Cairngorms Life

I realise that some of you reading this will be well into spring & all your bulbs & spring flowers will be in full bloom , or even over. Ours are (apart from the Snowdrops) a couple of weeks off of being at their best. Unfortunately I am very busy for the next two weeks, so did not want to not cover a time that I really love in the garden, so you will see in the following shots the ones that are out now & maybe, just maybe, in three weeks time when I have recovered from my business the best will still be here.

Before I start talking about any of the plants I must confess most of them I am unaware of their names, but with some help from SWMBO, I hope I have got the right names for them.

Those first two are of a plant that grows wild around here & goes through all different shades of colour, as you can see from the above shots. I hope I am correct in saying it is a Polonaria. What we both like about this plant is that once it is established it will stand up to almost anything the Cairngorms weather throws at it.

Next we have the Heathers, of course a true Scottish favourite & as we get older we are filling the garden with them, as long as you give them a haircut after they have bloomed to stop them from going leggy, they need very little other maintenance, but give you great coverage & bloom.

Next come the humble Crocus, not many of these in our garden, but what we do have are attractive, that is as long as the birds don’t get them first. For some reason, especially sparrows, the birds like to peck off the stems, maybe the sap is tasteful, not sure, but you can have a great display one day & the next they are all flat on the ground. The second shot of a single Crocus is amusing, this one decided to come up in the turning circle of our drive & whenever I have had to turn the car round, the wife has said mind the Crocus. Somehow I actually to avoid it every time & at last it has died back so I don’t have to avoid it.

I followed the Crocus on with the iconic Spring plant, the Primrose, only a few out in the garden at the moment & the few that are out, as you can see, are all different shades of yellow. I like when the purple & pink ones join them & make a cracking display.

The Hacquetia (think that is right) though not a flower (again I think) it is a brack, but is still a colourful addition to Spring in the garden.

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All Winter the next plant, a member of a large family of plants & not sure which one this is, has given us a bit of colour as you come to our front door, now in Spring it gives us this almost Autumn colouring which is very bright & affective. makes you smile as you come around the corner of the house.

See what I mean about the plant above?

Next is this little bulb that is described in the plant book I am using as ” A cheery small bulb, good for naturalising in borders or grass” at the end of the paragraph it adds ” No maintenance required other than to control the self seeding”. So now you can see why we love this bulb, it is so prolific in our garden and such a bright blue it is gorgeous. It is called a Scilla, just plant & let it take over, nothing else will fill your garden with such brightness as this little plant

Lastly I doubt there is hardly a garden in Britain that doesn’t have a Daffodil or two in their garden. Our are not really out yet, a few are when they are South facing & also the miniature ones, but the real display of main crop ones are still to come.

So Spring has started, but way from finishing & I expect we will have another dumping of snow before summer (especially if my neighbour Rod is not here ) (sorry in joke), but we do enjoy our crop of Spring flowers.

Most of you will be aware that Red Squirrels are the minority species of the two we have in the U.K. . Mainly due to the pox that Greys carry that has killed a large number of Reds, but doesn’t kill the Greys who just are carriers. But here in the Cairngorms we have a stronghold of Red’s & our garden is no exception to that. The most we have had at any one time was 5, but we do have 3 regular visitors to our garden feeders, in fact they eat more of our peanut supply than the birds do. The nearest Greys to us are only 20 miles away in Dunkeld, though we did have one stray to up here on a neighbours feeder, that I managed to dispatch of within an hour of it’s arrival.

All the visitors have a different approach to us humans, one in particular doesn’t pay much attention to us, providing you don’t look directly at it. Though it doesn’t mind the camera lens being focused on it & it is very photogenic. Most of the shots below I took this morning of that one animal, just in time before the snow arrived.

The 5 shots below show the various feeding places for them. The first was by the pond where I placed some Sunflower seeds to attract some birds down to takes some shots of, but the Squirrel sniffed them out & got in before the birds.

Second also on the ground but after he had found a peanut loose from when I filled the feeder. This one was first thing in the morning after I had just filled the feeding trough that was visible in my last post.

Fourth is a standard peanut holder but it hangs by it’s back legs & lifts the feeder for ease of extracting the nut, last one is just prising out nuts from our long feeders, note how its feet just grip into the feeder.

The next two show where & how they like to eat their bounty. The first shows today’s visitor having just eaten a nut & ready to have another go, if you look along the perch just to the right of the Squirrel you can see the string going down to the feeder that it eating from in two shots above this. Sometimes (as in the second shot below) they do not bother coming up to the perch to eat, they just hang by their hind legs & eat upside down, how they swallow the nut from that position I do not know.

The last shot is a very rare event, two Squirrels eating from the same feeder. Normally they will scrap over territory & this was the only time I have seen this happen. All I can think is that it was a parent & babe & the parent showing the youngster where the local café is. Or a couple out on a date for a birthday celebration.

Here I am in the middle of February, on the edge of the Cairngorms, in near Summer weather. So mild it is truly unbelievable, tomorrow we are set to beat the previous highest February temperature by one degree, going up to over 18C, ridiculous. Of course we would be complaining that we were totally snowed in with a perma frost developing, but this sort of heat is a bit silly. Again I must be realistic & state winter can go on well into May up here, so maybe I should just enjoy this sort of weather while it last’s. One major advantage is we are able to get out on walks without getting frostbite & today we did just that with a walk around the Castle grounds.

As you can see no visitors today so was able to grab this shot with just one staff car in my way.

The main reason for the walk was to see the Snowdrops, which are in full bloom. Down South of course they are all but finished & the yellow of Daffodils are more prominent, but with us this is Snowdrop time. The Castle have developed a Snowdrop Walk through the woods with thousands of bulbs making a wonderful show, below are a few shots I took of them.

Also on the estate grounds all the Highland Ponies are down from their normal stalking stables & have added a shot of these.

On the estate (just above the Castle there is a Folly, now what large estate would consider themselves complete if they didn’t have a building that had no practical use whatsoever such as a Folly. I have just entered this one into my Canon monthly competition with the subject of Symmetry, don’t expect to win, but I do put something in each month.

What Blog from me would be complete without a photo of a bird? while taking the above shot of the folly, I saw a Treecreeper creeping up an adjacent tree. Now I think I have said if you get close enough to these wee birds they tend to freeze & try & blend in with the tree, this one did just that. Only problem was it did it with a twig in front of it which slightly ruins the shot, but that’s photography.

Well I put the mockers on it by saying winter is on its way last blog. A small amount of snow last night but temperatures went down to minus ten & has been below zero all day. Must admit this is a cracking day with the weak sun showing off the snow on the hills & trees, plus of course (my usual enjoyment) loads of birds & animals about.

This first shot shows the view from the house across towards the farm, the black spots are in fact Geese who have an uncanny knack of wakening me predawn as they fly over the house, always the same route, so these fields must be in a line from their overnight roost.

This is the drive up to our house that as the only permanent resident still fit enough to clear it, I tend to clear sufficiently that an emergency vehicle can reach us, because, as you can see, it is fairly steep.

This is my bird feeding station, which as you can see the Red Squirrel uses a fair bit, the box to the right of the squirrel is its box full of peanuts & can be funny when they go in it as sometimes all you can see it’s tail hanging out. Below the squirrel is a peanut feeder, Black Sunflower seed holder & 3 Niger feeders. The log on which the squirrel is sitting is hollowed out & filled with a scoop of seeds daily. Up the tree on the left is an apple holder which we can spike an apple to for just a bit of variety to the birds diet. The v shaped stand on the Silver Birch is for the jar of Peanut Butter that they consume in three days. To the right of that you can see part of my hide that I sit & photograph the wildlife in. Very often the birds will sit on the roof wile I am inside waiting their turn on the Peanut Butter.

Print about 2″ long

Again print just over 2″

This set a big bigger at 3″.

So the last 3 shots I would like you to guess what animal these footprints are from & I will try & remember to give you the answers in the next blog, or you could send me your answers.

Went for a great cold frosty walk & took a few photos as usual, trying hard to get a different angle on shots than normal. This one is of the Castle taken through the trees from about 400 yards away, okay I never got the entrance in, but the windows & roof structure is what interested me.

Normally when people visit the Castle they take a photo of the drive from the entrance end, this is taken from the opposite end. I think it shows the straightness of the drive better & the density of the trees that line it. To the right of this shot is the enclosure where the Red Deer I kept, these seem to have no real purpose but to be there for the tourist, one stag & a bunch of does, one of which posed for me to get this shot.

One of our favourite small (level) walks is around Loch Dunmore (where the Enchanted Forest is held), this week as the temperature has hovered below zero the Loch has started to freeze over, but the ever present pair of swans are strong enough to break the ice around the edges & them and the Mallard take advantage of this. Being close to the edge makes them much easier to photograph & the next few shots are my attempt to do just that. The first one shows the classic love heart pose that Swans enjoy showing us. Sorry you have this shot repeated, but have not got the technology to remove it.

Thursday we experienced a decent snow fall but that didn’t stop my misses from doing her daily 10,000 steps, where I at present have damaged the soft tissue in my knee, so took the car up the glen to take the few shots below. Nice & sunny but bitterly cold, but SWMBO was well wrapped up. The second & third shots are of the two Munros together & though not heavily covered in snow do make some attractive shots for photographers. The buildings in the second shot are of a working farm, which must be hard work at this time of the year.

Hope to get a few more shots like these as our Winter settles in.

Firstly may I wish you all a Happy New Year, may it be a good one for all of you & I hope to have the inspiration to write on here a bit more often.

As you can see I have somehow worked out how to add some of my shots to the post (all by myself as well). Unfortunately I haven’t mastered putting the text first YET, so you will see the photos first instead of after my comments.

Thought I would start 2019 off with a bang, though I have cheated a bit, the first two shots of the fireworks were taken the Saturday before New Year, as I think there must have been a wedding at Blair Castle, these started up at 11pm & as you can see by the standard of the shots it was my first attempt at taking fireworks. Had to have my big lens for these as they were well over half a mile away from the house.

The next shot shows the type of weather we had over Christmas, plenty of snow the week before (see bird shots), but unbelievably mild over the festive time with us mainly shrouded in the mist, do not think we went below 8C for days. The particular shot was from our house looking across the glen.

In the next shot it was the Friday after Christmas & a beautiful sunny day with just our Munro’s tops covered in the clouds, thought about a wee stroll up, but what was the point with no view? (if you believe that you do not know me).

What blog from me would be complete without showing off some of our wonderful birds we have in the garden. I have set my hide up so that I can focus on our pond & the birds drinking from it. The first one the ever photogenic Robin, it came down on the ice of the pond for what I presumed was a drink, but instead it ducked it’s head down into the water & plucked out a stem of weed. This it then took up onto the snow & proceeded to eat it (as shown in the next shot). Then of course I had to take a shot at the Blue Tit as it really showed out against the white of the snow.

Lastly a shot of my “old” fishing buddy (actually he is a lot younger than me), who has discovered a new string to his bow (get it). Trevor is not only one of the best anglers I have had the pleasure to fish with, he took up archery a few years ago & is now coming home with plenty of medals from Scottish competitions, both indoor & out. This is him practicing at home with one of his many bows. Well done Trev so good to see such dedication, though it does mean I had less trips out fishing with him than other years.

Sorry I have not been online for a while, but I have an excuse. I am useless with anything new in technology, so when my eldest son gave me the most marvelous combined late birthday early Christmas present a wonderful mini desktop computer, the size of a double pack of playing cards, I knew I would have teething problems. Don’t get me wrong he spent a fair while of his weekend with us (suffering from jet lag having flown in from New York) setting everything up, transferring everything over from my old computer, explaining everything to me (this of course went straight over my head) & showing me things that I would never have thought possible from such a minute little machine. But now I am operating the system without his presence I am struggling & will have to wait until January when he is next over to get it sorted as when he tries to explain what to do over the phone I struggle to understand & he (sometimes) loses it with me.

So what has all this to do with my blog? Well I seem unable to put any photos into my library & as I wanted to show you our influx of birds that have come to us for the winter, this is a bit of a problem. I have tried various methods to import these shots, but none seem to be working. So unless my son reads this & sends me a 20 page email explaining in laymen terms what to do, there will be no shots until January.

The largest collection of new birds in the garden are Goldfinches, with anything up to 20 arriving on the feeders at once, mainly eating Niger Seed, but also sunflower hearts. These I think would be coming from the colder climes on the continent & have found a haven to keep them fed all winter. On the other hand flocks of Long Tailed Tits are feeding on the peanuts & I guess these are local but are happier eating from the feeders rather than forging in the woods.

Large flocks of geese (are they a Gaggle?) fly over head daily going into the local fields & waterways, returning with their usual noisiness early evenings.  Not many Redwings or Fieldfares about yet, so the Blackbirds are feasting on the berries instead, so if any of the former do come to the garden there will not be to much food for them.

We have a pair of Jays that now frequent the feeders, these are very aggressive if any other birds come near them, as is the Magpie that for the first time since we have been here is becoming an early morning regular to the garden.

The one bird I feel sorry for as it gets colder is our Buzzards, most of their diet seems to be worms & with the ground getting colder, the worms are going deeper & it makes it more difficult for the Buzzards to feed on them. I often get a pheasant given to me & in my old age cannot be bothered to pluck them & roast a whole bird, so normally just pull back the skin to expose the breast, cut them out & then throw the rest of the carcass out into the field. Within an hour one or two Buzzards will find it & eat away, while I photograph them from afar. Sometimes if disturbed they will fly off with the body, but often just sit on the power cable poles & wait for me to clear off & are back on it. This year when they flew off on one occasion, the Magpie was down like a shot & ate before the Buzzard returned. I always throw the carcass in roughly the same spot & I wonder if the shepherd thinks “why do all these pheasants die in this spot?”

As for village life, Table Tennis is going from strength to strength with an average of 12 each week, with some folks coming from Pitlochry to enjoy our fun, some are missing in the winter as the Curling has started in earnest, but it is good to see such numbers enjoying their weekly exercise. We are trying to start a junior session before the adults, first week last week, but despite kids expressing an interest before the start, nobody turned up, but we will keep going & hopefully the word will spread & we can get it off the ground.

As we are nearing December we shall have the turning on of the village Christmas lights & the arrival of F.C. for the children, plus the indoor Christmas market. All of which I hope to take some photos of, but if you will see them before January is any bodies guess, my lack of technology is embarrassing.

Okay it is a, one day past, full moon & when we have a full moon this time of the year & clear skies it is normally a frost. BUT, woke up to a thin layer of snow at our level & loads on the hills. So can we say this is the start of winter, or, just a hic-cup in Autumn? lets hope it is just the latter, as really this could be a looooong Winter.

Having such a good light (the golden hour to photographers) I wanted to capture this for you all. But just out of bed, zero degrees Centigrade, wind factor making it a lot colder, there was no chance of me going out in my dressing gown for a photo. So logically, the best view was from the bedroom (apart from the electric cables in a couple of shots) opening the bedroom window was the way to get the shots. Now the bedroom was snug & warm with the wife sitting up reading, so in order to get my shots the window had to be open to the elements as short as possible. From the reaction, maybe I wasn’t quiet quick enough :).

But I got the shots I wanted, first & second are looking North from the window, what I find strange is that our side of the hills looks thickish snow but the wind was blowing from the North, so the last shot (looking South) should in theory have more snow on it, but it hasn’t. Maybe one of you educated lot can tell me why this is?

Lets hope we do not get any more snow until at least December 24th & it is a mild Winter, as us oldies still have to clear the driveway of snow.

 

 

 

 

I really love the fact that in Britain we get all four seasons & as I grow older I realise that this is by far my favourite one. As a child you of course love the summer with school holidays & I am sure a lot more regular warm & sunny days than the unpredictable ones at present. But give me Autumn every time now.

Here in “Big Tree Country” as this area of Perthshire is known, we tend to get a much more colourful Fall as the Americans call it, our equivalent to New England I suppose. But just as attractive are the small everyday garden bushes, as the  pyracantha (Fire Thorn) shows in the first 3 pictures, I think they are 3 different verities of the same family, but they look great this year & the Blackbirds love the berries.

The last two days have been freezing overnight (down to minus 2C again) but the days have been wonderful clear skies & sunny, with just a nip in the air, proper Autumn weather. But Saturday was wet all day & blowing a gale, hence in the next shot you will see the Acer has lost half it’s leaves already, we normally get a couple of weeks show out of this wonderful colourful bush, not this year a week at the most.

The next shot shows you why we love our view, this is looking down towards the village in a south westerly direction from our house, two days ago the direction  was where we were watching the rain coming from, hardly seeing the first lot of trees, now look at it.

Lastly looking from the field at the front of the house, back towards our home, even the common old Silver Birch looks splendid & hasn’t dropped all it’s leaves yet, plenty of gutter clearing when it does.

 

I know, Loch Dunmore & The Enchanted Forest are a mile outside The Cairngorms, but I am so involved with the place & event I cannot help writing a “few” words & photos of the place. My involvement stems around the fact that 1/ I am the chairman of the Angling club that has the coarse fishing rights to fish there. 2/ I love the place for it’s peace, tranquility & quality fish. 3/ I need to protect all of this from those terrible artist who create this marvelous annual show (joke Simon & Kate). 4/ The people who bring the public this spectacular display are the greatest team you could ever want to work with. Lastly 5/ I love every minute of rowing the crews out with the pumps & lights, great exercise & fresh air.

The show is on for a month with an expected visitor number of about 80,000 & is a light & sound show, covering an area of about 3 acres.

First three shots is me trying to be all artistic, taken in daylight but with the spotlights on the leaves.

Fourth shows you how a red lamp can transform a common Silver Birch into something magical.

Five to seven are trees just flooded with light to give a great affect when it is a dark evening.

The next two are balls the size of a football lit up in various colours, going some 40feet up conifers, changing colour in time to music & giving a wonderful reflection onto the water.

The last two are of various wicker works around the display area, the mask’s maybe 4ft in size, while the whole one I deliberately showed the traffic cones in to give you some idea of it’s size. It is the entrance to the show & it just gets better as you go round. In fact this year, with its nature theme has been hailed as the best show ever.

I am sorry but more shots will follow sometime of the incredible water screen projection of animals in the centre of the main loch.