Cairngorms Life

A couple of usual days in the national park, apparently the ceilidh was a great success, I didn’t go as I virtually have two left feet & the wife does not know her left from her right. But it was good how both village people turned out & holiday makers to make it a triumph & what encouragement for those young musicians.

Here at home had an unexpected task when a neighbours daughter was informed that her partner had been taken into Dundee Hospital intensive care & she should be at his bedside as it was touch & go. The girls Dad does not like driving at night, Mum does not drive & she was to upset to drive, so a phone call to me ended up seeing me drive the 70 odd miles to Dundee at 11 last night, getting home at just gone 2am. Glad to say he has come through the ordeal, but not out of the woods yet.

We went for a walk UP one of our hills yesterday, was a bit windy with the threat of rain, hence the picture of “her indoors” walking in her Rockstar Games coat. The main reason for the shot is to show you just how steep our hills are & how good it is for a couple of 70 year olds to walk them, though I am sure they get steeper every time we do these walks.

After we walked down the village for our refreshments today I chilled out with half an hour in my hide & was rewarded with some good bird photos (wont bore you with more of them) & the fab shot of the Red Squirrel having just come out of the nut box with a couple of peanuts in it’s hand, looking at me as if to say “you can take as many shots of me as you like, but you are not having my peanuts”. It always fascinates me just how long the fingers & toes are on these beauties, though if it were human I guess we would need those nails a bit shorter. But if you could see how athletic it is amongst the trees, then you need that length of nails for the grip.

 

This morning we woke up to sunshine, a very rare event lately, as the sun got higher it started to burn the dew off the ground & a very fine mist could be seen through the sunrays amongst the trees in the garden. I tried to capture that (see below), not all that well, but I was in the middle of my ablutions when it happened & in order not to frighten the holiday makers next door by going into the garden naked, took it through the window.

By ten o’clock we were walking down the village to get milk & magazines (every Wednesday for this task), plus of course a drink & scone in the Mill. As the sun was shining, instead of walking down the road I went through the riverside woodland path, a cracking walk & with the sun shining on the trees made it look even better, of course I had my camera with me, hence the next two shots. One day I will capture the Salmon going up the river to spawn, only seen them twice & didn’t have my camera with me either time.

When it is warm the trek up the hill seems even longer, but we both made it just & then , until dinnertime carried on with a few outside tasks, which the rains had prevented us from doing lately, Jan continuing her shed painting , me just pottering about praying dinnertime would come & get a sit down.

After lunch I went down the village (in the car this time) to the village church fayre held in the village hall. Always a popular event with locals & visitors alike. The main attraction being the homemade cakes & jams, followed by book stall & most probably the most attractive event for the children, the tombola. Four tickets for a pound & if your raffle ticket ends in a 5 or 0 you win a prize. These range from bottles of wine, chocolates, unwanted smellies (one young lad won a Dove set of bath accessories & said to his Mum “at least you will smell okay tomorrow”). When I did this stall one year the guy in charge did keep the ticket for the bottle of whiskey back until about 2/3rds of the prizes were gone before putting it in with the rest, to keep the grown ups spending their pounds.

They also have a bric a brac stall & homegrown veg & plants stalls which do fairly well, freshly picked lettuce & beetroot always go first.

As you can see the hall was well attended & continues to do so year on year, my only hope is that they have it all cleared up ready for table tennis tonight.

It is going to be a busy weekend in the village as well Davie at the chippie has a marque, bar & live music on every weekend behind the chippie & we can hear it a mile up the Glen every Friday, Saturday & Sunday. Also there is a family Ceilidh on Saturday night in the village hall, a band from within the Cairngorms Park, made up of young musicians tours the Park villages throughout the summer playing in  halls & this weekend it is our turn. Again normally very well attended, with a bar & stovies at half time.

 

 

 

No post yesterday, two reasons :-

1/ A fairly standard day , with nothing exceptional happening. A day in Perth, shopping, followed by a visit to my wonderful chiropractic Carol to give my neck a little tweak. Well a mammoth tweak really, getting into the deep tissue which I am still feeling this morning. Followed by lunch out in a farm shop that produces most of their own menu, if not it is sourced locally, which is very tasty & very popular.

2/ Just settled down after tea & was going to write something on here when Alan phoned & said “fancy some fishing?”  Well what was I to say, SWMBO said “go on off you go” so I did. Alan lost 4 & I caught 2 (Rainbow Trout), gave one to an old keeper friend of mine down the hill (in exchange, when he gets some, he gives me venison liver, which is delicious), he was delighted. The other one went into the freezer for Christmas smoking.

So I thought I would catch up this morning with this boring old life of mine, that is before I go off for an hour in the gym.

One thing I forgot to mention on Sunday, was watching the G.P. when I heard a noise in the kitchen, presumed it was a Blackbird coming in the open door for it’s sultanas. Went to investigate only to find a wren flying continuously into the glass window. Managed to catch it & as these are one of Jan’s favourite birds went into the garden to show her. She was, of course, delighted to see on close up, but it was very distressed & exhausted. So we lay it on a bush & it just stayed there, mouth wide open panting for breath. Me being me rushed indoors & got my camera for a quick snap, most probably the most out of focus shot you will ever see on here, but at least I got a shot. We left it on the hedge & went back 2 minutes later & it had flown off, so hopefully it made a full recovery & has learnt not to come into those big humans house again.

 

 

So far I have managed to post everyday since starting this blog, after yesterdays posting I seriously thought what am I going to talk about tomorrow. On a Sunday when Formula One is on it is a case of get up, walk down the village & have a drink & scone in The Mill, walk home, have early lunch & sit until now watching the G.P.

Well at half six last night a mate in the village phoned & said “I am sitting out side you have got 5 minutes to go fishing with me or I won’t go either”. So on consulting SWMBO I got the nod to go. As  Alan & I had already fished the main pond on our village club waters this week (you are only allowed to fish this water once a week), we had to go to Sarah’s Pond. Now this is a very small stretch of water, less than the size of a football pitch, way up in the hills & is a short but steep walk uphill from the main pond. The club stocked it with Brown Trout all just about a pound in weight two years ago, these have bred in the small burn that feeds it.

The pond is part of the Atholl Estate hydro scheme & is a header tank for our loch below, which takes the overflow down a very steep pipe to Blair Castle where they produce enough electricity to keep the castle going in the summer & lighting in the winter. Last winter we had some heavy storms & a vast majority of the Brown Trout went down to the lower loch in a flooded torrent off the hills & these trout are now being caught in the main loch, leaving only small ones in the top pond.

This of course meant we were only going up to the pond for a bit of catch & release fishing for the small 1/2 lb trout that had bred there. We both caught two of these fish each & thought & expected that to be the standard of the evening. Imagine my surprise when I saw this huge trout come up & suck my dry fly (that is one floating on the top to imitate an insect hatching off the water) . Now the pond at the moment is very weedy & with a barbless hook I was expecting to lose the fish before it got to the bank, but no, I hung onto it, called Alan over to net it. He picked up my net which promptly broke on the rim & Alan had to hold it together & somehow we managed to get it in. Before today my biggest Brown Trout was a 1. 1/2 lb one & on getting it home & weighing it , this one was Two pounds six ounces. So thanks Sarah’s Pond for giving me my blog for today. Picture below of the fish in a standard size sink at home.

 

I am a member of The Scottish Wildlife Trust & today one of our committee members organised a small walk on the Limestone Pavement just East of Kinloch Rannoch. The weather was wet & windy, so please excuse the photos as conditions were not good.

The pavement is made up of Dalradian Limestone & is roughly 600 million years old, so old in fact that unlike other Limestone it does not contain any fossils. It is a SSSI site so it is very rare, it is said to be the best example in the whole of Scotland & drifted over to us from Norway in one of the ice ages.

In between the rocks are worn away sections that can go down 6 feet & are called grykes, while the higher areas are called clints. Because the grykes are small & fairly inaccessible to sheep & deer various plants can grow & not be eaten, these include Rock Rose, Thyme, Northern Felwort, Dog’s Mercury, Herb Robert & Herb Bernet, Wood Sorrel & best of all Wild Strawberries.

On the pavement are two big lumps of Schist that seem out of place amongst the Limestone, but these must have also drifted with the glazier, local folk law has a different tale & claims they are two witches turned to stone.

The talk & walk took about an hour & there was seven of us being shown around & it was of great interest, I had passed the area many times on the road some fifty yards below us & had never been aware of their existence.

I was about a mile away from one of my favourite fishing lochs so after the talk went & had a couple of hours fishing (with no success of course)  in what can only be described as very brisk conditions, pretty near to blowing a gale, but good fun in such a cracking place.

The photos below were from this morning & in order are :-

1/ The view over to Kinloch Rannoch & Loch Rannoch.

2/ The Munro (mountain over 3000 ft) Schiehallion.

3/The witch rock.

4/ Strawberries in the grykes.

5/A rare wild Gentian.

6/ Loch Kinardochy where I fished.

 

 

 

I said I wouldn’t write anymore about birds unless we had a quiet day, well went to the gym this morning, came home & it has more or less rained ever since, so yes it is one of those quiet days. The pictures below were all taken this afternoon of birds I have not included on my blog so far, 1/ A Greater Spotted Woodpecker. 2/ A juvenile Blue Tit. 3/ A Greenfinch. All shots were through double glazing with rain on the windows, so not my best ones, but there was no chance to take the camera outside to take them.

I thought I would also include a list of the birds we have spotted from indoors or out in the garden, not sure if I have left any off but this is roughly it.

 

Tit family are, Blue, Great, Coal & Long Tailed. Siskin, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Redpoll, Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Wood Pidgeon, Collar Dove, Sparrow Hawk, Buzzard, Blackbird, Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Redwing, Fieldfare, Goldcrest, Wren, Tree Creeper, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Swallow, House Martin, House Sparrow, Dunnock & Robin. A total of 28 birds, which is great. We have seen Osprey a fair distance away feeding on one of the Rainbow Trout Lochs that I fish & also what we believe was a Hen Harrier quartering in a distant field. We frequently hear Tawny Owls & once a Little Owl, but non outside the list are ones that we can class as regular visitors to us.

Just been through the bird book & as a further addition will add the following, Brambling, Nuthatch, Oyster Catcher, Warbler (not sure which one , but think Garden), Goldfinch, Bullfinch & Red legged Partridge. So total now stands at 35.

One visitor that comes daily is the Sparrow Hawk, an unwelcome guest who normally has a bird a day, you do not see it everyday, but the feathers are found of various small birds in certain places in the garden. On one occasion I was in the garden & tried to frighten it away & it came straight at me, I swear that if I had not have ducked it would have got me.

On the other hand our Buzzards are fairly friendly, I have mouse traps in our tiny cellar & in the loft as they are always trying to establish themselves in our house & if I do catch a mouse I will throw it into the field & daily the Buzzard will swoop low over the house to see if there is a meal for him. Where it thinks this meal comes from I have no idea, but it knows it has a regular source of food to feed its youngsters. A pair most years nest in a nearby Oak tree & this year I think they only had one young one.

Lets hope tomorrow brings a better day as I am going on a guided walk over some nearby Limestone pavement, so guess what tomorrows blog will be on?

It is not all rose tinted glasses here in Blair Atholl, a few things against it include distance to decent shops & supermarkets, Perth is over 30miles away along the dreaded A9 & another fault is delivery of goods ordered on the internet. Sometimes we have to pay more because we are in this remote place called the Highlands, the annoying thing about this con is that a vast majority is delivered by Royal Mail so does not cost the companies any more than if it was going 100yds down the road. Today we are awaiting a new vacuum cleaner as ours blew up over the weekend, the delivery time allocated to us is between 7am & 7pm, so of course no wondering off for one of us, just got to wait until it turns up.

So as I am having a quiet day I thought I would share some of the birds that visit our garden (apart from yesterdays Sparrows that is). Below is a selection, I will save the many more until another quiet day.

First is birds on the Niger seed feeder, 8 of which are Siskins with a stray Chaffinch on the left. Next is a female Chaffinch, followed by the male. Everybody knows the Robin even though most of us only think of it living here over Christmas, on our cards. This is followed by a male Siskin, my favourite little bird, stands up for itself against bigger birds on the feeders, but also such wonderful colours. Lastly for today we have the humble Blackbird, we have an affinity with these be they our winter visitors or our resident birds.

Every morning when we get up, waiting for us on the back doorstep our normally 3 couples of Blackbirds & eventually their young as well, at least a total of 8 sometimes more. The reason being that, even before the kettle goes on, they know they will be fed a handful of sultanas, this goes on several times during the day after their morning feed. In fact if we have the back door open in the summer, one or two now venture in to the low shelf where the sultanas are kept in a container & help themselves. We normally reckon a 84p bag of sultanas will last for 3 days before it is gone, our birds do eat well & I will explain the other feeds we give them when I have that next quiet day.

 

 

When we moved here 11 years ago, the village was full of House Sparrows, half way up the hill there were pairs nesting, but we had none. We both think they are lovely little birds that can be found in every continent around the world, so we wanted our own colony of them. Now we couldn’t just go down to the village & net a load & bring them up here, no, we needed to encourage them. These Sparrows are community birds & live & nest together, so I built them a Sparrow hotel. Just like a Tit box, bigger with three separate apartments in the same box, one with a front facing hole & the other two on the sides (see enclosed photo). It took a couple of years but eventually a reservation was made by one honeymoon couple who duly gave us two babes. Word must have got round that this was an ideal hotel & that accommodation & food cost you nothing as a few more arrived. Now as you can see from the photo I have had to add an annexe to accommodate all our guest.

This year has been a bumper year for babies & it is so good to see them following Mum & Dad around begging for food, I reckon we have at least 12 babes, maybe from 3 separate parents & I still see them taking food up to the hotel, so maybe some more will be about later.

My point is anyone can encourage loads of birds into whatever type of garden you have, just by providing the right environment. So that is your task when you have nothing to do, Sparrow, Tit , Robin, owl or starling boxes all so easy to make.

One complaint about the Sparrows, not content with the hotels I provide, they took over my two artificial House Martin nests last year & the Martins never came back.

My heading is “a normal day”, though with Scotland being the hottest place in the U.K. that for a start does not make it a normal day.

Jan has started her annual task of painting all our sheds & gates with fence paint, beginning with the double gates. Takes her a while, mainly due to the changing weather & the fact that she normally ends up with more paint on herself than on the wood. I am not allowed to touch it, just removing & replacing any wire netting that is in her way, such as the gates on the driveway.

My task today was lifting the ferns that have run rampant throughout the garden, a few are attractive, but when they start growing out of the dry stone wall, they have to come out before it collapses the walls. Hard work, so this afternoon I had a break & went fishing on the village clubs lochan. Hard work in bright sunlight & a stiff breeze, managed one more for the freezer though. I have so many places within the National Park that I can fish as I belong to a total of 4 different clubs. But I can see the one I fished today from my house, but to get to it I have to go round the river so it’s about a mile, but well worth it.

Last night I looked out on the field in front of the house & saw a pair of hares. Grabbed my camera crept out in the field & got within 50 yards & snapped the attached shot.

 

Today in the village hall is our annual village market, local people buy a stall & sell their produce. Rami from The Mill sells his bread, a couple of local photographers sell their amazing local images, one in large framed shots of scenery & Julie sells her animals, landscapes shots on greetings cards

 

Of course there are homemade jams, veg & knitwear, along with jewelry and honey. Overall it is a good example of what can be found in any local community & is well shown off thanks to a dedicated committee of locals who organise it.

As the weather is not that good today (overcast & occasional light shower), then the attendance of locals & holiday makers is high, so hopefully all will make some money to continue their hobbies.