The Rock

Yes, I know, it's only a boring rock sitting beside the track and minding its own business but to people like me it has great importance.

You see, when one gets a bit old, a rock like the one on the left in this picture is precious: it's somewhere to sit and rest and do what older people should be good at: nothing.

The trouble is that, for reasons which are probably to do with the ice age, there are precious few well-placed, comfortable rocks beside Golspie's tracks. This one happens to be ideally located, just under a mile from home and on a track which is frequented by few people.

So, today, I walked to the rock and sat down for a well-earned rest. The hills are very quiet now, with little bird song, but a pair of buzzards began calling high above me and, being very aware that creatures often call when they aren't very happy about something they're seeing, I searched the skies and found....

....what was agitating them - an eagle, I think, probably a golden eagle, at the extreme range of my camera.

We see buzzards, red kites and sparrowhawks fairly frequently but an eagle is a bit special, so I sat for some time to watch it wheel across they sky with the agitated buzzards in close pursuit.

I set off home as soon as the buzzards fell silent, and had just realised that I hadn't seen a single butterfly when....

....this beautiful common blue took flight right in front of me, landing shortly thereafter on a convenient leaf.

By the time I reached home I had been out for about an hour and seen just two butterflies; and this is the beginning of August.