Cairngorms Life

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.

 

 

 

I think as we are that much further North than most of the rest of the U.K. and the fact that we have had two frost’s already, that we are more advanced in our Autumn colours. I am not a fan that we are now beyond Autumn Equinox and that the daylight is shorter than the night, even though we have longer daylight hours than most during the summer. But it does mean Winter is just around the corner. But I do so love this time of the year, even though a lot of plants have given up, the colours are fantastic. Give it a few weeks & I will be able to show you true Autumn colours from our wonderful Perthshire trees, after all this is the “Big Tree Country” with so many British records for their sizes.

Below are a few colourful areas from within the garden, SWMBO is particularly proud of that front door display which shows itself off so well at this time. The Cotoneasters are delightful as well, though I do not expect it will be long before the birds start to eat those berries. The large red leaved plant ( I am not the gardener so do not know it’s name) is beside the garden pond and looks wonderful. Also you can see we still have a wee bit of bedding plant colour left in the garden , but not much.

 

 

 

 

 

As I told you in a previous post I am very much involved in the Enchanted Forest, in fact I have spent 4 days down there so far with 2 days being really full ones working from 8am until 7pm , all on the main fountain show, which when I left Friday still was not complete, so no photos of that. The shots I have included are of finished sections. There are two Lighthouses made by the same lady who made the archway in my previous blog on the E.F. The umbrella’s are fairly topical as it has been a very wet week to be working, they all have their own lights & look great in the dark. As Loch Dunmore is in the middle of the woods the production team take advantage of this & light up a fair few trees, which you either like or do not, I love them. Behind the blue bush you may just be able to make out some mist sprays, though I have not seen the lights on these apparently each mist spray will have it’s very own rainbow.

Under 10,000 tickets are now left, so we are hoping for good weather for all those visitors. Press night is on Wednesday (to which I have been invited) & it all opens to the public on Friday, let’s hope it is all up & running by then as there has still some final touches to be done, but they are all on schedule.

Getting excited now.