots off. Though a good 50 yards away I cropped the shot & tonight can see that it wasn’t to bad. So quest completed & I didn’t have to photograph my bedroom as todays shot after all.

One of our local lairds is a pilot & has a few aircraft of his own, was out up the hill today when he went for a spin in his old bi-plane, this is him heading towards the top of the Munro ,Schiehallion. Must be wonderful freedom up in such a magnificent flying machine, though the open cockpit must have been a bit chilly today, but for once a lovely sunny day.

Okay I apologise, three out of the first four shots on this blog are of birds, but you have to grab the shot when the opportunity arises. I think I can count the number of times on one hand I have seen Oystercatchers in the field in front of the house let alone photograph them. So when I saw a couple in front of me this morning I just had to get the camera out. It is only when you examine the shot close up that you realise, one, the colour of it’s eyes & two, the length of its beak & I witnessed it probing at least half of that beak into the ground that I could see how useful it is to the bird. Not sure if it helps opening oysters though? I like these birds now, but when a flock of them fly over the house at 4.30am on a summer morning, squawking their heads off, I am not such a fan.

About 100 yards down the road from the house is this lovely memorial bench and as it is more or less South facing the surround always has the first miniature Daffodils out. The bench is dedicated to a couple who used to live within our little hamlet and loved this spot. It has a plaque dedicated to them by their family saying “Always lovingly remembered, Agnes & Willie McNicoil”. When we first came to the glen our neighbour Kyle used to maintain the older bench & when he was unable I did it for a season, until it started falling apart. The family were shown it on one of their visits up the glen & they replaced it with this sturdy one.

So today I have taken the view from the bench (honestly I did walk all of that 100 yards to take it on a different day) I wish I had a panoramic lens as goes further to the right with distant views of the hills. The beauty of the spot the bench is on is that it is well protected from the strong Northerly wind, plus the South facing sun on your face. Add to that it is halfway up the hill from the village and a wonderful place to have a breather on the walk up the glen. The big house on the left horizon is Tom of Lude, which has 3 converted stables next to it, that are holiday lets. The light patch near the top of the hill on the right is where the stone quarry is, a very busy place at the moment as it is supplying most of the aggregate for the dual carriageway being built on the A9 coming out of Perth. Will not be long before the field in front of the shot, will be full of lambs. Another chance of some photographs.

I know the 4th bird picture in 7 shots on this blog, but who could resist this wonderful bird posing so graciously on my garage roof. Well of course I couldn’t for those who are not “birders” it is a Pied Wagtail. It is one of a pair we saw this morning, 2 years ago a pair nested in one of my wood piles about 6 feet above the ground under a wooden roof, had babes and then something predated it, took the babes & destroyed the nest, so disappointing. So we have high hopes that if they are a pair we may have more success this year. That would cause me a dilemma, if I took a shot of the babes & put it on here, would that be classed as a repeat photo of the same bird? Not sure how far I can push the rules, maybe I would just have to put it on as an additional shot, like I did the Iris.

Oooops 8 in 10, couldn’t work out why the birds were not on the feeders, then looked just beyond them & there he sat as cool as you like, not taking his eyes of of the feeders. Had time to get the camera, go out the back door, get a little closer & reel off a couple of shots & still it just sat there. So down with the camera, pick up a handful of gravel & throw it at it, then it moved. like most birds it has also worked out an easy source of food is in our garden, I realise it is only natural but it does upset us both when we see a pile of feathers in the garden. I will try my hardest in the next 10 days not to include anymore birds in my photos, though there was also a Magpie in the garden that I haven’t got a shot of yet. Sorry.

For the first time on the blog I am giving you a Marmite moment with one of my photographs. It will be a case of you like the shot above or you think it is horrid, it is in fact a shot of our hills taken through the window while we had a brief shower. I use Rainx on my car windows which just takes the rain off the windows without having to use the wipers & thought I would try it on the house windows, it does clear them quicker but the rain goes into droplets first as seen here. So I have tried to convey the dullness of the day using those droplets. By the way I hate Marmite & only use it as a flavouring on bread to catch fish when by the water fishing.

Back to more normal photography, just to show things are moving in a Spring like direction, I hope over the next few days to show you some of the plants that are out in the garden. Though I will have to keep my fingers crossed for at our height, snow is forecast tomorrow.

Okay so we will start with this bunch of Grape Hyacinths that have come through the ground, such strong bold plants, the wife is not that fond of them as they do tend to spread, but a good dash of colour in the garden. You will note that the leaves have all been cut, not by us I hasten to add, we think it was either that deer we had in the garden or a Hare that may have sneaked in when we have left the gate open.

This is not the best of shots, so I apologies, but it was taken in a howling gale and heavy snow ( I will add a bonus picture at the end to show you ). But I feel it does show the contrasting colours of one plant that you get with Pulmonaria, which are fairly common up here in roadside banks as well as gardens. This plant is a member of the Borage family and is also known as Common Lungwort it is a plant that our few Bumblebees that are out & about are loving, The colour change is as the plant is maturing, not sure of the pink or the blue comes first.

As I said on the 26th I took that days photo in horrendous conditions, as a bonus this is what it was like 5 minutes after taking that picture. Admittingly within 10 minutes of this shot, the sun was out, but by this time the lawn was white.

Another little plant that really thrives in our garden are the bulbs above, which are Scilla’s. These bulbs have a range of shades of blue going from this paler version up to a deep Tottenham (the best team in the world) blue and have spread throughout the garden, though are at their best when in the shade. They add a real colourful, bright edge to the garden & definitely bring a touch of Spring to what (as shown yesterday) a very unpredictable weather wise, time. Clocks changing tomorrow& we are still waking up to snow on the mountain tops & just a tad cold first thing.

Went for a walk today & ended up with this splendid view of Blair Castle, normally the front of the small buildings would be spoilt by cars queueing up to pay for their visit to the castle. With no visitors still not allowed the village seems so very quiet & the castle must be looking forward to once again opening up, soon be here we hope. Get Easter done & we should be on the home straight.

I have put this shot up on a forum I am in & the main comment I get is “why didn’t you post process the power cables out of the shot?” Of course the shot would be better without them & I could purchase an app that would remove them, change the sky to a lovely blue one or even add a flag to the flag post. But I do not like altering anything on my shots, the cables are there, that is what I saw, that is what the camera saw, If I had the camera on different settings & it turned out to dark, maybe I would brighten it a bit, nothing major like taking things out because they spoil the image to much. I even went as far as to say it was cheating on the forum, never had so many comments after that one.

Just another sign that we are turning the corner towards Spring like weather with this Red Currant coming into bloom . I just liked the way this has just grown & appeared over the last week really, well unobservant me hadn’t seen in until today. The sun made a brief appearance when I was taking a shot of it & gave the emerging leaves a bit of brightness.

Gone slightly over the top for todays selection, see one get three free. We know these as Pom Pom Primulas and we have a good selection of them in the garden. Every year we get them come up, last year was not a good one, but as they have just started, this year seems like it might be fairly decent. The beauty of them is in their colour range, hence why I have put 4 shots up for today, these are the main colours they appear in, but sometimes they cross pollinate & we will get an in between colour. White appears to be the rarest in the garden but whatever colour they seem to perk you up when they come out.

I know, back to birds, but this is a first for me, yes we have had Red Legged Partridge in the garden before, but have never been able to photograph them before. I also know that this is not the best of shots, but it was taken through the double glazing & in pouring rain, so fairly happy. What lovely little birds only here to be stocked on the hills for shooting, but this pair seem to be clear of that hazard now as the nearest shoot that has them is some four miles away. So let us hope this is a pair & feel safe enough to set up home here & bring their babes to feed later in the year.

We knew they were about as we have come across them nearby & they have flown off, but who knows we might be able to get them used to us (like the Wren), thus enabling me to get some decent outdoor shots.

We have come to the end of the month & still I have managed my different shot every day, let us hope I can keep going in April. Shots should be easier to come by as things start to grow, birds (yes there may be more) start to nest & have babes COVID restrictions lift giving even more chances further afield. So stay safe & sensible & I will keep snapping .

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Last month I thought Spring was well on it’s way, how wrong was I. As you will see from the shots below we have had some very different weather for the first two weeks of this month. What has been consistent however has been a bitterly cold, strong wind , where down the hill in the village friends have told me hardly any wind, one of the few disadvantages of living high up the hills. We get the views & we get the peace but you have to put up with the rough & the smooth. One advantage of living up here in a small hamlet where most of us are, let’s say, getting on in years, is that all of us have had our first jab (or jag as they call it up here), just gives you that added bit of health security. Lets hope soon we will be able to get out & about a bit more & explore the lovely surrounds of the Cairngorms again & who knows maybe get a coffee out.

I hope you enjoy this first half of March photos & lets wait & see what the second half will bring us.

Let us start the month with a sunny Spring shot, one hundred yards down the road from us growing besides a small stream are these bright & cheerful Aconites basking in the ever warming sunshine, a real pick you up as you walk past them.

Another sure sign of Spring, every year about this time of the year the field in front of the house gets full of these Crows, they are a very clever bird & methodical in what they do. They land beside piles of horse manure & turn it over section by section, finding worms & creatures to eat, Presumably building up their reserves for sitting on the nest during breeding season. It is not until you enlarge a shot like this do you actually realise just how big their beaks are.

On this third day of march we realised that winter has not left us yet. We woke up to a temperature of minus 5C, with freezing fog. I could see that the Birch trees nearby were white with moisture that had frozen on the branches, So I was a bit quicker doing my ablutions, eating breakfast & feeding the birds, but as usual by the time I got in the car & headed a few miles up the road to a Birch wood, the frost had gone off & I just had to be contend with this misty shot, which I still liked.

It might be cold again but the families of House Sparrows that we have “cultivated” to live up here have started nest building, the first thing they do is clean out last years nest material. So of course we know when they are building as the paths around the house get covered in old grass, feathers, sheep’s wool etc. This is one of the males giving me the “how dare you take my photo ” looks.

Of course these are not growing in the garden , those ones are only just out of the ground. These are M&S specials, miniature Daffs growing in a pot that really cheer you up on the kitchen window.

Just to show you it is still cold, I must have left the tap slightly on when I filled the bird baths the night before & initially the watering can was joined by ice to the tap, unfortunately (as usual) by the time I was washed & dressed to go outside it had melted off the tap. Lesson learnt, always take the shot when you first see it, even if in your dressing gown & get as frozen as the tap.

The wife has just completed this jigsaw & no the pencil was not in the picture, we just placed it on the map to show exactly where our house is. The field on which the pencil is placed is where the horses are & where we saw the deer last month and also where the Crow from the earlier shot was feeding. Only one major fault with the jigsaw it does not show just how hilly the area is, the ground at the rubber end of the picture is a good 100 ft lower than us with a hill in between.

By now you will have known that I love photographing clouds, though this was an unusual one to wake up to. First glance it looks like an atomic blast mushroom over the hills towards Rannoch, not a great shot from me , but I had only just opened the curtains. Place it on a local photography forum with the heading “Hope Rannoch is okay” & gave a few people a laugh.

Walked up the hill from us hoping to see some new born lambs to put on here but they were way over the far side of the field so spotted a pair of Lapwings & captured this shot instead of the lambs, just love that crest on their heads.

Overnight we had some very gusty wind, like most of the country had & scattered around the garden were last years seed heads from the climbing Clematis. These seed heads stay attached normally until this years growth starts & as they are some 25 to 30 feet up a Silver Birch I cannot normally reach them, so took this opportunity to photograph them. On placing them on the Canon Forum I straight away got comments that the left hand one looks like Boris Johnsons hair, maybe this is what he styles himself on, after all seed head does suit him with a reported 9 children.

I do love my cows & this little beauty is no exception, though it looks a bit sad, it was happy with the rest of the herd in with it. I realise that in an earlier blog I featured cows a lot, but this herd seems a new batch so i thought you wouldn’t mind me including it (sorry never checked the sex, so have to say “it”). As I intend to take a different subject shot each day I wont include the rest of the herd in later months (promise). Though sorry that criteria does not include bird species as my hope, by the end of the year, is to include every species that I see in my garden.

Here we go again. All this talk of Spring that I have been talking about & what do we wake up to today, more white “stuff”. I do hope you appreciate the dedication I am putting into these shots, I realised that the day was forecast as being sunny, so as I drew back the curtains and saw this I thought it might melt quickly. Therefore out true grit I threw on a dressing gown & went out & took this shot, blooming cold I can assure you, but for you, I would do anything (well almost) to get my daily shot.

Bit better than yesterday, still a cold Northerly wind but able to get out & about in the garden before rushing in for a warm up & brew. Not only is this the best year so far for Snowdrops, we are surrounded with a wonderful show of Catkins. These are on just one years growth as I cut our Hazel back last year & though the shoots only stand 7-8feet tall they are covered in Catkins, where normally we would only see a few when we had coppiced the growth.

We had four horses in the field in front of us which stay in the field for the time that the sheep are not with us. Unfortunately early last week the very old white horse, that has been slower & slower walking the field, died, which was sad because being slow it was also very gentle, compared to the others. Now with the remaining three I felt sorry for them & bought some carrots just as a treat for them, so today I called them up to our edge of the field & (as I am not brave enough to feed them by hand) threw the three carrots into the field, but this one in the shot managed to find all three & ate them all before the others got a look in, then turned towards me with those eyes & said “well have you not got any more for me”, well that’s how I interoperated his whinny.

Now as you know I am not the gardener of the household & if you had asked ME what this close of a plant was I would not have a clue. Due to this hunt for a different shot each day I am discovering the beauty of such things as this plant. Some of you will have guessed it is in fact one of the many different varieties of Heather we have in the garden. In fact I was very lucky to locate it, for as I told you last month we had a visit to the garden by a Roe Deer & they are very partial to Heathers & it munched it’s way through a fair number of them in the garden & this was one of the few untouched.

If it was left to me our garden would be full of Heathers, trees, grass & maybe a few shrubs, because they are all very low maintenance plants & that would suit me fine. But as I am married to a green fingered genius, we have a lot more variety in the garden than that. Most probably going to be a saviour for this photo challenge taking shots of different ones throughout the year.

Now outside that challenge last blog I showed you a miniature Iris in bud & promised I would show you it in bloom, so in addition to my challenge, here it is.

After telling you on the 14th about the harsh weather we have been having, I finished on a more optimistic note with the last shot seeing the snow disappearing. Fortunately that weather continued & we had a week of the temperature staying above zero & all the snow disappearing, causing some very high river levels and very soggy ground underfoot. Of course it was not exactly tropical & overnight temperatures stayed around 1C, so therefore some heavily iced areas took some defrosting, but eventually they have disappeared over the month. This always leads to false hopes that winter is over and metrologically the 1st of March is the start of Spring, but we have been known to have heavy snow falls in May, so we realise we could easily go back to the very cold temperatures and more white stuff. But it is good to see green grass for a short while.

I think the above demonstrates my point, this is a small stream entering the River Fender that took at least four more days to disappear, but was beautiful to photograph, even if a bit precarious to get down to to take this shot.

I hope this portrays the speed of a spate river like the Fender, this was a trickle while the snow was on the ground & once the melt began all the hill snow quickly finds its way down the river, onto the Tilt, into the Garry & then ends up in the River Tay & out into the North Sea.

My little garden pond took over a week to thaw out completely & then the sadness began as I pulled out 3 of my biggest Goldfish that I had had since moving here frozen solid in the ice, followed the next day by a Golden Rudd I had had for 20 years that I had bought up from the West Country when we moved, that one really upset me as it was a specimen fish. Have not seen the other 4 Goldfish, so I expect they are dead somewhere in the weeds, though they normally migrate to the bottom of the pond where the water is a bit warmer, so they might one warm day appear.

The field in front of the house has spots where small amounts of water collect when a quick melt happens, but this one was exceptionally large this year, which most probably demonstrates the depth of snow we had accumulated.

I thought “I know, I will go up the hill & show you the snow melt from the Munro’s, only to find the mountains engulfed in cloud, so took the photo anyway just to show you it is not always blue sky above us.

Sorry but it was pouring with rain on the 20th so it was the wife’s Peace Lily that got photographed, one of four blooms she has on it & it is very majestic.

Considered this a real encouragement that Spring is around the corner, our first Crocus on its way out. I realise all you in the South are saying “ours are finished & we are on daffodils now”, but with our weather conditions we are way behind you. As I write this on the 28th, loads more are out & they really cheer you up, well until the Sparrows & Chaffinch find them & snap them of at the stem.

Walked up Glen Fender, still small amounts of snow on the Munro, but the little cottage sits in sunshine. The cottage is next to some ruins, which I have been told is the church that used to serve the Glen, though after writing this I made be told different by the locals.

I have always been told that Lichen in abundance (as it is on our Azaleas) is a sign of good clean air & I have no doubt that that is what we have in the garden, we are so privileged to live in such a beautiful place.

Again just to show how pleased we are to see Spring flowers actually emerging from our, for so long, snow covered garden. This Primrose may be tiny but a very welcome sign to us.

Not that good a rainbow, but had to take it so that when I go up the Glen opposite us I know where to look for the pot of gold.

Walked down to the Castle grounds to see the Snowdrop Walk & they are magnificent this year, but due to the fact that no visitors are allowed to visit the grounds this time of Covid, wildlife was in abundance. There was in fact 3 Roe Deer casually walking through the woodland, not greatly bothered by us, but it didn’t take them long to realise that we were a danger to them & off they ran.

Daily we get about 12 Blackbirds visiting the garden, mainly to the back door where they know there is a never ending supply of sultanas. This is one of the Males who tend to dominate the females when it comes to getting the majority of food, though already we are noticing that the females are not coming so frequently& we think they are nesting, so hopefully we may have a few more mouths to feed come summer.

Last day of the month, metrologically the first day of Spring tomorrow, so I thought it appropriate to end on a lovely Spring bulb (or is it a tuber?). This miniature Iris comes out only lasts a couple of weeks but has such a stunning purple colour, as I hope you can see in this shot. Taken on an overcast day that was forecast to be a sunny, bright one, the reason I had left it for today, in the end I had to use a diffused flash to bring out the colour, but it really is a lovely little plant of which we have six all close to each other. I may have to break my no repeat shots on this 365 day shoot to show you it when it is out.

One of my greatest followers of the blog (Donna), has come up with the idea of naming your favourite shot each month & the winners going into a colander for next year. Let me know what you think of that idea, if you like it tell me this & last months favourite.

I thought that when I undertook the task of photographing something different every day & the amount of material I have in this cracking part of the world I would have no difficulty. Into my second month & how wrong was I. The weather has been the main factor in the problem, it has been either way below zero or snowing for the first 13 days of this month, only today have things started to alter.

When you think around the tenth of the month Braemar, which is less than 30 miles away (as the crow flies) has had the coldest temperature in the whole of G.B., plus 6 to 8 inches of snow, we got of very lucky. Lowest temperature minus 11C for us & only 2 to 3 inches of snow and the excellent road clearing squad we have in our local depot, getting out of the house hasn’t been that hard. But when everything is covered with white stuff subjects are the problem. At least we were able to get out & get our first vaccinations which is a relief all round.

I hope the selection I have put up for the first 14n days of the month are okay, I am enjoying the challenge.

We thought the month was going to improve as this shot on the first shows the snow starting to melt. The reason I took this shot was it is not normal for the snow to melt from the bottom like this, it shows that the ground was warmer than the air.

Last month I showed you from the Garry Bridge looking South, this time on my visit into town I have taken Garry Bridge looking North.

Evidence of an early morning visitor to our garden & that it went straight to the wives heathers & ivy for a quick snack, not very happy about this & I was tasked with finding a solution. To enter the garden it had to & did jump a five bar gate.

Poor old sheep struggling to find anything to eat, but such hardy creatures as it was minus 3 when I took this shot.

My solution to the Roe Deer invasion, fluorescent elasticated string, sufficient to put the beast off as the next morning more prints came up to the gate & stopped, no attempt to get in. Brownie points for me.

One of several Reds in the garden at present, taking full advantage of the food offerings that our available courtesy of us. As you can see they are getting fairly used to me & this one just stood there as if to say “well are you going to feed me or not?”

This home grown bonsai has been part of me for over 20 years, a small sapling picked up out of the woods in Killin while on holiday up from England & it has survived every Winter up here since we moved, though this year it is looking a bit hard done by.

A Dunnock or Hedge Sparrow on the pond feeding on mealworms along with the Wren, 4 Robins & a Blackbird every morning now while it is so cold.

One of our many Greater Spotted Woodpeckers that feed in the garden, normally on the peanuts, but for once foraging naturally, they have even started drumming to attract a mate.

Just opened the back door first thing in the morning to feed the Blackbirds their sultanas & noticed the porch glass had this incredible pattern on it. Straight into the study, got camera & shot this , all whilst in minus5C & nothing but a dressing gown, bit chilly.

The wife drew back the curtains first thing & said “get you camera quick”. Being the obedient husband that I am I obeyed, only to be rewarded with these two in the field in front of our house. they were a bit scruffy & obviously very hungry to come down of the hills, but made my day. though SWMBO was none to happy as I had the bedroom window open for 15 minutes on a very cold morning.

With the month feeling very cold, plus lockdown, did not feel like going out to find a new subject for the daily shot. So photographed a Geranium house plant that has just provided us with a flower, a bit of sunshine at last.

Tried (without much joy) to experiment with my photography, placed a tray outside with water in & 3 different food colouring scattered around it, hoping to get a mosaic affect circle of coloured ice. I think a bird must have got into it before it froze , had a bath & all the colours merged to give this wee coloured ice. So I just broke it out of the tray & these fragments remained & this is my effort on making some art. Do not forget art is in the eye of the beholder.

At last on the St Valentines Day, we get some rain & the snow has started to melt, showing this weird unseen for ages green stuff in our field. The dark green (middle right) is in fact water running from the field above, if this is happening the rivers will soon be pretty full & the early Salmon will start their way up to the spawning streams, that means angling will soon begin & the rods may come out of hibernation. Then again the bad weather could return, you never know.

I said I hope to take a photograph of something different every day of the year, well for the first month (even under lockdown conditions) I have managed that. Hopefully a different subject each day of that month will be easy, though with just cold, snowy conditions does limit the scope. This last month has very much been limited to what is within the local area, though I have sneaked a couple in when I have needed to go into Pitlochry, a 7 mile car trip away. One thing I have learnt from this first month is to assemble 31 shots in the right date order to put on her, at lower resolutions than my normal shots, has been a nightmare, so from now on it will be half a month at a time.

Lets start then, all shots are in date order.

Hope you enjoyed my month of shots, lets hope I can keep going until New Years Eve.

Up here, this time of the year we do expect Winter weather & up until Christmas we had not had much of it. Since Boxing Day we have made up for it, the overnight temperature has (apart from just two nights) been below zero C, with our lowest so far recorded in my back yard at minus 12C. Now we are getting our fair share of snow to match, do not get me wrong I am not complaining, this is how a Scottish Winter should be. Not that I say that much when I have to clear our steep 50 yard driveway, but then I think calories are being burnt off, which will help the diet.

To be truthful I am glad we have plenty of snow, it does not prevent us getting out as the snowplough is up most mornings before 10am & up here it is a photographers dream. With the low sun making everything look like a fairy tale land, no visitors disturb the fauna & ground you can get some great shots. As I hope I can demostrate below.

A couple of frost patterns on the summer house windows, natures own artwork.

The driveway that I try to keep clear just in case (once an emergency service member always an emergency service member)

This magnificent Oak tree with a good sprinkling of snow.

The River Fender in the snow, no that bridge is no longer safe.

A slightly out of focus shot of the icicles that form above the river.

The hardy sheep trying to get some protection from the young trees above them on the hill.

We all wait until the snow plough has been & dash down the local shops before the next lot of snow arrives or the road freezes again. (That’s the start of my drive on the left.)

I just love how the early morning light makes the snow look pink. This is a small cairn nearly a mile across the glen from our house.

3 of the 4 ponies out in the field not particularly worried about a bit of weather, as long as the owner brings hay up in the mornings, they are fine.

Should have put something down for you to compare sizes, these are tiny Red Squirrel snow prints, on the front two feet you can even see the claws.

The night sky can be so clear in these conditions & sunsets spectacular.

These last few I took today in between a few flurries of snow fall, total pristine virgin snow up on the mountain, Just a little to much cloud for that perfect shot.

Just one of my favourite places to stop & admire the view that we are so lucky to have on our doorstep.

Slight slope to this Birch due to the prevailing wind coming from it’s left.

Looking down the hill towards our house snow falling in the distance making it a bit hazy on what was a sunny five minutes before the snow reached us.

Hope you enjoyed the beauty of a Scottish Winter.

Well this is it, the year we all hope the vaccines will bring an end to this terrible pandemic that is sweeping across the world. Not many people will be sorry to see the end of 2020, it has been so hard & scary for so many of us, with just the foolish few making it worse for everyone else. Not that it has affected us in such remote places as our village, the main thing is that being remote we can walk for miles & not see a single person, with just the occasional farmer driving past us. This of course means it has not really affected my photography, so a New Year resolution that I have made is that I am going to try & take at least on photo a day, with as small amount of repetition as possible. Although we have had it cold over the Christmas/ New Year period (going down to minus 9C on one night) & a moderate drop of snow, we have still been out walking.

The main area I have concentrated on is shots of a local cow herd, these beasts are normally further out on the hills & moors, but for the winter the farmer has put them on rough moorland pasture near to the road we often walk. A great advantage to me as I can just put my long lens on & photograph them as if close up.

Before the shots I would just like to wish all you lovely folk that follow me a very Happy, healthy & trouble free New Year.

Firstly from within my garden one of the four regular visiting Red Squirrels, eating the bird seed. Normally when it is as cold as it was on this day we don’t see them to often as they just stay in their drey’s, but after such a prolonged cold spell they have to come out & feed, so I am glad we have enough places for them to feed without squabbling. In the first shot it looks to me like it is talking to the stone bird.

I think you can see by the number of shots I took of these cows I thought they were just beautiful, each one was slightly different from the others & you couldn’t have styled their hair better if they had been to the barbers.

On this Christmas day walk we saw two sheep that had obviously been stray from the main flock for some time as those coats had definitely not grown that long since the summer.

This was the road up the hill Christmas day, just the imprint of a farm vehicle in the snow, with only our footprints beside it.

Spotted this family about half a mile over the Glen, so chuffed to have got the shot with a heavy lens & hand held.

My favourite fallen tree, always reminds me of Chinese calligraphy, as though someone came along & arranged it after it fell, textures are beautiful.

Up nearer the big house today was this field of different aged Aberdeen Angus bulls, this is the eldest & was giving me the evil eye.

Then these two angry looking beasts, the eyes say it all, “clear off you”.

Lastly these two young un’s learning how to stare me out like their peers.

How was your Christmas? All over the U.K. folks have had to make the best of what we have, so much disappointment family gatherings from across the country having to cancel at the last moment spending time with their loved ones. Our time was no different from a lot of you, our son was coming up from England with his partner, so tons of food in their presents already under the Christmas tree & then boom, they were not allowed to travel unless it was for the one day. Doing a 13 hour round trip was not at all reasonable, so they were unable to come.

Now we love our turkey, so a good large bird was chosen serving 12 to 15 people, just for the two of us. We cooked it all the same & will dine off of it for a few days yet before sliced & curried & soup from the bits & all placed in our freezer to have weekly meals from until all gone & no we will not grow tired of it as we do really love it.

Hopefully with the vaccine this will all be soon over & by mid summer we can get back to some form of normality.

Tradition for us is always to get the bird in the oven & go off for a walk, which being Scotland means we can go out in all weathers, but we still uphold the tradition. On one occasion when we first moved up & were having a Christmas by ourselves we were out for the walk & found a large horse had rolled over, it’s canvas coat had not rolled with it & it was stuck on its back with a leg stuck in the coat. Not knowing who owned it we searched all the local houses to find someone in to tell us who owned it. I stayed with the horse & the wife went down our hill half a mile before finding anyone who knew the owner. Between four of us we managed to upright the horse, but we both had to come home & change as we were filthy.

This years walk was without incident, a cold frosty morning though a tad warmer than a couple of days before as you will see from the shots below. you meet some strange people when out on walks, but this time it was me that made the shepherd look twice as I gave him a wave.

The next two shots are from today Boxing Day, a wet but warmer day (6C) but we needed to walk after the food we ate yesterday. Walked from the Tilt Car Park up to the ruined kirk & back to the car, just a bit of fresh air & exercise as we are back to full lock down from today.

By now you will realise that I am mad about the birds in my garden, they give us such great entertainment & pleasure, occasionally we will get something rare happening, but generally it is the everyday fairly common garden birds that are our favourites. One thing I have been meaning to tell you, Back in June (I told you on here) I had Megan come & ring some of the garden birds for me & we had a Siskin from Belgium amongst them, well we have now got the details from the B.T.O. about the bird. It was ringed the previous November in a place called Nassogne , just outside Luxembourg in Belgium. So in that 211 days it had flown in a NW direction to us travelling a distance of 955km. Isn’t that incredible for a wee bird that only weighed 14.7g.

What I hadn’t realised is though I have often shown you the many birds in the garden, I have never really shown you what attracts them all to our garden, it is of course my various feeding stations. Therefore today I will show you them, and because they are numerous we have to purchase the food to put in the holders and I can assure you the sacks of peanuts, sunflower seeds, niger seed, superior bird seed with fruit in it, plus the live mealworms do not come cheap. In fact monthly we nearly spend as much money on the birds food as we do our own.

So below are the feeding stations & some of the birds feeding on a couple, plus of course a Red Squirrel.

So this is the main feeding station with most variety, going from left to right, my hide with the front pointing towards the garden pond to snap birds drinking. The thin wooden strip on the side of the tree stump is a water bowl & fruit holder, we occasionally put an apple on the spike. The two logs horizontally placed, one on a stump the other held up by rope, these are hollowed out & hold bird seed. the two tubes at the back are Niger seed holders suspended from a horizontal tree branch & the green lidded triple feeders are Peanut, Sunflower seed & fat ball holders. All waste is collected in the builders mixing tray below it all. In the Silver Birch tree are the Squirrel feeding box with Peanuts in & above is the Peanut Butter feeder. Please excuse the corrugated iron sheets, they are our 4 compost bins which get moved down every year as the first bin is distributed around the garden by the wife, so it is beautiful loam, produced every 4 years. The green pole on the far right is our log splitter, that has had a fair bit of use this year (thanks Eric & Val).

The two giant Peanut holders (that , at this time of the year, get emptied by the birds & squirrels every 10 days or so) , complete with red that saw me coming & jumped off the feeder. But as you can see from the next shot as soon as it saw it was me it just hopped back up & continued feeding. The feeders are right in front of our dining room window & you can just sit there for ages & watch the action.

The last main station is in front of the kitchen windows & consists of two Emma Bridgewater bird mugs that have a few chips in & are filled daily (& emptied daily by the birds) with seed, plus the Peanut holder on the Birch. The following bird shots were all taken around these feeders within the first hour of filling them.

The three shots above are of course of our newly acquired friend the Nuthatch, we have occasionally in the past had one pay us a visit, but as you have seen from previous blogs one has set up residence with us this year. In fact we were really delighted yesterday morning when we spotted two at these very feeders together, a real thrill. So the first shot shows a familiar action by most visitors to the mugs, they seem to stop before going in for the goodies, see what they fancy & then dive in and get it, as shown in shot two. The third shot was when it realised I was there taking photos of it.

The Coal Tit is such a fast speedy little bird & darts into the mug & is off elsewhere to eat whatever it managed in that split second, when they take the black sunflower seeds from the main feeding station they tend to eat a few then come back & collect more & bury them, hence in the spring we have sunflowers sprouting up in strange places around the garden.

Male Chaffinch again having a look in first before diving in for the feed.

Just love his haircut.

Just two shots of this lovely Blue Tit. Not sure if it was via our nesting boxes, but this winter we have more Blue Tits than we have ever had before, one day this week I counted 14 on the two big peanut feeders, a shear joy to see so many.

Below the feeders the ever crafty Robin picks up the scraps dropped by the messy feeders like the Blackbird. Particularly liked this shot as the bird was in amongst the bushes feeding away with no opposition from others, just stocking up the fat for the Winter we are expecting to start tomorrow.

A Great Tit preferring the nuts to the seeds.

I have shown you a cross section of the birds on the feeders, not included & if it had been warmer today I may have shown you more. So maybe I will try & collect a few more sometime as what is missing is:- Long Tailed Tits, G.S. Woodpeckers, Jay, Collar Doves, House Sparrows, Dunnocks, occasional Brambling, Blackbirds, very rare (for us) Starlings, Redwing, Fieldfare , not forgetting the Sparrowhawks that managed a smaller bird most days.