Cairngorms Life

When I lived on the Bristol Channel area of the West of England it was famous for its magnificent sunsets facing west & relatively flat land you got them in all their glory. But I am sorry to say here in the Cairngorms I think we better them, not sure if it because the hills add that extra special dark shadows over the land, making the sky look even more dramatic, or, the unpolluted clean air we have. Not very often that we get such a clear crisp day, with plenty of sunshine as today & when you do you just think “tonight’s sunset could be good” & boy it was good tonight. It does help that our main windows all face West & that we can see it getting better & better as the sun sets.

I hope my photography shows it off to its best, not post processed these images at all, this is as it was (honest).

Just a bit of news from the village, on Thursday the church hall was taken over by the Pitlochry Medical practice to provides all the village “old” folk (over 65) with their flu jabs. This is a real community event & everybody meets people they most probably have not seen since last years jab, so a lot of blethering goes on & such fun, as we all move along to await our turn. A bit like musical chairs without the music. Anyway a grand total of 85 folks had their jabs, just shows you what a fit & fairly healthy bunch of “oldies” we have here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is getting close to the time in The Cairngorms where things start to close down for the winter. A list of our favourite haunts that will be shut from 31st of this month include :- The Mill, no more strolls down the hill for coffee & bread until Easter next year. The Boathouse in Pitlochry, another watering hole. The Coultard’s lovely little gift hut  in the village & the Country Life Museum also in the village.

The Museum has won allsorts of awards over the years & shows a permanent exhibition every year, plus a special one on a set topic each year, for example the anniversary of the railway coming to Blair Atholl & the likes.

It is run by volunteers and all visitors who attend really enjoy the yesteryear experience, some of the older people like me, even remember a lot of the exhibits. A few older locals remember when this was their school & can even tell you where they set in each room. It is a wonderful reminder of the hardships people had in “the good old days” & just how hard (but enjoyable) life was.

Some of the tasks & clothing I have photographed below, which is laid out so well, they also have an original, turn of the last century Post Office as it was installed, all such interesting things for old to reminisce over & the young to look in disbelief at. Might encourage you to visit the village next year.

One consolation, the Table Tennis stays open, as do many functions in the village hall, Halloween free party for the children, Christmas Fair, turning on of the village Christmas lights plus a visit from Santa. So I will still have “stuff” to write about.

 

 

Have been suffering a bit of Man Flu for a few days & just haven’t really been out much. So sitting on the settee at the window  got the camera out, hence the not to brilliant images as they were taken through the double glazing.

The first & last shots are of a very special bird at our house The Wren, we love wrens & this winter it looks like we have acquired a resident one. It skits about the garden looking in every nook & cranny, of which we have plenty. There are not many days that we do not see it & it just brings a real smile to you, seeing how industrious it is.

The next one is an occasional visitor & very shy & reserved The Tree Creeper, it certainly lives up to it’s name, creeping along with it’s long claws gripping on to any surface.

Next a very common bird in our garden & in most Scottish gardens The Chaffinch, in this case two males picking up scraps of seed I had thrown out of the feeder.

Though most of you will know the next one is  a Blackbird, this is not your normal Blackbird. This is one of our winter imports, just a slight colour variation to our normal ones. I think this one is a female & most probably flew in from Scandinavia or even Russia. We have maybe 6 or so that come back to us every year & we know they are the same family as the previous year as they come straight to the backdoor to be fed sultanas. Not a bit shy or hesitant at coming down to feed, they just feel at home straight away.

Lastly we have The Greater Spotted Woodpecker, started of a few years ago with just a couple in the garden, now they arrive daily with their offspring & a total of at least 6 spread around the feeders in the garden. This one tends to own this feeder & the jar of peanut butter a bit higher up, it did allow this years offspring to eat from the jar, but he seems to have prohibited that now.

The abundance of birds in our garden allowed me to take these six shots in just over 5 minutes & I hope I have portrayed the love we have for wildlife, even if their monthly food bill is as high as our own.

 

 

 

I know it is very British to talk about the weather, but this is a strange one. We are forecast for very strong winds over the next couple of days the tail end of one of the American hurricanes. But today though we have had some very heavy downpours, not a breath of wind, maybe this is why they say “the calm before the storm”.

The noticeable thing now is the colour of the sky, it is very cloudy & overcast to such an extent we have had the house lights on for most of the day. Now though it has gone a very dusty, dull,  mustard colour outside while being bright on the trees, it is as though the clouds are acting as a huge filter for the sun, I can honestly say I have never seen a colour like it. A depressing, low cloud piece of scenery, that I am not sure I have fully captured in the two shots below. I have not post processed them in any way, so it is showing just what the camera saw, which is a very weird experience. Not sure if this is what the Doomsday Experience would be like, but it creates that sort of impression.

P.S. sorry about the electric pylon & cable , but it is there in such an awkward place that spoils the tree image.

 

In the last post I said about there being plenty of Geese arriving, well today they came in their hundreds. The farm opposite (due to the weather) combined a field of Barley only last week & this is the field that the Geese have discovered. I expect there is a lot of grain in the field & they are fattening themselves up on that. I was a bit late taking the shot below (no I didn’t use my gun, purely with the camera). By this time , looking at the volume in this picture, at least 500 hundred had gone into the field & I was left with what I have counted as 147 Geese. Maybe you will count a different amount in the picture, but that is “roughly” what I have counted. Challenge set.

 

 

 

Yesterday was such a mild day, rather cloudy, but glimpses of that big glowing ball in the sky that gives the Cairngorms such wonderful light this time of the year, not much heat, but a good light. During our daily walk managed to capture these images.

First is our neighbours home Blair Castle, timed it so well to get that magical light shining down on it. As you can see the Autumnal colours are reaching their peak, though the strong winds we had last week seem to have blown a lot of leaves of the trees prematurely. This view is not used a great deal for advertising the castle, as there is also a good spot in a lay-by on the A9, which many photographers use. Plus the fact that this view is on a neighbouring estate.

The second shot is of the geese that are arriving to stay the winter, on our hour walk yesterday we must have seen at least 500 birds flying over. For days now they have been flying in & when I came home last night (in the dark) I could still here loads coming over our house. Most probably taking advantage of the near full moon to assist them.

Third shot is of the small area of young Silver Birch & how over the year we have seen them changing, now in this splendid golden yellow hue. A bit disappointed as this area you can nearly always reckon to see at least two Roe Deer & with that background they would have stood out well. Thinking about it , that is most probably why they are not there, not much camouflage for them.

Lastly this is the biggest clump of fungi I have ever seen, we just stood & stared in wonder at such a site. I know it is a great year for fungi, but, that is staggering, there was a further two stumps behind these which had just as many. Not much-room for many more. 🙂

 

 

Took my youngest son & partner to E.F. last night & these are a small collection of the 50 odd shots I took. The first bunch is of the sequence of lights accompanied by music , all taken from the same spot just to show you how lights can make these Silver Birch come alive .Of course you all will have your favourite the consensus within the family is for number4, but I think they all look good in the own way. The last shot of the taller trees shows how well the Loch is suited to this type of environment , only problem is there was so much going on at eye level that not that many people were looking up. If they  had not only would they have been able to admire these wonderful trees, but also seen the Bats having a field day with all the Moth’s etc. being attracted to the lights. Not sure what type of bats, so when I go down on Tuesday night I am going to take my Bat Detector & try & find out.

Heard an interesting tale from one of the stewards on duty. Saturday night is the night that the local youngsters try & sneak in through the woods to see the show without paying. Stewards are placed around the woods to deter this, but there are so many different paths in, some will always get in. To prove that they succeeded you have to take a selfie & meet up at the pub after to prove you got in. As the tickets are £20 per head on weekends, thay have done well if they can get in.

 

 

 

It is I know the time of the year for fungi, but this year seems a prolific year for them. All of the shots below were taken in my garden & when we are out for a walk there are plenty more around. I have no idea which is which (though I have an excellent guide book on them), it is strange that a few years ago I would have studied all of them & would have known their names, strange but I just do not seem to have the time now.

One thing that is annoying me is that I just have not bothered walking the mile or so up the road to pick my favourite Chanterelles, just love the taste of them & they are really very prolific up here under the Birch trees. If we get rid of these high winds & heavy showers that may be a job for me tomorrow, so watch this space for some shots of them before I pick them.

 

 

The weather here in the Cairngorms has been strange all year, is it global warming, I’m not sure? It does annoy me that the weather forecasts are not that accurate these days. I must admit the weather in Scotland has always been changeable from one glen to another, but take today, we were forecast a bright sunny morning & I was ready for a day of chain sawing our conifers to a controllable height. What happened it was pouring with rain, stopped now, but still looks menacing up there & it is only an hour until Spurs are on the telly, such a dilemma.

If I thought todays sky looks menacing, look at the near end  of the world biblical sunset we had last night. That huge black, black cloud sitting above the sun making it so dark it was very weird. Even more weird was the fact that no rain came out of that mass?

 

 

 

Last night was press night for The Enchanted Forest that I have talked about before, went to the opening reception which was very good (mainly because of the food & wine), then got taken by coach to the Loch. Excellent show again this year with some interesting concepts which included the usual light, water & music display. But also some new ideas, like the rainbow affect in the first photo, this is achieved by a fine water mist, with light played through it. Another idea was digital rain, just lights up trees that fall down like rain, a great site.

The other shots I have included are all from the water jets & lights I helped set up, these alter in height (& as you can see colour) in time with the music.