Author: David Miller

It just does not seem right that today is the first day of Autumn, mainly because up here , apart from a few days here & there, we have not really had much of a summer. The good weather always seems to happen when we have visitors from down South & they say ” I thought you said the weather has been really bad up here, this is lovely”. I am just hoping for a Indian Summer & September will be good & warm & Autumn is short of bad days so we will not be prepared for a bad winter.

Old folk tales state that if we have an abundance of berries, then it is going to be a hard winter & as you will see below, the Rowan are nearly breaking their branches they are so laden with fruit. One year I must make some jelly out of them, not sure if there is such a thing as Rowan wine, shall have to check that one out. I shall be very disappointed if we do not get a good show of Redwing & Fieldfares eating them this year.

As Autumn has commenced I thought I would put in a couple of shots of the Autumn Crocus that grow in the garden. Went out before the rain today & took these few, very surprised at the number of Hover Fly & other creatures that are attracted to them, never really noticed that before.

The ever faithful Rhododendron shrub at our back door has flowered from May & is still sending out the odd flowers which is good to see, plus the Herb Robert is still attracting the bees, most probably the best we have seen it for years.

It does not seem a year ago that I put up some photos of the Harley Davidsons going up to Avimore for the “Thunder in the Glen”, seem to be more than ever going up this year, even though we are a mile away from the A9 from Thursday until Saturday Morning & then Sunday night, all you could hear was the rumble & throb of the bikes, just a great sound.

Plenty going on in the village over the English Bank Holiday (not one up here) with the International Horse Trials going on at the castle. Plus the venture that is Davy at the Fish & Chip shop with his marque & live music . I have never been but all who do go love it, so I must get down to it next year & share some photos with you.

With the Horse Trials they had this year a Bird of Prey display & as I love them I have included shots of the birds, all just have had a bath, as that was one of those rare hot days. Of course we had visitors at the time. 🙂

There is nothing like village events that bring the competitive side out of people to make them popular & the annual church flower show does that. One good thing about it is that it is open to the whole village not just churchgoers. For the past 10 years I have judged (along with one other) the vegetable section, which is of course highly competitive. Two highly respected members of the church have an annual rivalry in this section, with normally one of the two winning the coveted veg cup. Last year both missed out as a newcomer, one of Atholl Estates gardeners entered his own veg & walked most classes. Fortunately he didn’t enter this year so it was back to the usual battle. As judges we are not aware of who entered what , as their names are in sealed envelopes, so how demoralising must it have been when one of them won the first 5 categories & then went on to be above the other in all other classes. Hope I get a pint from one & not to long in the doghouse from the other.

Of course it will be of no surprise to know that I entered two photos, where the theme this year was Scottish Views, I have a bit of rivalry with one of the girls who works in The Mill, who is a great photographer. She sells cards with her photos on within The Mill & also at other local events, all of which are excellent & professional. She also entered two shots into the field of 20 or so photos, I managed a 3rd & she was not placed, so of course I had to go into The Mill & have a small boasting session.

Below are the shots I took of the various sections & I do apologies, I did get a bit carried away. 🙂

Please do not worry, this is not photos of me having my annual bath, I don’t want to lose what readers I have.

No, this is a great sequence I caught this afternoon from my garden hide. Both my wife & myself had been busy in the garden, she decided to go indoors for a cuppa & my first thought was to grab the camera. We have had some rough weather this week & the next 4 days are meant to be even worse, so as the sun was shining I thought why not.

The hide is set up (at present) to focus on the area of my pond where most of the birds go down for a drink & bath, this part of the ponds plants had grown considerably since I last took some shots, so a quick snip with the shears was in order. Concentrated on the photo opportunity area & on looking through the lens all was clear for some shots. What happened, the first bird to come down for a drink, landed on an iris leaf bent it into the focus area & the stem never went back, hence the annoying section in the left of the first three shots.

I never have to wait long on warm days for something to appear on the rock & sure enough down came this young Great Tit. At first it just had a drink then must have thought to itself that the water seemed about right for a bath. I do not think I have ever seen a bird bathe with such enthusiasm as this one, it really went for it. Hence the reason I just had to share the sequence with you. A great 15 minutes of shear enjoyment, both for me & the bird by the looks of it.

By now you are all aware of my love of photography & wildlife, especially birds. Well when we are told about the birds, we are also told about the Bees & this time of the year and some decent weather has certainly made them come & take as much food from our garden as possible. Though we do not always pick the right sort of plants for them to feed on, we do try and encourage them in. The wild Foxgloves (though nearly over) have been a great source of food & wherever they set seed, we just let them grow, hence we have a fair few.

The majority of Bees in the following photos are feeding on a wild flower, that is not common in Scotland, but one we had in our garden down in the West of England & we were aware that it was a great insect attracter so we came up with a few potted up, just to try up here in the new garden. Fortunately it has taken well to this climate & as you can see is doing a fine job for the Bees. The plant is a Purple Toadflax, one that we find attractive & well liked by human as well as insect visitors.

Though when purchasing plants from local nurseries we do look for Bee friendly ones, we often find that wild plants, such as the two above attract far more insects than cultivated ones, I expect the experts will disagree, but that is what we think. In fact today when we were walking down to The Mill for a coffee, beside the village hall, we discovered that a colony (is that how you describe them?) of teasels is just coming into bloom and is covered with Hover Flies & Bees, so guess who will be taking some of the seeds before the Goldfinch get to them?

Photographing Bees is something new for me & they do not tend to sit around & pose for long, so after much effort trials & a lot of errors, here are some from yesterday.

At this time of the year the garden is constantly changing, mainly down to the wives hard work & dedication to make the display look good, me, well I can mow the lawns & the heavier manual work, beyond that I am useless. Many flowers are still going from when I put them on last month, I (the expert gardener) think it is due to the fact that summer was held back by the cold wet start to this month, but now the sun has decided to come out things are spurting on. I do like taking photos of the flowers, though I have said before I have trouble naming them, so will just put them up for you all to enjoy & leave you to know or make up their names.

Firstly I know this is meant to be based in the Cairngorms, just occasionally I may venture a bit further out of the Park to bring you something of interest, as I have done here. This is a story based on the River Tummel Shingle Islands about 6 miles outside the Park. The Islands are jointly run by Atholl Estates (who’s H.Q. is at Blair Castle so well within the Park) & Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT)

Now like Marmite you either love Beavers or hate them, the chair of our local branch of the SWT loves them & organises these walks ( or should I say commando courses) deep into the vegetation of the islands to show off the dams & lodges of the Beavers. Yesterday was such a day, so as I had not been I tagged along with 4 others to see what we could find. Of course we knew we wouldn’t see the actual Beavers, as it was 2pm & 25C & no sensible Beaver would be out & about then, but we did see a lot of evidence of their activities.

First lets set the scene, The Tummel is a spate river & every year it changes course finding a easier route on it’s way to join the Tay. The islands are formed from the old river bad 20 -30 years ago & though they do flood in the winter are now just a trickle of their old roaring, raging river. This of course is an ideal flow for the Beaver & all through the island dams have been built to make the water deeper in order to make their sleeping/ living lodges. So it was these that we came to see.

As I said before not everyone likes Beavers, but now in Scotland it is illegal to kill them without a licence, a month or so before the legislation came in, around this area of the Tummel, two Beavers were found shot.

So of course my blog would not be complete without some photos & this was a particularly difficult shoot because the sun was so bright & lots of dapple shade, so I know they are not my best.

Just a few shots from what was an enjoyable two hour hike through the jungle of the Tummel Island

At last, just after the longest day, we have something resembling a summers day. Though we still have a fairly “brisk” wind, the sun is shining. My wife of course is straight out in the garden slaving away keeping it tidy & in my opinion looking splendid, she regards it as a mess, but I love the way everything looks so colourful & the bees are buzzing. Showing what a great gardener I am I went straight indoors & got my camera to catch the lovely light.

Most of you whom I know are pretty keen gardeners & know your Onions from your Osmanthus, so I will not show my ignorance beyond naming the Lupins, Foxgloves & Heather. What I like is the variety of colour in the Lupins I presume they cross pollinate so the shades are never ending.

So first the Lupins.

Loved those, now the Foxglove, White is getting very common in the wild & are all around us.

When we moved here I created a pond & our neighbour gave me some water Buttercups, I discovered that within the Buttercups was a single Orchid & every year since up it comes giving us such pleasure.

The only Heather out at the moment is this Bell one, I again love the colour.

In every house we have ever lived in, we have had the Rose Guinea, though it doesn’t do that well up here, what blooms we do get are a great deep red & smell incredible.

We have a very small wild flower meadow which is full of Rattle, a rare plant up here, but I do not know why as our plants are expanding through seed dispersion, a lovely little plant.

I have written enough dribble, will just add the remaining shots & you can decide what they are called.

Lastly for all you wine makers, it seems to be a bumper year for Elderflowers, so any finished liquid, yes please.

Last night sitting at our dining room table, my wife informed me that there was a Hare in the field in front of the house. As for once it wasn’t raining, or blowing a gale, or near freezing temperatures, I thought I might get some photos out of this. Little did I know it would develop into a story line that I could tell you all.

We have half a dozen steps down to our fence which you then have to climb over to get in the field. So the first couple of shots I took were from within the garden, some 50yds from the Hare. As I focused in on the Hare I saw there were two, not just the one. Got that shot in the bag (or at least in the camera)

Decided to climb over the fence now as I was just happy with the one photo. One of the Hares saw me & made a bolt for it.

But the remaining one didn’t seem bothered & carried on eating while I slowly advanced towards it.

It was so relaxed that it then decided it was time for a tidy up & proceeded to have a wash.

Eventually when I was no more than 20yds away it saw me.

And then decided it was time to run off. Though like the true pro the Hare must have been, decided that it would sit and pose for me on the horizon . So this was the last shot, but what an image to finish on. 15 minutes of shear enjoyment for yours truly.

About this time last year we had Megan from the Tayside Ringing Group come & ring some of our garden birds, well having since given birth to a baby daughter she came back to have another go today. As we have had a wet & cold week I for one did not expect to get the same number of birds as last year, we managed I think 37 then & blow me we got 38 this year, but not the variety of birds as last year, but some interesting conclusions to what we did get.

Our Siskin population has increased with many one to two year old birds amongst the 32 we caught, two birds were youngsters from this years broods & had not long fledged. We also had two birds that had been rung before & we expected them to have been either ones we had rung earlier in the morning or from last year. But both were new birds to us, one which had a British ringers ring on, which will require Megan to investigate further with the BTO to see where it came from. The other one gave us the most pleasure of the morning as this had a ring on it’s left leg (all British birds are rung on the right leg) & on the ring it told us this had been rung in Brussels. Now this very small bird weighs 11 grams & had come all that distance up here to Perthshire, no matter if it came direct or across the English Channel & up that is still one heck of a long way for such a small bird. This gave Megan huge delight as both birds were her first rung birds from outside her Tayside area.

The other birds were a Robin, a Great Tit, 2 Chaffinch & two Dunnock, though we must confess one of the Dunnock got away before being measured & rung. So I have attached some shots of the birds caught & a brief explanation of what was happening in the shots.

I had always intended to write a blog about the Watermill & for so many reasons. Mainly because we love the place, visiting at least 3 times a week, also they make excellent scones & I also enjoy the hot chocolate. But food aside, the staff are always friendly even when the place is packed out , they have time to say hello.

Of course T.V. has visited, initially when Rami entered a baking competion om ITV & won the Scottish region finals. Followed By Nadia filming with them all, plus a private visit by Camilla. I can add that they will soon be on another series, but that’s a secret.

As you are aware I very seldom go anywhere without my camera & today when we visited for our usual, the mill was grinding some flour, so I thought time for some action shots, so I had a go. Now I must apologies for the very low standard of shots I got, it is nothing to do with my lovely new lens (that I was using for the first time) (Nifty Fifty for the camera buffs), nor the low light, nor the photographer (well maybe a bit my fault), nor that they were hand held shots. No, it was due to the fact that when the mill is at full pelt with the stones grinding, the cogs turning, the water running over the wheel, the whole building vibrates unbelievably. I think the following internal shots would have been even worse if I had used my tripod, for at least I was able to steady myself a bit.

Well these are my excuses & I am sticking to them.

Hope you enjoyed my trip around the mill, when the machinery is not working I will take some more shots, just to prove I am not such a rotten photographer.