Monday, July 28, 2008

Glorious weather..

Been enjoying the summer sun of late....24C today with a refreshing easterly sea breeze.Boating life in abundance and we sat out last evening watching the sunset over Loch Ness with a wee dram.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Sunrise Surprise.

Maisie the mouser decided she wanted to go out on 'vermin control' at 5 a.m. this morning but I was pleasantly jolted out of my half sleepy state at the sight of a beautiful sunrise over Loch Ness. The weather has been very good this week. The gloomy cloud base of late has finally lifted revealing refreshing blue sky and we have been experiencing the welcoming warmth of Summer at last. Lots of boating craft have been out on the water.The baby birds are flourishing and quickly devour everything on the bird table,in the nut feeders and the berries in the bushes.
The young red squirrels have been chasing each other through the trees like acrobats and are regular visitors to the nut feeders. Heard several deer eerily calling from across the loch this morning. We haven't had any deer near the house lately so possibly we may see a mother with her offspring soon. A large brown hare bounded up our driveway today - I thought at first it was a small dog.It munched on the grass and then sped off down the track to the wee beach....it's all go here!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Squirrel lunches at Aspenwood.

Saturday as we were cleaning the cottage we looked out of the lounge window and noticed Cyril the squirrel helping himself to the nuts from the bird feeders.He stayed for about twenty minutes,delicately removing the outer husks and then chomping on the nuts inside.After a drink at the bird bath he scampered back into the forest at the side of Aspenwood....a magical sight.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Honeysuckle.

This year the wild honeysuckle is really growing in profusion. The plants can be seen everywhere, delicately winding their tendrils in the hedgerows and around the branches of trees. They produce a riot of colour and emit beautiful fragrant scents into the air.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

New Red Squirrel video......

A family of a mother and her young 3 red squirrel 'kittens' have been regular visitors to the nut feeders here and at Aspenwood Cottage for the last few weeks...even saw one of them this evening on the nut feeders as we were welcoming our new guests into the cottage and they were thrilled. We have never seen so many red squirrels in the local area as we have in 2008 and they are now regular visitors to the nut feeders every morning... still can't stop being captivated by their cheeky antics.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Day trip to Edinburgh.

Yesterday we planned a day trip to Edinburgh-about 160 miles away-for a city 'fix' so we were up bright and early at 6.30 a.m. in broad daylight and set off on a clear dry day.On the first part of the journey from here to Daviot we saw red squirrels dash across the road,deer quietly grazing, several large brown hares, a buzzard on a fence post and rabbits and pheasants going about their daily business. At Daviot we joined the main A9 heading south and the traffic was surprisingly very light. After a stop at The House of Bruar near Blair Atholl for a much needed coffee we drove on by-passing Pitlochry, Dunkeld and Perth. Here we joined the M90 and the volume of traffic began to increase as did the noise and smell .After a journey of about three and a half hours we crossed over the Firth of Forth on the very busy Forth Road suspension bridge.
This was only opened in 1964 and until then any transport had to use the ferries between North and South Queensferry. Parallel to the road bridge is the famous cantilever Railway Bridge which was opened back in 1890. After crossing over the bridge we were on the outskirts of the city of Edinburgh and eventually managed to park, walk around and have a lunch.It was extremely busy as expected as it is Scotland's capital city and we were quite glad to be on the road heading back home to the peace and quiet of the Highlands. A good day out but glad to be back surrounded by mountains,lochs and wildlife.

Monday, July 07, 2008

New visitor in the garden.

Looking casually out of the window I had a double-take when something suddenly moved among the garden ornaments.This new creature with distinctive creamy white underparts had perfect camouflage hiding between the fake squirrels. It darted about among the ornaments possibly attracted by the scraps of food under the bird table and looking for anything else interesting on the menu.We looked up all the wildlife books and think it's either a stoat or a weasel....possibly the weasel as it did not have a black tip to the tail and was about 30cms long in total....any ideas out there? Would welcome any comments on this new visitor in the garden. Sure it is a wee weasel now.









Friday, July 04, 2008

Messing about on Loch Ness.

Looking at the weather forecast for this past week we saw lots of blue rain approaching on the map and a wet gloomy time ahead for Scotland and Loch Ness. Is it really July ?
Once again the weather 'specialists' got it all wrong and we have experienced a good week. Started off cloudy and showery then we had brighter and breezy days, followed by sunny warm days. A variety of boating craft of all different shapes and sizes came out to enjoy the water of Loch Ness and the lovely fresh air and we enjoyed watching them as we sat outside in the sun.

Today we celebrate the cats birthday and Independence Day.Cheers. Enjoy the video.