Red Squirrels - Still Hunting 2

We set off this morning, once again, in search of the red squirrel population which is supposed to be in the woods above Dunrobin Castle.  To reach the area where the young mother and her son reported seeing them on Friday we walked through the castle grounds and crossed the railway line at Dunrobin Castle station, now one of those lovely 'request' stops on rural lines.  It was built specially for the Duke of Sutherland who, surprise, surprise, was on the board of the railway company.

We then met a couple walking their dogs who gave us further directions.  They described where the feeding boxes were but said that, although they passed them fairly frequently, they had yet to see a squirrel.  Despite this encouragement we followed their directions and somewhere we went wrong, which resulted....

....in a long walk down the track that leads to Big Barns.  There we spoke to the owner of an historic cottage which had once been a barn for the Sutherland estate who put us on the right track to the feeding boxes - but said that he hadn't seen any squirrels here either.

He described numerous feeding boxes but we only found two and, despite our efforts, didn't see a squirrel at them although....

....a blue tit was doing its damnedest to get at the mixture of nuts and seeds on display.

As we walked disconsolately home we were passed by the man from the cottage in his car.  Had we seen the squirrels? he asked, because he had just spoken to a family who had, minutes before, seen them scampering around in the branches of a Douglas fir near the feeding boxes.

We didn't have the energy to go back to the point he described but will return once we've recovered from this 4.5 mile walk.