Author: David Miller

I can see the differences in winters the short time (18years) we have been living here in Perthshire, by this time of the year looking back at old photos I can see we would have had a fair few decent falls of snow. Plus it would have been a lot colder during the daytime, though we have had a fair few nights dipping below zero, come daybreak it is normally above. Plenty of rainy days which in the past would have been snow, but overall a lot milder. The problem with this is it means that I have had more than normal tasks dedicated to me by SWMBO & that has included giving the many evergreen shrubs a trim, so below I have included a few of my efforts with the electric hedge trimmer.

Normally by the end of October the local shepherd takes his flock of sheep away from the field in front of the house to fields lower & closer to his farm for the winter, but as he had been in hospital for a while they were a little late in leaving us this year & only went last week. Though the wife often jokes that they are the only thing (apart from me of course) that she has to speak to in our remote spot, it is surprising how we do miss them when they are gone. Each year you can see some of the individual traits that they have, Who are the first up in the mornings, who picks the best sheltered sleeping spots & of course with any group of females, who is in charge. Though it is not often amongst humans you see the best head butter is in charge, a bit more subtle than that normally.

You will see from the shots further down that we have now got replacement companions, which we have purchased carrot for, but they are a bit reluctant to come anywhere near us at present.

Have included a shot of the castle to show you the last dregs of Autumn, plus a view of winter on the hills.

After cutting, I tend to place the tarp below the tree so that the wife does not have to rake loads up of the ground it is already to put into sacks.

Trouble is you do the first one & the one behind looks scruffy & you have to cut that next. The weird branch coming out of the evergreen is in fact a feeding station, there are normally two mugs (just one half way along) & they get filled daily with seed & everything from the squirrels to most birds really enjoy feeding from them.

First of the 4 horses that have replaced the sheep, I think a couple of them are ridden & the others either are companion horses or not been broken in.

Two of this type of ponies in the four, don’t ask me to tell which is which as they are near identical to my untrained eye.

This one is very much like the Highland ponies they use for bringing the dead stags down off the hills after the days shooting, again not sure if it is a Highland.

The other “brown” one, always lying down this one.

A definite bond between them all, as we often see them all together like this.

The Blair Castle showing up so well on a dull day but surrounded by beauty.

Finally an early morning shot of the sun just hitting the hill tops with a good dusting of snow on them.

Well looks like Winter is around the corner with the clocks changing last night, Four o’clock and it is getting dark here already. My opinion is we should stay on the one time & not change the clocks twice a year, after all early nights are such a shock when it is not only cold but dark when you still have jobs to do.

Just lately we have had some very strong winds & this has made a lot of pour taller trees look quite bare with leaves coming down like confetti at a wedding, especially the Silver Birch . This of course only means two tasks for the wife & I. 1/ Clearing the leaves off the lawns (which is the misses job & I get:- 2/ Emptying the guttering & downpipes on a regular basis, so its a good job we live in a bungalow, not to much ladder climbing for this oldie. So with the wind & natural loss of foliage on shrubs & trees the garden is also shutting down. During a brief spell from the rain this morning I went out & captured the last of the colour remaining in the garden, doing a tour I must confess I did not realise just how much colour there was & that pleased me no end.

Below are the best that I took from my morning expedition.

The Azaleas winter leaves always add some good colour as you drive in through the gate.

Looking down the garden towards the house.

The view from the kitchen window , the Heather bed has summer & winter flowering Heathers so it remains cheery all year round, we have intentions to add to this area every year so that as we get older there should be less maintenance, just a case of dead heading the flowers.

When they grow as beautiful a colour as this bunch do, then it really does bring a smile to your face, no matter how dull the day.

These two arrangements are in pots either side of our front door & they have been colourful all summer, but now show off their natural beauty even better.

The berries on this Cotoneaster are slowly disappearing as they are eaten by the birds, mainly Blackbirds, though we have had one visit by a flock of Fieldfares which rushed in & left just as quickly as they arrived, but consumed all the remaining Rowan berries before they left.

Finally I just loved the variation in colours on this one branch, I do love Autumn.

For my birthday I got from one of my sons a device that fits on the tripod & then onto my camera that allows me to set up (with the right lens) to take macro photos looking straight down at the object or any angle that is suitable. So on a wet day I decided to collect some leaves, set them on a fairly plain background (in this case a mock leather briefcase) & show the beauty & detail that can be achieved by showing the leaf close up. Of course if hand held at this level of closeness it would end up a blur & even pressing the shooting button on the camera could move the camera, so I had to also use a release cable so that the photo was taken without touching the camera. Hope you like the colours & detail in these few examples.

Nice simple one to start with a common fern.

Two different shots of a Rowan, the bottom being a bit more decayed.

We only know this shrub as a Red Robin, first shot shows a bunch of leaves , but the second is a lot closer single leaf showing the finer hairy edged detail in each leaf.

A Prunus with a good mixture of colour.

Just a simple Silver Birch leaf showing the veins well.

Our Cotoneaster hedge is looking colourful at present.

A leaf from the Acer in the last blog, such detail in such a complicated leaf.

This is a colourful plant that grows each year around our pond, no idea of it’s name but it goes from a bright red onto this dark shade of purple & collects rain in its middle like a miniature pond it surrounds.

About this time of year I put on a display of shots from the Enchanted Forest, that takes up a lot of my time & is an incredible light show that entertains over 80,000 people during October, due to Corvid of course it was cancelled for this year. Though this is approximately1/2 mile outside the Cairngorms National Park I love to show you what a wonderful spectacle it is, so with no show I thought I would include a shot of the natural beauty that is Loch Dunmore (where E.F. is held).

Though we have had it cold, it does seem we are going to get some form of Autumn, the Silver Birch have coloured a bit, but seem to have shed their leaves early due to the strong Northerly winds we have been experiencing. As we have a fair few in the garden the wife has been raking them up for some time, they do help the compost heap to grow & in 3 years time will help provide the good compost we seem to be making now.

So the first bunch of shots today are from or around the garden & countryside that surrounds us.

The above 3 are from our view across the glen & line the road going up to the Blair Walker area. Always the first to colour up & also so weird when you get the Oak next to the Chestnut as the Chestnut always turns first. I think they would be even in turning if the Oak came into leaf earlier, it is always the last to get it’s leaves in Spring.

Always plenty of rainbows about this time of the year, just liked this one as it lit up the ground & then filtered out, as if telling me “this is where the gold is, start digging here”, never do follow up such hints.

This Acer bush is most probably the most reliable show of colour we have in the garden every single year, it is getting bigger than ever, but we do not wish to trim it in case it does not like it & maybe not give us such a tremendous display. Could add a joke by saying “it comes up Trumps for us every year & never gets a virus”, but I won’t.

Have cheated a bit on the above shots as this is around & off of The Garry Bridge (though the last one is Killikrankie which is within the Cairngorms Park.

The 4th & 5th are looking down on the River Garry from the bridge & is one of my favourite spots for Autumn photography, could have done with some sunshine to brighten the trees a touch but fairly happy with them. During the Summer season this bridge is used for bungee jumping, not something I think I would do.

Lastly I will finish on this shot of Blair Castle, nestled down amongst the trees, with some colour surrounding it.

We had a very mixed week here, both with weather & activity. With the virus causing a surge in universities & cities in Scotland new rules about meeting with people have once again restricted our lives. Most of the rules are just reinforcing the precautions us older citizens have been trying to copy all along, while others (younger than us old codgers of course) have just gone out & pretended they were immune. Anyway I have no intentions of making this a political platform, so, what has been happening in the area & my household?

After the very cold mornings I reported in the last blog it has settled down a bit & just going down in temperature to low single figures. So therefore most dawn & dusks we have been getting the dampness coming up in the form of mist from the river. Though not nice to be out in it has been allowing me to take some decent shots both end of the day.

This is a evening shot, with the mist starting to roll into the glen, the lower mist tends to come off the River Tilt, which flows behind the first set of trees.

These two are from the mist this morning at the start of what is going to be a very wet & windy weekend. If I was clever I would have joined the two shots together & given you a panorama view from the house, but just join them yourselves, the tree in the middle right of the first shot ( the one that resembles Donald Trumps outline ) (can you see that) , is the same tree in the middle left of the next shot.

So you can see our visibility is pretty low today. Good job that didn’t happen at the start of the week, as we had an international military exercise going on all around the land & seas of Scotland, with forces from us, Europe, U.S.A. & even Australia taking part. A fair few aircraft came low over our house, but I was never quick enough to get my camera & grab some shots. We had Hercules, Typhons, executive type jet with R.A.F. roundels on , two different types of helicopters including the Apache that I captured below, well captured on the camera not literally.

Though this is low, on one occasion a few years ago, we had two Apaches go out of sight behind those trees where there is in fact a road, must have been hairy, but great fun for the pilots.

We both just love how they follow the line of Glen Tilt, emerge near us then turn left & go along the route of the A9, as if bombing the dam in Pitlochry.

Despite all the mist we have had some spectacular sunsets this week, though it is a shame that the nights are drawing in, it is so good to see such stunning skies while eating our evening meal, here are two shots of one such beauty this week.

Just a great way to finish the day & todays blog.

Can I be reassured that this is really still the back end of September, because this day has just broken Scottish records by being the coldest September day, since records began. It felt a bit nippy on going to bed last night & the sky was clear with many stars visible in our dark zone area that this is. But the temperature dropped to minus 4C last night & still minus 2 at 9 o’clock when I went out to feed the birds. But now 1700 hours it has reached a more normal 15C and a cracking, bright day. Though I have not been out much beyond The Mill for a mid morning drink & scone as it was a Grand Prix, quickly followed by football. Just added a few shots from today to show you the contrast.

My poor little car showing what we woke up to, needed to clear this off before the ride to the village.

The three shots above were taken about 1100 hours this morning showing the start of the beautiful day, so clear & virtually cloud free.

Must admit these sort of conditions this time of the year are what I love, though on a Sunday it does encourage a lot more people to climb the 2 Munro’s in the last shot, making our single track road a true nightmare to drive on. I suppose it is understandable that climbers are excited to be out on a day like this, just wish they would drive just a bit slower to make sure they actually get to the car park with out killing themselves in a car accident.

There must have been 30 odd cars parked up with more coming up on my return journey home, though I did follow 2 cars down, that had already been up the tops, either from yesterday or very early starters, bet they felt the cold if they were camping overnight.

Officially Summer is over & we are now into Autumn, though the weather we have had over this past couple of weeks you would think we have gone straight into Winter. Temperatures in the daytime that have gone above 10C have been very rare, many days of rain & strong winds & night time temperature going as low as 1C. It is no wonder the vast majority of Summer visiting birds have disappeared & gone off to Africa for a warm up. On one of the decent days I decided to go up on the moors & take the last of the wild flowers, most of which have now gone to seed. When on this rare occasion we had some sunshine I had great fun trying to get the sun behind the plants to capture the beauty of the external edges of the plants, plants that you would not normally class as “hairy”, but such fine detail really shows up in such light. So hopefully you will be able to see exactly what I mean in these few shots I managed to get.

The sun light brings these flowers to life, with not just the petals but bud & stem as well.

A shot just a bit closer of this seed head, hopefully if we get a decent day in this coming week I will be able to see if these type of buds have opened & spread their seeds.

As you can see this one is a bit more advanced & already turning brown, just love how the backlit sun shows up the hairs on all 3 above.

Just the last few flowers o this foxglove, giving bees their last chance for some pollen.

This one has lost all it’s flowers & setting seed, one good thing this summer has been the Foxgloves, in our garden & on the moors they have grown to some staggering heights.

So much colour within the plants still, just catches my photographers eye all the time.

Some wild plants just are not ready to give up on producing flowers, as this Purple Toad Flax shows, with seed heads below the flowers & buds still not out above it. Will it fully flower before the frost get’s it? Not sure.

Finally an unusual bird to our feeding stations, a Nuthatch, for the past 3 or 4 weeks this one has visited us everyday, so fast I can only grab a shot of it on the feeders , but very much a welcome visitor. Such well defined lines, a striking bird.

I apologise for the long stretch since I last wrote on here. My motherboard decided to die on me & as my device was still under warranty I had to send it by courier to Holland. Being so remote it was delayed in being picked up, but very fast in sending me a new box (I have an Intel NUC) only to be delayed by a day due to Bank Holiday. But of course my camera has still been in use & so have a fair few photos to share with you. I will not put them all on here today, but will save you from getting to bored with them, but it also allows me to spend some time of the day with the wife, as I have been reconstructing the computer & editing photos some 4 hours now. Must keep the better half happy, or maybe she enjoys the peace of not having me under her feet. Though the list of jobs is getting longer, before the arrival of the colder weather. Chain sawing down a few unwanted trees from a friend for our log burner, last few cuts of the grass, a blind to be put up in the bedroom, kitchen taps to be replaced, I guess you get the idea.

So in todays episode I will just concentrate on birds & how they are gathering to migrate, with a aaahhh moment in the last shot.

A male Chaffinch enjoying some late afternoon sunshine

A now frequent visitor to the garden, normally a very shy bird the Nuthatch, but this one seems to like the feeders near to the house & stays when we are working just the other side of the kitchen window. In previous years we have had maybe 2 or 3 visits each year, but this one is daily.

We never see Starlings in our garden though I have done everything I can to encourage them, putting up suitable nest boxes, open feeders, but no we just do not get them. The only time we see them is this time of the year when they are gathering to migrate away for the winter, these gathered yesterday & today along with a flock of Thrushes, two of which you can just make out sitting on the structures instead of the wire.

As you can see the Thrush do enjoy a good solid structure to perch on , but look so graceful compared with the steel they are on.

Though the Collar Dove was none to pleased to see this one invading what is normally his lone post.

Not to sure how much heat extends to the outer electrical wiring, but we very seldom see Starlings sitting anywhere else than on the cables, keeping their toes warm, in what has been a cold snap (down to 1C overnight on the weekend).

The House Martins & (in this case) the Swallows are preparing their feathers for the flight back to Africa, in fact this was the last day we have seen any as I think they have had enough of this cold weather & are on their way for the winter in the sun. No travel restrictions for them.

I said I would leave the last shot for that Aaaaahhh moment, my son visiting us pointed this wee Roe Deer to us while on a walk, it was no further than 20 metres away from the road. & so well hidden. Didn’t seem at all bothered by our presence as we snapped away, just wish the grass had not been in the way of what could have been a cracking shot, just a lovely surprise on a very pleasant walk.

The information about the village water supply I found interesting to do, so I thought I would photograph the way the watermill at the village mill gets it’s water as a follow up. Simple watercourses like our little river (the Fender) had mills all the way down it, each farmstead would grind their own corn using the force of rivers & burns to power them. It has been established that on maps as far back as 1590 yes 1590, this particular lade going to the mill was shown on them, so thou of course it has been rebuilt many times over those years, the original route has been in existence all this time.

So Fender joins the River Tilt, which is the lovely spate river you see above, just above the road bridge part of the river is diverted into the lade.

The stones on the right are what is used to divert the flow & as this is a spate river that can flow very fast during torrential long rain storms or snow melt from the hills, these stones move, allowing greater flow on the river. So these stones need constant attention to build that barrier up. This is not an easy task, for one, Rami at The Mill has to get permission from the Environment Agency to do it. Then he has to hire a digger to go into the water and build the barrier up again. When the water is as low as in the pictures in this article it is impossible to get enough energy into the flow to actually turn the water wheel. If the water runs through the lade to fast it could rotate the wheel to quickly & damage it. So Rami has to control the flow by using the first sluice in the shot below.

This is a simple gate valve sluice, but getting the flow correct, is far harder, but over the years the master baker has mastered it.

Firstly sorry about the out of focus shot. This is the sluice from the other side & you can see it collects a fair bit of debris, yet another job for the mill staff to keep it as clear as possible for that constant flow.

Just further along the lade is this old sluice that allows you to divert more water away from the lade, I just liked the simplicity of the turn screw & how it fitted on the gate, craftsman at work.

At this point the lade crosses under the road which is the entrance to the caravan site, normally this little bulge is full of ducks as the children from the caravan site love to feed them from off the bridge. The two fields either side of the roadway are where Atholl Estate place two Highland bulls, the only reason that I can see for this is as a tourist attraction, especially as for the last couple of years these bulls have been black highlanders, which are not so common, so more people stop to admire them, Just as I have below.

As you can see on this last shot, the lay-by next to them is in constant use by the visitors.

From here the watercourse disappears under the castle drive & the main road & comes out on the village green, with a few ugly pipes attached to the bridge. Also because the ducks get fed here also, in the shadow of the tunnel you can occasionally see some wee Trout.

From here it goes through a few back gardens, as shown below.

From this point it disappears from view for a 50 yard stretch as it goes under the railway line, which is just beyond the fence. You can also see another grill to stop debris which has to be kept clear.

So once it has come out of the tunnel it is on the homeward section, visible to all from The Mill car park. The gearing to the left of the wheel is the final sluice that stops the water taking its natural course & diverts it onto the mill race feeding the insatiable appetite of the wheel. You can see by the very low depth of the water that it would not feed the wheel on the day I took the shots, as it takes more than a trickle to turn that very heavy, well built wheel .

Most of what I write about on here is modern up to date subjects about (mainly) wildlife, gardens & village events, though with the present pandemic not many of those are happening at present.

As you are aware by now we live in a pretty remote section of the southern end of the Cairngorms National Park, roughly a mile above the village of Blair Atholl & when I say “above” I mean up in the hills in Glen Fender. That means that of course any river that flows through the glen is bound (as ours is) to be called after the Glen, or the Glen is named after the river not sure which way is right. SO about 50 yards below our house is the River Fender, which feeds into the River Tilt, which feeds into the Garry, continues onto the Tummel which lastly joins the Tay & on to the North Sea., Our little contribution to the Tay system is what is known as a spate river, one day it can be a wee trickle, 24 hours of rain it turns into a raging torrent, with all the water coming of the hills, a day after that it can be back down to a trickle.

in the section of river below us is a series of weirs and a manmade channel leading off this with pipework going onto a blue hut. When we moved in we were told that this was a feed that went down into the village via a pipeline & filled the steam trains in the sidings & engine sheds, beside Blair Atholl railway station. It wasn’t until I went to write this blog that I discovered it was far more important than this, in fact it was at one point in time the water supply for the whole village, with gravity filling 3 water towers down there. A lot of the structure up with us is still there & this is what I would like to share with you today.

The above is the storage tank that held the water it is a concrete tank that sits at ground level I would say just over a 3 feet deep & covers the full size of the hut. Not full of water anymore, just a storage area.

About 150 yards up the hill from the storage tank, is what I presume was the control hut that controlled the level of water in the reservoir.

A pipe below the water level feeds the flow into the channel covered with the blue tarpaulin & that is the other side of the hut from the previous shot, any surplus water flows over the weir & continues on to the River Tilt.

Allowed myself an indulgence with the two shots of that weir by giving the blurred effect on the water, just a show off of artistic licence.

Upstream of this the river has recently been widened to allow extract of the gravel & larger stones from off the river bed. I often go down to this section when I am a bit fed up, take my smallest fly rod, a very light line & extremely small fly & have a cast for the 4oz (if your lucky) wild Brown Trout that inhabit these pools. Of course they go straight back, but the fun of doing this will lift any fisherman/women. My ambition has been in all the years I have lived here that on a hot day I would go down here & have a swim. Two things have stopped me:_1/ We don’t get that many hot days & 2/ What ever the time of year water coming of the hills is freezing, I know I am a big softie, one day maybe I will.

As a little bit of absolute pleasure I would like to leave you with the garden of Jock down in the village, every year he devotes himself to this garden, it is not very big but boy it is so full. If you can enlarge the shot & just look at the detail that is within, a pilgrimage to see it every year is an complete must. Love the Seldom Inn pub.