Busy Squirrels

Squirrel Alley was busy this morning, both on our way down to the village and on our way back, as....

....the local red squirrel population....

....worked at moving food - mostly it appeared to be hazelnuts - from the back gardens along Beinn Bhraggie Drive to....

....a winter cache. However, these squirrels are so used to human contact and so nosy about other people's affairs that, active as they were on a very, very important job, they couldn't resist....

....stopping and peering down at us.

Loch Lochy

Our second day in Lochaber was damp - but then, we know Lochaber from our years on Ardnamurchan so always visit it suitably prepared with wet-weather gear. In the event, it didn't rain too much, and the mist cleared enough for us to enjoy some fine views as we walked along the shore of Loch Lochy.

The section of path we walked was at the southern end of the loch, near Gairlochy and opposite Glenfintaig House.

It was a great pity the the sun didn't put in an appearance as the scenery was made by the colours of the leaves. We also enjoyed hardly a breath of wind, ideal conditions for spotting....

....one of the local dippers.

Sadly, we only had two full days in Lochaber, an area which deserves a lifetime to explore, not only for its scenery but also for its wildlife - we saw a fine red deer stag from the train on the Saturday - and for its history. While our walks didn't take us to any historical sites, on the Friday evening we joined a very well attended talk on the shielings of Brae Lochaber - and we've seen many shielings in our time on West Ardnamurchan.

Loch Ossian

We've just returned from a long weekend in Brae Lochaber, the eastern part of Highland's Lochaber District. It's an area of stunning natural beauty, enhanced by the season's colours.

On our first day there we caught an early southbound train on the west highland line, which climbs inland from Fort William, following the gorge of the River Spean until it emerges on the heights of Rannoch Moor. We alighted at this lonely station, Corrour, only accessible by rough track, foot, bicycle or train. It's surrounded by a wilderness which attracts....

....the sort of person who holidays with everything on their backs.

The purpose of such an early morning start was to have brunch at the station cafe, an excellent meal which set us up for a walk....

....over these bleak hills to....

....Loch Ossian, where the scenery, and the weather, was picture-postcard Scottish Highlands.

This wonderfully remote Youth Hostel stands on the banks of Loch Ossian overlooking the loch. It was as far as we had time to walk as we....

....had to get back to Corrour in time to catch the train back to 'civilisation'.

Since there are only three trains a day each way, the brunch, lunch and evening menus at the cafe are staggered to cater for arrivals by train. In one direction lies Fort William, in the other, Glasgow; and, as well as the three daily Fort William to Glasgow diesel trains, one can reach Corrour direct by travelling on the Caledonian Sleeper from London's Euston.

A Dearth of Birds

The garden is almost empty of birds, and has been for a number of weeks. I've been worrying about the food I'm putting out: perhaps they don't like it; perhaps there's something wrong with it; perhaps our neighbour down the road, who is an even keener bird feeder than we are, is putting out so much food, and such delicious food, the birds don't need to venture into our garden.

Happily, I spoke to her on Friday and she assures me that this is quite normal. At this time of year the local birds go off into the forestry, perhaps because it's the best time for natural, wild food; and she assured me that they would be back as soon as it began to get cold.

The only exceptions to this migration are this robin, who is feasting on the special things I'm putting out, and a dunnock which is feeding amongst the pots under the work table.

I'm deeply grateful to them for their continuing support at this difficult time for me.

Still on the Wing

We had two butterflies in the garden this afternoon, this peacock and our painted lady - who only put in a brief appearance, as if she had more important things to do elsewhere. Which made me very sad as research by DM - see comments on earlier post here - suggests that, unless humans interfere, painted ladies do not last the winter as they cannot tolerate the cold.

It was sunshine which brought them out. As soon as the sun went behind a cloud they flew off, and only returned when the sun was shining strongly - as if today's weather, with a temperature of 12C and a coolish southwesterly breeze, was near the limit of their tolerance.

Each time I see a butterfly on the wing I keep thinking this may be the last one I see in 2024; and that each one I see is a bonus, that I should be very grateful for a chance to be near one of these beautiful insects.

Strawberry Bed Fungus

I found this bolete fungus thriving in the strawberry bed at our previous house, the main fruiting body having two smaller ones at its base. This picture was taken on 17th October but by..

....the 21st it had grown considerably, possibly at the expense of the two small ones which had disappeared.

When I inspected it today it was in full bloom - if that's what fungi do - but it, like almost all of the local fungi this year, was being....

....attacked by what, from its wandering track, was either a slug or a snail.

As a bolete it lacks gills, instead the cap having a foam-like internal structure. Most boletes are edible, if not very exciting eating, but this one might be an exception, perhaps gaining some flavour from the surrounding strawberry plants.

I hesitate to identify it more closely but it might be one of the wonderfully named penny buns.

A Mummified Dragonfly

This morning, in a dusty corner of our workshop, I found a dragonfly. It had obviously been there some time as it was completely desiccated, paper-brittle, mummified, but since the piece of wood which hid it had only been placed there in the early spring, and the room did not exist last summer, it must have come in to the room this year,

This is wonderful news - for me, anyway - as one of the things I had most hoped would appear in our new and developing garden was some dragon- and damselflies. However, despite the fact that we have everything many species need, including a very nice pond with various insects in and around it, we didn't see one in the garden this year.

I'm unable to start to identify it, other than that it may be a small hawker, as its colours have gone. 

The nearest we've seen a dragonfly to our house was when we spotted a golden-ringed dragonfly about half-a-mile away in a small seep by one of the forestry tracks, but this is too small to be one of them.

We now need to develop the vegetation around the pond to make it more dragonfly-friendly, ready for the spring.

Aftermath

I took a walk along the coast path towards Dunrobin Castle this morning, at least in part to see whether there was much sign of the passing through of Storm Ashley - which there wasn't, the only 'damage' being in one or two places where shingle from the beach had been thrown up across the path, and to....

....the bird life. There were fewer cormorants than usual on their favourite roosting rocks, a few gulls, some crows, and the resident flock of rock doves. Of the waders, I saw three curlews and....

....only one oystercatcher which seemed so weary that it was as unperturbed by the breaking waves of a rising tide as it was by my close approach.

Storm Ashley aside, we do seem to have many fewer shore birds at the moment. I haven't seen a redshank in ages, and the numbers of oystercatchers and curlews seems considerably down compared to last year.

The Calm

We have blue skies and light breezes, the calm before tonight's storm, due to start in the next couple of hours or so, and in this brief sunny interlude two butterflies are in our garden, a red admiral enjoying the verbena and....

....what I assume is the same painted lady as has graced our garden in the brighter spells of the last eighteen days.

Red Sky Dawn

"Red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning...." the adage goes, so this fiery sunrise, seen at seven this morning, may rightly predict a stormy day, with the weather forecasters suggesting we might see gusts of 67mph and more.

How much damage will occur along local coastal defences weakened after last winters's storms will depend on several factors: the wind speed, its direction - easterly, almost straight in onto the Golspie shore - and tide height, forecast at 4m at 2.30pm today following the recent full moon. Fortunately, the highest wind speeds don't coincide with high tide.

In the picture surf can be seen breaking offshore, probably on an extensive sand bank running parallel to the beach to the south of Golspie. We've seen how the sea here moves sand on and off the beach: at present, the local beaches are rather short of sand, as they have been through most of the summer. This is important, as beaches help protect the coastline during storms.

In the distance to the right can be seen the light of the Tarbat Ness lighthouse. This was completed in 1830 by Robert Stevenson, grandfather of the author Robert Louis Stevenson. The light flashes four times with a repeat every 30 seconds.

Colours

Judging by the colours in some of the trees, we might be in Canada for their 'fall', these wonderful colours being reflected in....

....the same painted lady who, along with her lone companion peacock, was once again enjoying our verbena. Nor were our flowers short of....

....other flying insects, including bees, hover flies, and day-flying moths, this small bumblebee enjoying one of three lavender bushes we've planted.

Every day, high above us, a thousand or more noisy pink-footed geese move back and forth from Loch Fleet to the fields they've selected to feed on that day. At a lower level, we've had....

....buzzards and red kites, this buzzard wheeling hopefully this morning above the field which contains the most rabbits.

While there's a robin every hundred metres or so, each vocally guarding its territory, there are otherwise hardly any garden birds. We are told by a neighbour who, like us, spends money of bird food, that this is a cheap time of year, that, once winter comes in with a bite, the birds will be back again.

The Surfer

It's Thursday, so it's the morning for my usual walk north from the village, crossing the Golspie Burn before following the coast path northwards towards Dunrobin Castle - and what a beautiful morning for a walk, on a perfect autumn day with hardly a breath of wind and the sun finding gaps in the clouds to spotlight the leaf colours in the deciduous trees. However, turn the opposite way and....

....there's a heavy swell coming in from the southeast, big waves with wide, smooth gaps between them lifting to smash against coastal defences which were sorely tried last winter.

Of course, where there is a good set there's bound to be....

....a surfer. He must have been sufficiently pleased with the waves - the tide was rising, with high in another hour's time - to have summoned his friends, as another surfer was arriving as I passed him again, still working the waves, on my way home.

Farlary

We haven't been for a walk on Farlary Croft since September 2023. Normally, we'd be up there two or three times during the summer, always returning home with a camera full of photographs. That the gap has been so big is down to the medical problems with my leg, which is now almost completely healed - so a beautiful morning yesterday found us driving up into the Sutherland hills.

The croft is one of several in the Farlary township but is unique in that the crofter has spent money on developing an extensive network of trails for visitors to follow. There is no entry fee, there's a car park, a number of picnic tables, and miles of carefully-developed paths, yet we find we usually have the walks to ourselves - as we did yesterday. 

That we'd been away for some time was evident in the number of new features - like this lochan, one of three new ones, all a bit bare at the moment - but the one thing the crofter evidently enjoys is his trees - some of which are very unusual species - as can be seen....

....around this little lochan, developed some years ago. We almost always make use of the blue picnic bench as it is in the sun during the mornings, and this is a good site for dragonflies - in their season.

The croft is usually rich with wildlife but this is a time of year when the summer migrant birds have departed, the winter immigrants haven't yet arrived, and the residents are making good use of their absence. So yesterday I took hardly any wildlife pictures except for some of this rather fine fungus.

As we descend from the main network of paths in the upper part of the croft we come down this little glen to where there is a stone bench which, because it is beautifully sheltered and south-facing, is always a warm place to sit and relax.

Our grateful thanks to the crofter for the pleasure access to his croft has given us over recent years.

Summer Again!

I had thought that summer was over, that last Thursday's peacock and red admiral were the last butterflies we would see this year, but the sun came out this morning, the temperature soared to 14C, the bees were busy on the remaining heather flowers....

....a grey wagtail, which should have gone south long ago, was seen hunting insects around the edges of our pond - now refilled after drying out in the summer 'drought' - and.... 

....suddenly the butterflies were out, a single peacock and....

....the lone painted lady who has graced our garden with her presence over the last fortnight.

Loch Fleet Fungi

We walked in the pine plantation along the banks of Loch Fleet yesterday looking for fungi and were not disappointed in their numbers - so this might be a good year for them. However....

....both there are elsewhere they've been variously rotted, broken, chewed up and degraded. Some of the damage looks like the work of slugs and snails but much of it isn't. So even....

....the best specimens are rarely perfect.

I still don't want to try to identify them but can't help it. Some I'm reasonably sure of - like, this is a brittlegill - but others defeat me, like...

....these, relatively undamaged, beauties. We've found them in the same woods before, just in one place, and couldn't identify them then.

This was about the most undamaged one we found, its colour even more rich chestnut than seen in the picture. The underside of the cap and the stalk are the same colour, so it should be easy to identify.

This may be meadow coral fungus. It's very similar to yellow stag horn but it caught my attention because, unlike the others, it was found out in the open grassland of the links.