Cairngorms Life

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.

Went for our usual Sunday morning stroll up the glen, as per normal I walk halve the distance of the wife as I just stop & photograph everything. As every Sunday is, the single track road was busy with it being a fairly decent day people were going to the far end to climb the two local Munro’s, though we did wave to Christine our local retired district nurse & I had a long chat with our semi retired gamekeeper, so a couple of friendly faces.

So below a few shots from the walk, why is it that butterflies tend to give me a hard time, I just manage to focus in on them, in a spot with no real obstructions in front of them , such as grass & they fly off to somewhere totally impossible to get a shot of them. I suppose I need to hone my skills of being patient ‘

A Ringlet butterfly (of which there are hundreds on the moors at the moment) actually settling on a thistle , with no obstructions in front of it & allowing me to get one decent shot of it.

A Hover Fly just sitting there posing for me, why cannot butterflies do the same.

It got even better than the above shot, as while I was looking around I noticed this thistle had three insects on it. Got the Hover Fly & the insect in front (do not expect me to name it) nice and easy to see but the back insect you notice the antennae first, then you can just about make the shape out.

Could the cows & calves ask for a better view than this, seems fine on a fairly sunny warm day like today , but imagine the wind howling across here & an added bonus of snow and maybe not so nice.

A calf with attitude, no way was it going to be out starred by me, such a cracking looking beast and though this shot does not do it justice, it has a real sheen to it’s coat.

Another beautiful cow standing so patiently allowing it’s calf to have a drink. I wanted one of the many calves to drink from this side of the cows, but not sure if it was because they were aware that I was was this side and they felt vulnerable, none of them did.

This bond was adorable between the two of them, mum licking the calf’s face and the baby just so enjoying it shutting it’s eyes with contentment. Annoys me that that piece of grass is near the calf’s nose, but I couldn’t really ask them to eat it & pose again, could I?

Same pair, with the calf just saying “you missed a bit just there mum”.

A closer look at the cow’s view, Blair Castle bottom left, the A9 snaking through the middle of the shot, House of Bruar top right & of course the hills beyond, which uo until two weeks ago still had a few patches of snow on.

A couple of days ago we had a brief spell of semi decent weather, not sunshine you understand, just no wind or rain. So I decided to go up Glen Fender & photograph some of the wild grasses & flowers that inhabit these wonderful moors, with a special look at the wild Orchids that live there. Under no circumstances did I expect to see what I did see, but I will keep that until the last shots, as it was furthest on in my journey & thoughts.

So the first Orchid is one that we have in our garden, but this one is from up on the moors & is the Northern Marsh Orchid, fairly common up here but so bright & cheerful especially in it’s natural surroundings.

The two above are just variants of the same Orchid the Common Spotted, it can range through from the white to a deep purple not unlike the Northern Marsh above & it actually lives up to it’s name & is very common up here. A delicate & beautiful Orchid that shines out so brightly on these dull days.

If you look at the flower structure of this plant it seems to my untrained eye to be a cross between an Orchid & a Heather, it is in fact an Alpine Bistort & is very prolific up here, I like it & so do Greenfinches, saw a few eating the seeds.

After Thistles, Clover & grasses this is most probably the most common plant on the moors with the weird name of Ladies Bedstraw. As yellow is my favourite colour I love seeing this plant , being fairly tall it waves around in the wind & looks “proper hansome”, as some might say.

There are many different types of Thistle & as it is the emblem of Scotland thought I ought to include at least one.

Now follows a load of different plants I photographed while progressing uphill out onto the moors.

I also saw mainly these two butterflies feeding on this rich diversity of food, first ls the Common Blue & the Dark Green Fritillary, why it is called that is apparently the underside is dark green. My ambition is to get a shot of the Chimney Sweeper Moth that was also about, but is so small & fast I never managed it on this trip.

Now I have seen Curlew on the moors before & have got shots of them on the ground, but never managed to photograph them in flight, so this was a first for me, it could have been a better shot if I had changed my settings on the camera (the shadows are to dark & it needed a bit more definition) but to capture this was a bonus to me. Though in some ways the bird was a nuisance as it gave out a warning cry that I was about, which in turn gave warning to the creatures in the next series of shots, which came as a complete shock to me. But by alerting these animals allowed me to get some great shots once they saw me & was the surprise for my little jaunt out to take wild flowers. So here they are.

The first sign I had of these magnificent beast was this one looking over a ridge at me from about 150 yards away, I thought “wow this is a bonus a loan stag on the hill”, wrong.

Because the next thing I knew was this lot arrived from my left & out of sight of where I was standing. This time of the year all the male Red Deer get together away from the ladies .But then the whole herd came out on show, maybe 40 odd stags, before they decided my camera might be a rifle & ran off.

I think there are 30 in this shot & more behind them, I would never have seen them if the Curlew had not given out it’s warning call, as they were over a ridge that I would not have gone towards. I can assure you I was like a school boy in a sweet shop just totally elated & the adrenaline pumping, made my week & most probably month, a sight to remember.

Hope you enjoyed these shots, I intend getting some of the later flowering plants & grasses over the coming months, as I am so lucky to have such a rich diverse area on my doorstep & need to learn to appreciate it more..

During the winter months we were becoming fairly concerned that we had not seen many Reds in the garden, we were fully aware that they partially hibernated & we had had some cold weather, but they just were not showing. Our 2 permanent neighbours we realised were also feeding them but the report from them was they had not seen many. As Spring turned to Summer we would see the occasional one, but over the last two weeks we have had 3 regular visitors which was a great relief to us. One of these was a lot smaller than the other two so we imagined it was a youngster & was aware that they are born very early Spring so we were pleased with that. Unable to sleep this morning I got up a bit earlier than usual, nothing special just maybe half an hour earlier. Looked out the living room window to see 4 squirrels competing to get on the feeding station, so good to see I can assure you.

So I have taken a few photos, not I think of all 4 as one is particularly nervous around us, but definitely of 3 of them, so I hope you enjoy them.

This one is really used to us & allowed me to get within 10 feet of it to take this shot, just love the fact that it’s tail is longer than it’s body.

In this shot the one on the right was feeding & the other sneaked up behind it, when the feeding one saw it gave chase, but the other was just to fast for it & while the feeder went around the back of the tree he sneaked down onto the feeding tray & grabbed a peanut.

Some times one will sneak up on another, wait patiently for it to have it’s feed then go down into the nut box for it’s turn. But if the feeding one see’s it it will chase it away. Because I want to encourage the new Red to feed as well (it is not either of these) I leave the feeder lid propped open so it can find the peanuts easier. Though the old hands now know how to lift the lid when it is closed, when a new arrival comes along it can smell the nuts, but not know how to lift the lid. So by leaving it open it learns the entrance, then I can close it & it will eventually learn how to open it. If I leave it open all the time I would need to be a millionaire to feed them as every second the squirrels are not there a member of the Tit family will be in like a shot & pinch a nut each.

As it is the older squirrels are having their feed & then taking nuts into the garden & burying them as a winter store, not that they ever go looking for the buried ones as it is so much easier to go to the Miller feeding station, which is always open. Good job peanuts do not grow in this country as I think we would have our very own peanut farm.

I find this so funny, we have put two old mugs on a branch filled daily with bird food, one of the youngsters who cannot get near the nut box because of the adults, has learned that the sunflower seeds, sultanas & seeds are just as tasty & is not adverse to sticking it’s snout in for a feed.

This is the culprit from the previous shot & you can see it is a youngster as it’s tail is not as bushy as the adults, though as I was only some 20 feet away from it, it seems to be getting used to the click of the camera & stayed around for a while.

So I hope you have enjoyed seeing these lovely animals that we have the privilege of seeing daily, as they bring a smile to our faces in these difficult times.