Braeroy

The track along the River Roy which we followed on Saturday passes through this stand of trees which hides the main buildings of the Braeroy Estate which, these days, offers hunting, shooting and fishing in this....

 forbidding landscape.

The building which particularly interested us is at left in the above photo, quite separate from the main buildings of the estate. There is a footbridge nearby so it is accessible from both sides of the River Roy.

On three sides it has no windows or doors and on the fourth, which faces southeast, there are two small skylights, a window and a door. Within....

....the building is these days used for storage.

We were told that it was a school house. At first I struggled to believe this thinking that, in this wild place, there would hardly have been the pupils to justify it. However, there were times when the population of the estate would have been far larger, when the 'big house', its farm, and the sporting opportunities would have offered plenty of employment - so the children of these workers would need education.

Then there were....

....the many small tenanted farmers who would also have had children needing education. In any case, the education authority was obliged to offer a place to every pupil in its area, although some pupils had to walk many miles each day to reach their school..

We have seen similar school buildings before - a good example is the school at Achosnich on Ardnamurchan, which also served Sanna and Achnaha. However, it had a facility which many remote schools had and which this one seems to lack and which was 'normal' across most of the highlands - a school house for the teacher.

I am intrigued by other questions: why are there so few windows? One would have though that, in this dark place, the pupils would have benefited from as much natural light as possible. But.... perhaps windows are cold, and perhaps the children brought a candle with them to school each day. And that teacher's house - where did the teacher stay?

First Orchids

I had hoped we would find the year's first wild orchid during our visit to Lochaber but we were disappointed, so imagine my surprise this morning, on a walk up one of the forestry tracks at the back of our house, on a truly beautiful morning, when....

....I stumbled across this, a heath spotted orchid, growing in the middle of the track. The specimen was a bit stunted, perhaps reflecting the fact that it was largely growing in gravel, but I was - as I am every year with the first orchid - thrilled.

Then, a little further along the track, I came across two more. My cup truly ran over, particularly as one of them....

....was an absolute beauty.

This particular track becomes a rough path after a mile so, anxious to return home to look at and edit my pictures of the orchids, I turned back and, in that moment, disturbed four red deer, two adult females and two of what were probably last year's young, this in an area where we haven't seen red deer in some time following their being shot out when the area was put down to trees.

I diverted slightly on my way back home to look for the year's first dragon- or damselflies, and found none, instead tripping over more orchids, three this time, all....

....northern marsh orchids.

As I neared home a red kite circled above me. Lochaber needs to look to its laurels: on our weekend visit we didn't see a single raptor.

Lochaber

We've just returned from a long weekend spent in Lochaber, one of my favourite parts of Scotland. It's a land of high mountains - Ben Nevis is in Lochaber - steep hillsides, rushing burns, wooded glens and silent lochs. It's also an area which has its own weather: while much of Britain sweated under Mediterranean temperatures, I found myself so chilled during our walk on Saturday that I had to borrow a ladies' puffer jacket to survive.

If I love Lochaber, the Roy river glen is particularly special. We spent Saturday morning walking up a section of it, meeting only two people. There were far more....

....red deer than humans. This stag is 'in velvet' - growing new antlers....

 ....although most of the deer wisely chose to stay high up on the ridges on either side of the glen.

Empty of humans the Roy glen may be, yet it has an international reputation. I had heard of the Roy long before I felt any great attachment to Scotland as it features in many physical geography and geology text books for....

....its 'parallel roads', lines running along the sides of the glen, seen in this picture along the hill face to the left. These are fossil beaches, left by a loch formed when the glen was dammed and then flooded during one of the last glacial periods.

So when I was a geology undergraduate I learned about the parallel roads from this tome, 'Principles of Physical Geology' by the great Arthur Holmes. It was such a special book that I asked my parents if they would purchase me a copy, which they did.  Sadly, at some point in one of our many moves, I was separated from it.

Butterflies

At this time of year, with the weather here changing by the minute, it only takes a little sun and the temperature rising above about 15C for several species of butterfly to start to appear; and the opposite, for if the temperature drops below 15C they as suddenly disappear.

So, for example, on Wednesday when I went out at about nine in the morning the sun was out and the air temperature a balmy 17C....

....and a variety of butterflies were on the wing, including a tortoiseshell, a small copper, several whites, and....

....a male orange tip; but by lunchtime the air temperature had dropped suddenly, to a mere 13C, and there wasn't a butterfly to be seen.

I suppose that the butterflies which survive around here must have adapted to the vagaries of this climate.

There is, however, one species which seems to be different: the speckled wood. This butterfly can be in the air with the temperature relatively low - but only on condition that the sun is out.

Ships in the Firth

It isn't often that we see a cruise ship making its way in or out of Invergordon, not because there aren't now plenty calling at that port but because the ships are too far away. However, last Wednesday we had a good view of the Norwegian Star leaving port - not because she was any closer than other ships but because she was beautifully picked out by the low, setting sun.

Over the last couple of weeks we've seen an unusually large number of working - as opposed to passenger - ships anchoring in the firth, not because they were seeking shelter from poor weather but because they seemed not to have any work. This is the Esvagt Alba a work/repair vessel which services the Moray East wind farm just to the south of us.

Delivered in 2021 to Danish owners, it's not the first time we've seen her.

This is the Maursund, a Norway-registered landing craft built in 1972, while....

....this is the Monika with a cargo we're noticing more and more - towers and blades for wind farms. She's described as a general cargo ship but her long, open cargo deck is ideal for delivering the bulky parts of wind turbines. She's Dutch-owned but registered in Madeira.

Carrying a similar cargo, this is he Aramis, described as a general cargo ship, registered in Lithuania.

One of the joys of our time living in Kilchoan was that we could watch, from our house, the many ships of many varieties moving up and down the Sound of Mull, often passing very close to us.

Tsuro Settles In

Last Friday we welcomed Tsuro home after an absence which we feared might have been terminal but which was caused by the appearance of a marauding black cat. Well, I'm pleased to inform his growing fan base that we're now, once again, seeing him regularly.

At first it was unrestrained joy at having him back safe and sound but this was tempered when he started to indulge some of his bad habits, like....

....nibbling the flowers off our precious aubretia.

Happily, while he doesn't do too much damage to our planted flowers, he's doing a grand job of keeping down the grass and other coverings on our paths.

We're fairly certain that he's made his home in the marsh grass on the far side of our 'pond' - a 'pond' which, due to the recent long spell of dry weather, hasn't had any water in it for ages. He must be fairly secure in there because....

....we now have two cats coming in to the garden looking for him.

Both of these cats come from the house which is below our back garden and, from enquiries round the neighbourhood, both are active hunters.

So, if Tsuro is planning to stay with us, he's going to have to keep clear of these two - until he grows up to be a big, bad, bold rabbit that even these cats are frightened of.

A Walk to the Hut Circle

As I set off up the track for my morning walk into the hills I was wished good morning by this cheerful yellowhammer, and by a couple of nearby butterflies, a small copper and a peacock. However, the main interest along the track was the wealth of wildflowers just coming into bloom, including....

....the flowers of blaeberry....

....heath milkwort....

....and tormentil, this last, very retiring flower being so emblematic of the highland's hills..

My walk was to the hut circle, about a mile-and-a-half from the house, where I sat on its low wall and enjoyed sunshine and the view. Soon, the circle will be invisible, shrouded by the bracken which is already shooting up; and it will remain so until almost a year hence.

I sat for some time, imagining the people who lived there two millennia or more ago, and concluding once again that they built their houses where they had a view - for the ground drops away steeply on the side the looks out over the landscape.

It is, of course, too much to imagine that it was they who sent a message via the best sighting of the day, one of the.... 

....fritillary family.