This elongate field which runs between Dunrobin woods and the sea is called the Dairy Park, presumably because the castle's dairy herd used to graze it. These days its sandy soil is down to cereals, relatively recently harvested, and it is owned by....
....a pair of stonechats.
Today our walk took us along the old coast track that runs between the field and the sea. After several days of dismally dull weather it was a joy to be soaking up the bright sunshine that followed a cold, clear night.
We found plenty of birds exploiting the sea buckthorn which forms dense thickets between the Park and the castle grounds. The buckthorn has a bright orange berry....
....which was being enjoyed by several blackbirds but the....
....blue tits were there for the insects which live in the tangle of twigs.
These thickets were where we first saw the blackcap pair but today we only found the female, with her brown cap. Like the blackbird, these small birds seem very happy eating buckthorn berries.
Also very much at home in this spiny latticework of branches was this robin. He's not a berry eater and today he was nipping out of the bushes to feast on the mass of large, black flies which were flying out of the rotting seaweed along the beach.
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