Sunshine

What a difference the few hours of sunshine we enjoyed yesterday made to our outlook, as well as to how warm we felt, and when the sun managed to pick out a glorious tree like this one, a beech in full autumn colours, we stopped and remarked on it and noticed how enjoying its display picked up our spirits. Sadly, the fleeting moments of clear sky died during the night and, when we set out to walk this morning we were back to....

....a brisk, rain bearing east-north-easterly. To make matters worse, this sight of the rocky peninsula off the coast by Dunrobin Castle was concerning, for there were precious few cormorants at what is their favourite daytime roost - seven to be precise where there are usually twenty or more.

Part of our walk was in the woods, mainly as a means of working upwind less painfully. However, this section of path was no fun as the Estate has recently carried out some thinning of the woodland but has left branches all over what was already a rutted and boggy track.

The fungus may be one of the honey fungus family.

The woods weren't without colour. I'm fairly certain that these leaves and the black berries are rose of sharon, Hypericum calycinum, though quite what causes most leaves of that species to be a dull green fading through yellow to brown while others are this vibrant colour is a bit of a mystery.