Well the start of the month was pretty bad, cold , wet and pretty miserable, all down to the jet stream being to far North of us apparently. But now the jet stream has stationed itself in the right place and the weather is improving, so thank you jet stream, about time you gave us some decent weather.
The weather was so good I actually went up Glen Fender in search of wild Orchards without a fleece on.
18th
Coming up on the twenty second is the longest day and living this far north we see the advantage of that, this shot was taken at ten twenty at night and it is still this bright, I have not brightened the shot, this is how it came out of the camera. The real reason for taking this shot is to show how moisture rises off the river making it look like smoke in the middle of the shot. Also the low puffy cloud over the distant hills.
19th.
A busy day today as the weather was good.
First thing today at about seven thirty we had a daylight visit from the Pine Martin eating a fair few peanuts from the squirrel box.
Then we went down to The Mill for a coffee and on returning the level crossing closed and the express came through, had the camera so why not get a shot of our station with the train.
Went up the glen in search of wild Orchids, here are a few of what I found, won’t name them in case I get them wrong (again).
Even if I didn’t find any Orchids, who would object to walking with these views?
Also took some other wild flowers I saw.
Cotton Grass.
I was corrected by a couple of people on the last blog that what I called Ragged Robin was in fact Red Campion, now this is a Ragged Robin (I hope)?
Wild pansy.
20th.
On the night of the longest day what a beautiful sky we had.
21st.
As I showed you last blog we have Swallows nesting, while our neighbour has House Martins building a nest above their living room window and I hope you can see from this shot the wet mud they are constructing it from and to think they have built that much (the dark band) just today, incredible.
22nd
What great progress those wee birds have made in 24 hours, plus another pair have started building an nest next door ( or should I say window).
23rd.
Meanwhile my swallows have completed the work on their artificial nest and one (presume the female) is now sitting, great joy in this house I can tell you.
While I had the camera out I had to take a few snaps of what was about. Top- baby Great Tit, middle- female Siskin, bottom -two young Goldfinch.
25th
A good sunny morning, rained all afternoon.
One of our delights is to see the wild Foxgloves come up all through the garden and some seem to be trying to reach Heaven especially the last one.
A beautiful colour on this Lupin.
The top lawn in the garden we are hoping to turn into a miniature wild meadow and to start it off we have seeded with Rattle (which is a parasite) and hope to seed with a meadow mix next year.
The Elder on our neighbours property has plenty of flower on it this year and he intends to make wine with the berries.
Not sure what others call this but to us it is Tiger and Her Cubs.
I think this tall stemmed scented flower is a member of the Primula family , it is all over the garden and is wonderful.
Just to prove it rained all afternoon look at the state of this poor Siskin, wet through.