Cairngorms Life

Well all we can hope for is that 2023 improves from last year . Both in easing of the pandemic, cost of (sort of) living, industrial disputes and up here ,at the moment, the weather.

1st.

With regard the weather we woke up this morning to four inches of snow and minus six temperature, as you will see below.

My poor old car, when I eventually got the car back home a couple of days ago, I couldn’t get it in the garage so had to leave it out, unaware we were getting so much snow, hence this is the result.

Just to prove we had four inches here it is stacked on my wing mirror.

Looks stunning but only the four wheel drive and snow tyres will get you up the hill.

This grand old oak tree looks so wonderful with snow on it.

2nd

The sun has risen on this beautiful clear day, with present temperature at minus nine C, so we have still got all our snow. The first two shots are of the mountains to the right of our house as viewed from our bedroom and the last are the mountains to our left. Log burner will be on the minute I am dressed. brrrrr.

13th.

For the first time in a few days we have had some sun instead of continuous rain. So went up the hill to see the Munro’s, unfortunately the low cloud was still covering some of the tops but took a few shots anyway.

The first shot you can see the cloud , in the second the slightly lower hills were below the cloud cover, but you can see from these the snow level at the moment and the cover. It is slowly melting and the rivers have really been in spate.

The melt continues on the lochs as well, as you can see from the first shot beneath the trees no ice, in the second a small bay by the bank is ice free the remainder (a bit whiter) is still frozen.

When walking a ridge in the field I spooked six Roe Deer, by the time I got my camera up I just captured ones backside, can you spot it?

This looks like my neighbours back garden (sorry Rod) but is in fact another “mole city” up on the Glen Fender meadows.

Went off to Pitlochry after above photo’s and called into Loch Dunmore, where this huge Pine tree has fallen into the water onto the ice. As this is a very productive place to fish we are hoping Forestry and Land Scotland can get it cleared before the start of the season.

16th.

Not the greatest of shots, but this is a sight you do not see very often. About a mile away from home on the opposite side of the glen from us was this herd of Red Deer stags, I zoomed in on my screen and though very blurred I counted roughly one hundred and eighty deer, which is a fair old herd. With binoculars I could see they were all stags which is normal this time of the year as they congregate after the rut, while the females go off by themselves before they have their young. The reason the herd is this side of the hill is because with the sun being so low this time of the year the other side does not see any of it, so is frozen most of the time , where this side does get some sun and therefore it is easier to get at the ground below the snow. Does not matter how many times I see this sight it still excites me.

This is for most of us a busy time of the year and I am no exception to that, this year we are going over to East Ayrshire top spend the Christmas break with my son and his partner, plus our son is flying in from New York . Therefore this will be most probably the shortest post I will send out.

21st

With my eldest coming in to Edinburgh Airport he thought it would be great if we spent a couple of nights in Edinburgh in an extremely good hotel, which we willingly agreed to (obviously). So a pre Christmas break where we ate well and enjoyed a great time with our son.

Edinburgh was full of Christmas and many establishments in George Street had some wonderful displays plus an ice rink and this frightening ride that seemed to go very close to the buildings on either side of the closed off road.

The next two shots are the stars in the new St James shopping mall.

The next two are from Princess Street Gardens where the Christmas market was. I was a bit disappointed in this as it was mainly all food and not enough gift stalls.

Christmas Eve we went for lunch to Troon Harbour and had a fantastic meal overlooking the marina.

27th.

On our way home after having a wonderful family Christmas we had snow all the way from Glasgow and the journey home took us an hour longer than normal. Well I say home we made it , but the car did not. The following sequence of the journey up our single track road roughly two hundred yards from home. The secret to driving on compacted ice and snow is to keep a constant speed in the appropriate gear. We had good speed and got up the hill for three quarters of a mile, but this double bend was the end of our cars journey, so we had to park up in that turning on the left of the shot and walk the essentials up a very slippy road to home.

Bearing in mind these shots were taken the next day, you can imagine how bad it was with falling snow on it the day before. I managed to get around those two bends, but only twenty five yards further before having to “sort of” park it up the verge opposite that outbuilding.

29th

At last got the car home.

Our landscape with the mist rising off the river.

Well silly me I said I would not have much content for this blog, turns out I was wrong. See you next year.

What is getting closer? Well we automatically think of Christmas as we enter December and that is not many days off and I am sure if most of you are as organised about it as my wife, you could have it tomorrow, cards purchased,(tick) . Cards written and posted (tick) Turkey purchased and in the freeze, in case there really is a shortage (tick). Decorations down from the loft and mostly up (tick). Christmas tree picked out of the garden but not yet felled in case it looses to many needles early (tick). So yes she is organised and it is definitely closer for her.

More important to me is the weather is getting closer to proper December weather instead of this abnormally mild conditions we have been having. a North wind will blow and later this week we SHOULD have snow, let us see.

9th

It has happened our first snow at our level of the season, so just for you I braved the cold and went out with the camera and took these few shots below, all before I went in and lit the log burner.

Just showing you what the temperature was at eleven this morning, having been (as you can see by the reading) minus five overnight it is still sitting on minus four at this hour.

First job after snow is feed the birds then straight into clearing our driveway, the road had already been gritted by ten thirty, so it was just the drive.

The Goldfish do not eat much in this sort of weather so fairly deep down in the pond, with the pump keeping a channel from freezing right over.

Guess who never put the car in the garage last night?

Just to show you our single track road had been salted by the gritter, one great service we get to enable the school children up the glen to be picked up.

A few shots follow of a (not to long out and about) walk I took and the things that caught my eye, including this fence post.

The barbed wire .

A couple of seed heads.

Plenty of berries for the birds to feast on over winter, but I honestly think they prefer the sultanas we feed them.

Lastly an optical illusion, this looks like a branch well buried in the snow, it is in fact a twig growing out of the parapet of our road bridge and about six inches high.

11th

Last night the snow was washed away at our level by rain and sleet, but up on the Munros it fell as snow and added a bit more white to the scenery. A sunny morning but still at minus three.

The distant hills towards Rannoch are that bit lower than a Munro so as you can see didn’t get the same level of snow. Still a cracking view though.

The cairn on the hill opposite us has just a dusting, waiting for a bit more depth so that we will see the stags coming to this spot to feed.

Twenty past ten in the morning and the moon is still visible for another half hour or so.

12th.

I am sorry if this next batch of photos bore you but I am so fascinated with them that I could not decide which ones not to show you, so you got the lot.

The temperature overnight dropped to minus twelve degrees C and when I took these shots around ten am it was still minus ten. The first two are our external wood shed door, with the frost making incredible patterns.

These next TEN are baubles hanging from my trees and lights, the patterns are not printed on the balls, they are genuine frost collected on them, making them even more special.

13th.

This weather minus thirteen last night, sure gives you some wonderful photography. I can only manage twenty minutes or so before I have to get in to the warm living room with the log burner, but that time is well spent. Though this first shot was taken through the d/g of the bedroom.

A beautiful Fieldfare taking advantage of the bumper berry crop this year, looked straight at me for the shot , thank you Fieldfare.

The weir on the River Fender that allows water to be taken off to the hatchery that used to be the tank for the trains to fill up on down in the village. The green canvas at the top of the shot is protecting that flow from freezing up to continue to feed the hatchery.

Close up shows the water coming over the weir is mostly frozen with a flow coming over the top of the ice.

Even closer shows the balls of ice that look like giant cotton wool buds.

If the first three days of the start of this blog are anything to go by it could be a very wet finish to the month. We have had torrential rain all three days and as you will see from the first set of shots below the rivers are reflecting this. Our county even got a mention on the national weather forecast this morning as getting the worst of the rain. It is at least getting colder, a bit nearer the average temperature for the month, but no sign of snow on the hilltops, let alone at our level.

18th.

During a short break in the rain (well just a drizzle compared to overnight) I went out in the car to photograph all three of the rivers that flow within our village boundary.

Firstly comes the little river that is fifty yards downhill from our home the Fender. This at the bottom of our hill joins the ——

River Tilt which is most probably double the height it normally is. This river about two hundred and fifty yards further on joins the ———

River Garry, in fact if you look along the river you will see the water line where the Tilt joins.

Due to the weather I didn’t go any further along the Garry’s course as this outside Pitlochry joins the River Tummell, which then goes on a further ten miles and joins the mighty River Tay.

Not wanting to be left out the small lade that feeds the watermill (the one with the cracking cafe that I always go on about) has a fair bit of water in it also.

22nd

So what happens three days after the above post? Below is what happens.

Our two nearest Munro’s get a good dusting of snow and the temperature drops down to minus three at night and did not go above five during the day for the next three days. Though a memory on Facebook tells me eleven years ago on this day we had four inches of snow on the drive, so not fully back to normal conditions for this time of the year.

27th.

The weather soon reverted back to rain and more or less hasn’t stopped for the last two days and nights, so looks like this could be our normal pattern with global warming. The River Fender (that I showed you at the beginning of the blog) has not captured the water off the hills yet but still had a good flow on it as these two shots show from this morning.

Looks so peaceful here just before it hits the small weir.

This is it before and after the weir. You can tell the power it does have when in spate by the size of those trees hanging over the weir, that had been washed down the river.

2nd.December.

These last two are from a trip fifty miles East, well out of the Cairngorms, but I wanted to show you a contrast. Exactly twelve years ago today (according to my Facebook memory slot) we walked half a mile up from our house and stood in knee deep snow. Today we went along Loch Tay to Killin and it was eight C and a calm mild day, foggy and not even on the “tops” was there any snow.

Loch Tay from Kenmore.

We stopped on the way back at The Inn on The Tay for some lunch, here is where the International canoeing slaloms takes place and plenty of water in the river for that today. The wires are for placing the poles that the canoeist have to negotiate.

Unusual for this month as by now we have normally had snow on the peaks of the Munro’s, so far nothing, but the weather is very unusual for November. The first and second day are prime examples as I will now show you.

1st.

Starting at the top of this sequence, when I drew back the curtains this morning it was daylight because the clocks had gone back, so the birds were already active. The first thing I saw and heard was this male Chaffinch singing his heart out trying to attract a mate?? Then I looked at where the noisy Sparrows were on the garage roof. There were in fact seven Sparrows and they were fighting over their hotel nestbox sites, in fact one was even taking dry grass into one of the holes as though they were nest building??

We then had a morning in Dunkeld in temperatures up to twelve Centigrade, sun out gorgeous sunshine and I went off to Loch of Lowes to see if anything was about to photograph. Nothing more than a bunch of Mallard, but decided to show you the empty Osprey nest across the loch (centre of the shot) if you zoom in you will see the cctv camera that you can watch live all day and night when the Ospreys are here.

On the way home spotted this herd of Fallow Deer next to the road just enjoying the warmth and good grass.

2nd.

What a difference a day makes overnight the temperature went down to minus four and a crisp sunny morning, proper weather for this time of the year, but I expect it was a wake up call for the Sparrows and Chaffinch of the previous day, no sign of nest building today. The sun soon burnt the frost off, but it remained a cold day. As you can see even Mr Mole felt the chill.

9th.

The photographers curse, I heard this flock of Geese coming from my left to the right, grabbed my camera (which for once had the correct lens on) tracked them in a straight line for about one hundred yards, expecting them to head a further one hundred yards to Blair Walker pond. What did they do, turn their backs on me and head off to a distant field behind the trees on the left. Typical.

10th.

Today was that kind of day, sunshine and showers, sometimes delivering the two at once to enable me to get this great rainbow shot from our garden.

15th.

You drive the thirty miles into Perth for a morning’s shopping in misty cloudy conditions, a s soon as you get there, down comes the rain. The wife also has a haircut due, so you had planned a trip down by the river for a bit of photography looking for the Kingfisher. But the rain gets heavy and the wind gets up, so I sit in the car reading my book instead.

A thoroughly miserable morning with even heavier rain all the way up the A9 to home. But when you get out of the car the sight in the two shots above great you, our Pyracantha hedge and the Azaelea hanging onto their beautiful colours and the world is okay again, especially when you have unpacked the shopping and got the log burner roaring. Sorry about the rain spots on the lens but it was still pouring down (the things I do to provide you with photos)

As we come to the end of the month we are getting closer to the end of the year as well, the dreaded advertising is entering into the shops for the festive season and the colder weather. Also we are only a week away from the end of The Enchanted Forest, that I get so much pleasure from being involved in, I have been to the show for the last time this year last Friday (21st) and so the last batch of shots from it. I have not had chance of much photography apart from at the forest as I have been decorating our living room/dining room space. Well overdue according to my boss, though not a lot of difference in colour from last time, but it had to be done as we have also replaced three windows in the dining room end.

21st.

A vast show at Enchanted Forest, but such small details as this shot is what I really enjoy, simplicity, but effective.

On a still, slightly misty evening even though there were hundreds of folk around, scenes like these two are truly magical.

I decided that I would try some experimenting with some different camera techniques. All three of these last shots are taken at a five second exposure moving the camera and getting these affects. This first one is actually of the leaves in the shot above this one but slowly moving the camera from left to right during the exposure.

These two are a set of maybe a thousand fairy lights in amongst the trees (hence the vertical line down the middle of both shots), first one left to right, second just a slight movement . Love to know, was it worth it?

25th.

I make no excuses about loving Autumn and the colour it brings to the garden, it is my favourite season and I hope you do not mind me indulging in some more photos from within it. Couldn’t choose my favourites so I have put most of what I liked on here.

Just some of the colourful leaves close up.

The Acer is starting to lose it’s leaves but still look good piled up on the ground.

The Heathers still looking good.

The tub at the front door gives a warm welcome.

No real colour in the sky but the Birch brings gold into the garden.

The colours at the bottom of the field cheer you up when opening the curtains on a damp morning.

At the start of this month it (October) it feels like Winter not Autumn as in this first week we have had temperatures ranging from 3 to 7C overnight and browning the leaves of our Summer shrubs earlier than ever. This has been followed by record rainfalls and all our local rivers at a very high levels you will see below. I am not going back to Enchanted Forest until the 11th, but combined with the high winds I am certain that they have been kept very busy keeping everything in working order.

4th.

This is our normally easy flowing River Tilt, although a spate river leading into the River Garry it was an all-time high for me in the eighteen years, we have lived here I am sure it has not been this high. Not only this tree that was swept down, all sorts of debris was rushing down.

The power in the water was incredible and rocks that are normally uncovered were not even in sight.

Still shots do not do justice to the power in this flow.

I was a bit scared of the noise let alone the speed and power.

Normally the amount of this rock that is exposed is double what you can see in this shot and with a normal gentle flow, children jump off of it into a deep pool on the other side, I am certain nobody would survive if they jumped off it today, even getting on to it would be virtually impossible.

9th.

Just to add to the confusion over what season we are in, here are some shots of the flowers and shrubs in various states of decomposition or growth.

Looks like growth to me?

Definitely last legs.

Ready for the Redwings and Fieldfares.

Beautiful Autumn colours.

These have flowered their socks off all Summer.

Should be well dead by now, but in a sheltered position.

Heathers doing really well.

A Lupin very late.

Young Rowan in the change.

Colourful leaves.

11th.

Back to the Enchanted Forest light show for this my second visit , only one more to go on the 21st before it closes at the end of the month. The weather has not been kind to them with rain and wind meaning lots of maintenance work being carried out during daylight, but well done to them for keeping it going.

That big 8m circle that I showed you in previous shots projected on a fine gauze image of togetherness and included the two shots above of a child and a female runner.

The lights on the bridge showing a reflection on a fairly still, but wet night adding to the atmosphere. Plus with the second shot the ghostly looking figures crossing the bridge. The only problem with the bridge is that doing a figure of eight across it means a large footfall of people, making for queues and the added problem that everyone wants a photo on it slowing down the crowd all the more. We really need to be like the A9 road and have a dual carriageway maybe adding a temporary Baily type bridge.

With coloured lighting on the simplest of twigs gives you a whole new perception of that twig.

Two shots of the trees at the Southern end of the loch top one with a good reflection of the water.

Press night for the light show is the 28th and it appears to be going “roughly” to schedule, still some last-minute things to sort out hence these first days of the blog have been absent of content, A couple of shots away from the E.F. that I have taken for the blog.

23rd.

I have purchased a security light which activates when the Pine Martin is near the feeder, and this is one of many shots I have taken while sitting in our lounge, warm and cosy, not stuck in a hide in under ten C temperatures, I know I am a wimp.

24th.

The wife heard this strange noise in the air and alerted me to it and I grabbed this shot out of the window without the correct lens or settings on my camera, mainly because I had not seen one of these over us.

It is an American attack aircraft called an Osprey and is a vertical take-off and landing craft that has the ability to rotate its propellers ninety degrees up to the position that a helicopter has. Looked it up on Google and believe it or not the cost of EACH aircraft is SEVENTY MILLION dollars, unbelievable.

25th.

Last blog I showed you the start of the main display at the E.F. well this is one section of the complete panel, all the lights around the outside and the net screen for the projection section being fitted with no help by the wind. The floating platforms behind are the outriggers that attach to the wheel and contain their own rectangle screen when built, for any adjustments during the run the technicians have to walk the plank over those wobbly sections.

A simple Bramble when lit (even during the day) just takes on a new dimension.

The same goes for these trees.

The small bridge with fairy lights looks even better at night.

28th.

Shrubs and trees look wonderful at night with the different colours projected onto them. The last shot looks like camera shake but I did it deliberately to get a different affect.

So simple but affective, there are four glitter balls under the fairy light bridge the gives a wonderful display.

Trees floodlit and a bit of smoke introduced.

Trees across the southern end of the loch.

The main display at the Southern end of the loch was all through the trees with fifty odd lights changing colour , the added smoke just gives it a wonderful atmosphere.

The same area as above but just a different colour.

I shall add more shots mainly of the big display that I have shown you at the start of this E.F. section, I am going for the second time on the 11th of October so hang on until then.

I might struggle to keep this months blog inside the Cairngorms National Park as from Monday (5th) this years Enchanted Forest commences it’s build ready for the October show. Though not much will be needing a boat on Loch Dunmore I shall be involved in some of the build. So therefore I am trying to get some interesting subjects going before I start.

2nd. September.

I went fishing for Brown Trout up at the villager club water, way up in the hills above the stocked water at Blair Walker. I love this little pond as I normally have it to myself and though there are some good sized Trout in it most fish average half a pound and about nine / ten inches long, but such fun and wonderful conditioned fish. I of course took my camera up and though I never took a shot of the four fish I caught (honest) I suddenly thought I have not shown you the full extent of Blair Castles hydro electric scheme. So below is a untechnical trip for the water from source to power.

To start off this is water coming down of ditches across the hillside above Sarah’s Pond where I was fishing. This has been dug out mechanically with sides at a precise angle to give a good flow, though over the years of bankside growth you cannot see the angles.

This is Sarah’s pond, named after the factors wife, you have to be fairly accurate with your casting as there is a lot of weed this time of the year and landing your fish can be pretty tricky sometimes, especially once when I had a pound and a half wild fish on.

This is the outlet pipe from the pond where the water starts it’s journey down to the castle.

So the water flows from Sarah’s down to the castle for (as the crow flies) about a mile. The Arrow at the top is Sarah’s and the cross is the castle.

From Sarah’s it falls naturally down the hill and into our stocked lochan known as Blair Walker, or by it’s Gaelic name (as seen on the map above) Blairuachdar.

I include this shot to show you the speed it arrives at Blair Walker, a lot faster than when it left Sarah’s.

Built at the dam end of the lochan is this filter system set at a certain level, which in turn determines the level of the loch. Water during this time is just steadily flowing over the top and the area with all the debris on it is a fine graded metal mesh too stop that sort of material from going into the pipeline and down to the turbines at the castle. This is cleaned off by a castle worker daily and all fisherman are asked to sweep it away if fishing that area.

At the outlet of the filter is an overflow pipe in case of a blockage and all the electronic counting gear, plus of course the broom for clearing the debris.

This is the sluice to empty Blair Walker, I included this shot to coordinate the shot from up the hill looking down to the lochan where you can see the silhouette of the sluice in the water, next to the club hut.

When the water pipe gets down to the castle it goes into this pump house and if you can read the notice on the next shot it tells you the history of this building, going back to the first hydro scheme in 1908 and why the building is painted in green camouflage paint plus the skulls in the following shot.

Look on this board and you will see why the top pond was named Sarah’s.

Once the water has been through the turbine it is channelled through a beautiful brick lined canal ( maybe five metres long and too overgrown to photograph) and out into the Banvie Burn, which joins the River Garry, which then goes into the River Tummell, before joining the mighty Tay.

The Banvie Burn.

As I was going home after photographing the pump house the drive up to the castle was just to good in the sun and full leaf not to include this shot.

10th.

First shot of action for the Enchanted Forest, this huge eight metre diameter circle is going to be some sort of light show on the water. When it has got all the remaining gismo’s on the floating platform I will be towing it out into the middle of the loch (along with some people pulling from the far bank) where it will be anchored to the bottom. I have already cleared half a football pitch of lilies from in front of where it will be so as to get a reflection on the water. The platform behind is the viewing staging for the public to see the display.

Great excitement as we have people laying the fibre optic cable in the field ready to connect us to a decent broadband speed, should be about a month before we are “up to speed”, hooray for that.

13th

It would not be my blog without showing one of the two “Bs” in my vocabulary, Birds or Blooms. Today it is blooms, as it is such a sunny day and last of the blooms before the frosts start killing them off.

Thought it most appropriate to start of with one of the many heathers in the garden that are blooming at the moment, This is a heather that we purchased on a visit to Balmoral many moons ago and is in full bloom at this precious moment.

A couple of others that are looking good at present.

We purchased a packet of seeds that had meadow flowers and bee attractors in it, the cornflowers and marigolds have had some great colour to the garden.

The yellow climbing Mackenzie Clematis that I have showed you in previous blogs has now turned to “old mans beard” seed heads and looks so attractive in the sunlight.

These yellow flowers have bloomed their socks off all summer and still look great.

The rowan’s in the garden are covered in berries and the Thrush is feeding on them already, is this a sign of a hard winter to come? Not sure. But from the second shot you can see that Autumn is affecting us as the leaves are turning.

Left it a bit late in the day to get this shot of the Autumn Crocus as the shade has made this not the best of shots.

In the distant past I have covered these this subject before, but have gone into a bit more depth this time as we have been starved of it due to Covid.

The event is the Blair Castle International Horse Show, back in our village at last and from what I can see wondering around it is a lot larger this year, more stalls (though I could not find the Foodhall for a pick of free samples though apparently it was there),more competitors and definitely more spectators. I go after four in the afternoon and it is normally all closing down, but this time it was still very busy. I will try and keep what I say in the order I saw it and photographed it. Those who are unaware of our surroundings will agree that it is a beautiful setting for any event.

The one draw back of the event is that the village becomes gridlocked on entry and the exit from the event. This shot is from half way through the village and the entrance to the castle is where those double poles are in the middle distance, if I took a shot in the other direction the queue goes back to the A9 junction.

Once you reach the castle entrance you then have a half mile queue to the parking area.

A view not normally in many shots is the back of the castle which looks down on the huge field the events occur.

So here you can see the castle far right with the three dressage rings in the front, members restaurant and bar on the left and some of the many merchandise stalls beyond.

One of the competitors in the dressage ring, with the champers flowing in the background.

Just a few more stalls in one of maybe eight different rows of stalls.

Horses and riders being judged,

As they say on Strictly, “The Judges”

The Pony Club horses and riders lining up to see who won the prizes.

Most probably my two favourite images of the whole show, this lovely little pony and the rider and parent in matching outfits.

Every show there are a collection of vintage tractors on display which were a pleasure to see and walk around, so this is my selection from that display.

A couple of david Browns.

Not sure of the make, but I know a follower of my blog who will soon tell me.

A Massey.

A International with a Ford beyond that.

A Caterpillar.

Finally to keep a certain young lad happy, a John Deere.

At the end of the day a cool down for this beauty and a view of the temporary stables in the background.

Another event that was going on in the Cairngorms was a constant noise in the background at the show and at home, the sound of (mostly) Harley Davidson motorbikes going up to Avimore for “The Thunder in the Glen” event. The sound of hundreds of Harleys on the A9 is a noise that is just wonderful, a constant thud of the engines is unique. I did not take any shots of them this year as I had a busy weekend and when I was available it was raining, sorry.

To finish off though I would like to add just this one unusual bird photograph.

Not the best of shots, but I was in a hurry and took it through the d/g in our kitchen.

This is a female Chaffinch with a white head, I haven’t doctored the photo in any way this is how it is. Apparently a friend on a forum I put it on tells me it is called a Leucistic Chaffinch, which means it has a Melanin pigment deficiencies . Another friend has told me they had a white Blackbird in their garden for a couple of years. I had never seen one before and was chuffed to have grabbed a picture of it.