Travelling again – 9. RSPB Loch Leven

Tags

coot, dabchick, Grant Arms Hotel, greylag goose, lapwing, little grebe, Loch Leven, Queensferry Bridge, Steve Richards, tufted duck, viper's bugloss

It was with a distinct pang of regret that I left the Grant Arms Hotel after breakfast on Wednesday, 16th June. As during my previous stay in June 2019, I had felt so well looked after. For anyone who would like a holiday in the Cairngorms – not just for wildlife purposes – I cannot recommend it highly enough.

But it was time to make my way southwards. Indeed, I needed to descend (map-wise that is) through Scotland rather more speedily than I had travelled on my way ‘up’, as I wanted to spend a couple of hours at RSPB Loch Leven, given that it was so near to Kinross Services. So I took the faster A9 road, and stopped for no photos, much as I would have liked to. As the previous week, I plugged Steve Richards’s latest podcast into my ears, having downloaded it at the hotel, and was pleased to find that he had taken, not for the first time, one of my comments or questions to respond to. Moreover, he had mentioned my journey northwards. (And the following week he did the same again, this time referring to my journey southwards. He enjoys including personal references to his listeners who contact him.)

After stocking up on fuel and food provisions at Kinross Services, I made my way to Loch Leven, and spent a couple of hours there, in three hides, each quite close to the others. As I moved to, between, and from the hides, I enjoyed looking at the the wildflower meadows as much as I did at the birds.

Mainly greylag geese

Viper’s bugloss

Way in the distance I spotted one of my favourite birds, a lapwing, aka peewit from its call.

And then I noticed one ferreting around much closer to the hide.

It stayed quite a while. I moved to the next hide. As with the others, I had it to myself.

Two adult and two coot chicks

Mainly tufted ducks

Little grebe, aka dabchick

Dabchick with ?fish

There were several artificial ‘islands’ where birds could nest safely.

I took a final picture as I made my way back to my car afters two hours. I needed to move on.

Another enjoyable crossing via the Queensferry Bridge, though in rather faster moving traffic this time, and then I disobeyed my satnav’s instruction to avoid Edinburgh by using on the motorways surrounding the city to the south, and went instead across the top, parallel to the Forth, though sadly not actually seeing much of it. I had only visited Edinburgh once before, on a management course some 50 years previous (!) and I was pleased to see a little of it as I drove through in the very slow, sometimes stationary, traffic.

It was a lovely, but by now tiring, drive further along the Forth/North Sea coastline to Berwick-on-Tweed, where I was very happy to flop for the rest of the evening in my pre-booked B’n’B. It always amuses me when places give you a key to the front door, ‘for if you come in after 11 o’clock’. I wasn’t going anywhere after such a long day!

Travelling again – 7. Strathdearn and Insh Marshes

Tags

birch polypore fungus, butterwort, common rock rose, curlew, David Parkin, dung beetle, Findhorn Bridge, Findhorn Valley, Germander Speedwell, Grant Arms Hotel, greylag goose, heath spotted orchid, Insh Marshes, Nigel Marven, red deer, roe deer, RSPB, Ruthven Barracks, small heath butterfly, Strathdearn

I had been to Strathdearn on my visit to the area two years previous. I had been on my own and had had the good fortune to encounter there a couple of practised birders. On Monday 14th June, the location was one of the options on the programme, so I was able to benefit from the expertise of Richard, one of the Grant Arms Hotel‘s list of local guides. The meeting point was a car park ten miles along the Strathdearn/Findhorn Valley, where I took the obligatory photos looking ahead,

and behind.

We were some ten people from the hotel. Almost as soon as we were gathered, a herd of at least 20 red deer arrived. I was a little careless as I took the photo. They were at a considerable distance, but I should have held stiller. I include this merely for the record.

We also got a brief glimpse of an osprey, but not good enough for a photo.

It was blowing an absolute gale, a really cold one at that, and at times it was raining. Like several others I am afraid I just sat in my car for much of the time, and emerged only when I saw a brave few huddled over the roadside verge. They were examining two plants,

a heath spotted orchid, and this pretty, innocent looking thing, a butterwort.

Not so innocent. It is insectivorous, as a closer look at these sticky leaves shows.

After an hour or so alternately shivering outside and warming up inside my car, I gave up. I imagine the others were continuing with Richard to Burghead in the afternoon, but I had booked on to a different outing. I made my way back along the Findhorn Valley, admiring the views once more, and occasionally stopping to take photos when it was safe to stop in the passing places along the single-track road.

The art deco Findhorn Bridge at the beginning of the valley is interesting.

The inscription explains, ‘This bridge was built in 1926 to replace the bridge built by Thomas Telford in 1833’.

I had plenty of time before I was due at the meeting spot for the afternoon’s outing, so I stopped off at a hotel in the village of Carr Bridge for a coffee. I had to sign up for the Cairngorms own Track and Trace system and not to forget to sign out as I left.

Continuing on my way, I tried to capture the beauty of the distant mountains, some with occasional snow.

I was heading for the Insh Marshes RSPB reserve, and passed of over Loch Insh. It seems to be best known for its water sports activities, but I saw none of those, I’m pleased to say, and had the road bridge to myself when I took these, with not an activity in sight in either direction.

There’s a bit of a breeze, but it wasn’t cold here.

I was very early at the meeting place, ate my banana and wandered around a just a little.

I didn’t want to leave the beaten track, but just enjoyed the wildflowers on the verges, the sheep and the views. Not to mention the smidgeon of sun.

As I’ve said before, I do like a clump of flowering grasses.

It turned out that I was the only customer for this afternoon’s outing, so we were just three, Nigel Marven, Sue W of the hotel, and me. We went to a lookout. I was pleased to have expert company. I would have spotted nothing in these marshes without them.

But with their eyes, I was able to see at a great distance, (my camera is on maximum zoom here) a greylag goose and goslings (and more geese),

a curlew

and a roe deer.

We also saw a redshank, but my photo of that is so poor it does not even merit being included for the record. We came down from the viewpoint and started making our way to a ground level hide. Nigel went on ahead, and came back with…

… a dung beetle. No, until a few days earlier I did not know that the UK had dung beetles. Though ours do not gather and roll along those balls of faeces you see on the nature documentaries about Africa, and indeed which I have seen there, most recently in Morocco.

On the way, we saw, among other things, a small heath butterfly,

germander speedwell,

common rock roses, and

and birch polypore fungus.

Once installed in the hide, we were delighted to see very close a family of curlews. A parent,

a chick,

two parents,

and a parent and a chick.

In fact there were two very attentive parents and three growing chicks, but it was not possible to capture all five together. Sue was very pleased to see that there were indeed still three chicks, the same as the last time she had been there a couple of weeks back, and they were very adventurous now.

Over in the distance was a buck roe deer.

As I drove back to the hotel I was taken aback to see this. Only on my return did I learn that it was a significant historical monument, the Ruthven Barracks, built by George II after the 1715 Jacobite Rising. Had I known, I would have parked up and looked around.

After another delicious dinner at the hotel (here is the menu for that evening, which also included a choice of four tempting sweets),

visiting speaker David Parkin gave a very interesting talk, more so than might be suggested by the title, called ‘Birds and Climate Change’.

This was the end of the official ‘celebrity week’, but I had a further full day to explore the area.

Travelling again – 6. Mountain and Lochans

Tags

Cairn Gorm, chickweed-wintergreen, Grant Arms Hotel, Meadow pipit, mountain avens, pill box, ring ouzel, Uath Lochans, willow warbler, WWII defences

Settings for morning and afternoon outings on Sunday 13th June could not have been more different, and it will become clear which I preferred.

I had been dubious about taking on the morning trip on Cairn Gorm with Nigel, and Sue W (the overall co-ordinator of programmes at the Grant Arms Hotel), as the programme mentioned walking up the mountain for a while. I am just not good on steady rises, but I decided to see how the land lay, as it were.

I stopped at the Cairn Gorm Ski centre’s lower car park to take advantage of the ‘viewpoint’, but as viewpoints go, I was a little disappointed. No doubt much better covered in snow.

While the lower car park had been nearly empty, the upper one, with the main ski centre, had plenty of vehicles there, despite it not being the skiing season. I took this photo to show that there was still snow in one very sheltered spot.

We met up, about a dozen of us, and I enquired how strenuous the walk was going to be. About half a mile of gentle walking I was informed, so decided of course to join in.

Sadly, much evidence of skiing paraphernalia was in evidence, and this was the least beautiful of the wildlife outings I did the entire stay.

The venue had been chosen in the hope of seeing a Ring ouzel or two, and, I think, a wheatear – I can’t remember. The first was achieved within a couple of minutes of our setting off, and very close, to the astonishment of those who knew about these things. A Ring ouzel, a.k.a. ‘mountain blackbird’, like the blackbird is a member of the thrush family. It has a white crescent bib.

We watched it bob about, getting to closer to us, for some time. It can just be seen at 10 o’clock on the edge of the upper large rock below.

More chickweed-wintergreen, actually a member of the primrose family:

There was a wildlife flower garden right by, in which we spent some time, and I could have taken a few more pictures of labelled plants (to be honest, the garden needed some tending) but I chose just this one, mountain avens.

People were also very pleased to see and hear a Willow warbler.

We started our trek uphill, which was not at all strenuous of course at the pace we went.

It was impossible to avoid man-made mountain furniture.

Though by focussing, once we got to our highest spot, on a very distant Ring ouzel, I could pretend it wasn’t there.

A very distant Meadow pipit took advantage.

I was pretty well in the vanguard of those turning round in due course, the thought of a coffee in the centre being rather attractive.

But we waited for the others, even so.

And were rewarded with another Willow warbler. Or perhaps it was the same one, having moved tree.

The afternoon was another kettle of fish, the Uath Lochans, which I see from this information is pronounced ‘wah lochans’ and means the hawthorn small lochs. A very pleasant afternoon was spent on a short trail, even though we did not see the Crested tit hoped for by many.

We met a mother and two children who visited regularly with one purpose in mind:

I have no idea what kind of mushroom this is.

Within seconds of observing this:

we observed this:

There was a bit of a breeze all afternoon, but it was not cold. Well, by comparison with other days that is. A heatwave was going on elsewhere in the UK.

Because we were only six in total, including the two guides, Sue W asked if she might bring her dog, Loki, along. She was very well-behaved and had fun.

This is bog cotton, I think.

Thus ended a gentle afternoon’s entertainment, and the day was rounded off with a yet another good dinner.

Postscript. In two earlier posts, I featured WWII pillboxes. I have since discovered this BBC article from 2015 about the defences along the Moray Firth, and this longer booklet by the Forestry Commission Scotland which explains that they were built because of fears of a German invasion from Norway, which of course never came.

Travelling again – 4. Roseisle, Burghead and Lochindorb

Tags

Burghead, chickweed-wintergreen, David Lindo, dog whelk, fulmar, Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey, grey seal, house martin, lex ferenda, Lochindorb, Moray Firth, Nigel Marven, oystercatcher, ribwort plantain, Roseisle, sandpiper, yellowhammer

This stay at the Grant Arms Hotel in Grantown-on-Spey, and the visits either side of it, had been deferred from almost exactly the same dates in 2020, because, of course, of Covid-19. I had been intending to use the hotel’s full information resources, in the form of both human advice and enormous amounts of written material, to plan each day’s activity. But this time, the wildlife hotel had a ‘celebrity week’ on for four of my five full days based there, which was a real bonus, especially since these are usually a good deal more expensive, but this one was free. David Lindo, the ‘Urban Birder’ of BBC 1’s The One Show, was meant to be there, but he was stuck in Spain because of quarantine problems, so Nigel Marven, wildlife producer and presenter, who had already been ‘the celebrity’ a few weeks earlier, was asked to step in and replace David.

Each morning and afternoon, there was a choice of outings with Nigel or with other local experts, for which one booked in advance, numbers being limited on each. On a normal celebrity week, the group would be transported in a mini van, but at this period we had to make our own way to the meeting point, no sharing with anyone with whom one was not in a ‘bubble’ or household. On this, my first full day, Friday 11th June, I opted for Roseisle in the morning and Burghead in the afternoon, each with Nigel. The former is in Burghead Bay, on the southern side of the Moray Firth, about a hour from Grantown, and Burghead itself is on a point at the eastern end of its eponymous bay, about 35 miles to the east and a bit north of Inverness.

About twelve of us gathered here,

and walked a few yards to here.

(See the WW2 detritus)

We saw nothing of wildlife interest, and started walking gently along the coastline, alternating between forest and beach.

Three oystercatchers, five rocks, a beach and the sea

A House martin

Sometimes – often – I take pictures just because the image pleases me.

Nigel found a dog whelk egg case

This yellowhammer was a very long way off, and just wouldn’t move for us a to get better view.

Chickweed-wintergreen, though it is neither chickweed nor wintergreen. It is also known as Arctic starflower.

Ribwort plantain

We moved on to Burghead.

This was my first impression.

And this my second. It was not a particularly warm afternoon, and I felt cold just looking at these women.

Clearly still an active fishing village.

I was fascinated by this clearly Latin name. I’ve since found that it means ‘Law [yet] to be made [and should be]’. The boat carrying it was obviously not a new one, and I wondered what message the name was meant to be sending. Were the boat more recent, I would link its name with the Brexit deal.

A grey seal appeared.

Its surroundings reflecting a red van back up on the quayside.

We leant looking out to the other side of the Moray Firth for a while but saw nothing of interest. I was just enjoying myself being outdoors in clean air.

A short walk brought us to the other side of the point,

where a Fulmar was the only thing of wildlife interest that we saw. Not bad though.

Our leaders gave up, and added the bonus of a visit to Lochindorb, only a little way off the route back to the hotel. (Indeed, I had been here two years ago on my previous visit to Grantown. It rained then.) The waves show how windy it was. And it was very cold!

This sandpiper was hanging around.

And after about 20 minutes freezing in the cold, we realised why. Just a few feet in front of us was this chick. A quick photo, and off we scuttled.

It had been a strange day for me socially. After fifteen months of almost solitary confinement – I exaggerate a little but I’ve certainly not been used to doing things in largish groups – I was still very wary, and the whole experience seemed very weird. But a bizarre reminder of ‘normality’ at the same time.

After another excellent dinner – food at the Grant Arms Hotel is really good – I had a quiet evening in front of the telly in my room and looking at my photos. My more comforting, current, normal, normality.

Travelling again – 3. A long drive further north

Tags

Bridge of Cally, Forth Rail Bridge, Forth Road Bridge, Glen Shee, Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey, Langholm, Queensferry Bridge, Rock and Roll Politics, Steve Richards, Visit Scotland

The idea was that I would join Tom and Ally for a relaxed coffee before setting off for Grantown-on-Spey, Highland, but, especially since I had decided not to take the quickest route, I realised that I would only have time before my departure for a quick visit to their house, in order to have a good tour of Ally’s wonderful garden, and that earlier than planned.

Tom’s daily blog always includes pictures of the wonderful results of his wife’s efforts, so here are just a few impressions I took away on that day.

I set off from their house in Langholm at about 10.00 and arrived at the Grant Arms around 5.00. My aim was to minimise mileage, which as I looked at the map meant not taking the M74 but crossing the Southern Uplands pretty well due northwards, skirting round Edinburgh rather than Glasgow, then not taking the A9 round the Cairngorms westwards, but going almost straight through them south to north on the A93. So I programmed my satnav to do just that. When I told Tom that I was going (I see now, unnecessarily) via a place called Ettrick, he warned me that that meant lots of potholes. What I hadn’t realised is that the first part would mean several miles of single carriageway over fabulously beautiful moors.

It was a lovely drive, and I met scarcely a soul. Tom was right about the potholes, but fortunately nearly all of them had been filled in!

As I lost altitude, the mist cleared. At 11.14 a partial eclipse of the sun was at its peak, but honestly I wouldn’t have known.

And in due course, I could see that I would have to join a major road. View ahead not too bad though.

Once on such a road, it was much more difficult to stop to take photos, which was perhaps as well, or else I would have made slow progress.

It was tedious going round the various motorways to the west of Edinburgh. At one point I found myself alarmingly on one signposted for Glasgow, but trusty satnav knew wat it was doing, and to my enormous pleasure I found myself swept over the beautiful Queensferry Bridge, with the famous Forth Road and Rail Bridges to my right. The traffic went slowly enough for me to glance over to them from time to time. I would have loved to have taken pictures of and from the new bridge, but it was absolutely impossible to stop, for no doubt very good safety reasons. But here is a beautiful picture of all three, taken from the north side, courtesy of Visit Scotland.

Around lunchtime I stopped at the Kinross Services, then set off north again. I really had to stop myself from stopping too often. I had had neither talk nor musical distraction up to then, as I had just wanted to enjoy the scenery, but for the next 50 minutes or so, I did plug my favourite podcast into my ears, Steve Richards‘s latest ‘Rock and Roll Politics‘. That took me through Perth, and somewhat beyond, and I continued onwards undistracted through places which until then had been just names to me: Blairgowrie, Bridge of Cally, Spittal of Glenshee (not that I had ever heard of these last two before), Braemar, and eventually to Grantown-on-Spey.

The Bridge is the flat road curving right. It’s over the River Ardle.

The next three photos are of beautiful Glen Shee.

The road to myself, as it was most of the way!

Through the Grampians

I could not get a better view of this very steep bridge, as the wire fence was in the way. Protecting me from these Greylag geese!

These last three were all taken from the same spot, just a few miles from Grantown.

And after a good dinner in the restaurant, I went to a talk on the wildlife of Guatemala by the hotel’s celebrity speaker, about whom more next time.

Grantown-on-Spey 5

Tags

Avielochan, Cairngorms, Cairngorms National Park, goldeneye duck, Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey, Great black-backed gull, greylag goose, mallard, Slavonian grebe, willow warbler

Monday, 3rd June. I spent my final morning at Avielochan, on my way to Inverness Airport. The Grant Arms Hotel, where I had been staying for the four previous nights, has a hide there for the exclusive use of its guests, and indeed ask you that if the little car park already has its capacity of five cars to come back later. I was fortunate in that I was the only person in the hide for the full 90 minutes I was there.

I was fortunate also to have shelter – it was drizzling when I arrived, and for nearly all the time I was there. This was the general view from near the hide as I arrived.

Avielochan was another place where there was to be the chance of seeing Slavonian grebes, though, sadly, again they were not in evidence. But I enjoyed my morning, obsserving a variety of more common birds, some of which are featured below. For a short while, not long enough to get my camera to it, I caught sight of an osprey flying around against the background of the hills opposite.

Greylag geese were in abundance.

So were gulls of various kinds.

Hmm, there was a lapwing on the bank a few seconds ago.

Young ducklings – goldeneye I think.

Female Goldeneye

Great black-backed gull taking off

Willow warbler (?) in nearby tree

Greylag geese in parallel formation

About turn!

And I couldn’t resist taking this little video of the three adults and goodness-knows-how-many goslings.

Mallard

The greylag goose is all ready to start conducting the piece, but the choir is not watching. Heads in copies as usual.

Goldeneye taking off …

… in flight …

and landing.

Gulls enjoying the wind. I’m glad someone was.

There was short path beyond the hide, but I didn’t say long. By now I was perishingly cold, even though the rain had temporarily stopped.

And in the event, this was all I saw of the Slavonian grebes.

Despite the weather, and despite the underlying sadness over the very recent loss of my lovely Lulu, I did enjoy my short stay in the Cairngorms National Park. The hotel was a friendly, welcoming place and made me feel very comfortable and looked-after, which I’m sure helped my general satisfaction at the mini-holiday. But I was happy to get home to Bella in the early evening. I feel pretty sure I shall return to Grantown-on-Spey before too long.

Grantown-on-Spey 2

Tags

Anagach Woods, bird cherry, bog cotton, Caledonian forest, Clan Chattan, Clan Grant, Clarsach, Cromdale brooch, Curling, Decimalisation, dipper, Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey, Grantown-on-Spey-Museum, grey wagtail, James Grant, James Grant of Grant, mallard, pied wagtail, Ramsay MacDonald, River Spey, Spotted flycatcher, Springwatch, Strathspey, Treecreeper, wild lupin

Friday 31st May. On offer this morning was a walk in the local woods, led by Simon, one of the experts on hand in the hotel. With three other residents, I availed myself of it. We started at the local golf course,

where we saw nothing of interest, though Simon did his best to convince us that this was a rare Scottish wild cat.

The Anagach Woods were established in 1766 by James Grant of Grant (more later), but they look very natural, and provide excellent habitat for local fauna.

Treecreeper

And flora.

Bog cotton/cottongrass

As we walked through the woods, for much of the time to the right was acidic boggy land with stunted trees that could be 200 years old.

To our left, classic Caledonian forest, (the BBC’s ‘Springwatch’ is currently coming from just a few miles away) allowing lots of light through to nourish berry-bearing plants, good food for native species.

I was frequently a little behind my companions, as I was the only one taking photos.

Particularly if they involved reflections

The lichen is called Old Man’s Beard

We emerged from forest into more open land, and I learned that this native tree was called bird cherry.

We reached the River Spey, and went on to a bridge. (Of which, annoyingly, I did not think to take a photo when we later went down to the path on the right hand side.)

You don’t often get the chance to see a mallard’s orange feet so clearly.

On the far side of the bridge I was able to see this bird, identified for me as a spotted flycatcher.

I said that I couldn’t see any spots, even when it obligingly turned round for me.

But spotted flycatcher it was, I was assured.

From the bridge I was also able to wonder at these wild lupins, through which we were to wander minutes later. We also saw a very newly fledged grey wagtail.

Once down there, along the bank we watched a fledged pied wagtail being fed. Its parent was too quick for me.

Further along was a dipper, again it was thought, newly fledged, not least because it was showing a marked reluctance to dip.

And then there were two, sibling fledglings. Believe it or not.

As we started to walk back, completing a loop, it started to spit. I was able to notice and admire these patriotic finials.

By the time we were back at the hotel, via the Post Office in my case, it was pouring.

And still was in the afternoon, so instead of pursuing my rural intentions, I did that standby of wet afternoons, the local museum.

Which was small and perfectly formed. I learned that the Clan Grant had been around for a few centuries when Sir James Grant of Grant, he of the Anagach Woods, and known as ‘the good Sir James’, decided, in the mid-eighteenth century, to create a town on the River Spey. It didn’t become quite the boom town he had hoped, because it was too distant from anywhere, but it throve nevertheless, especially once it had become such a sought after place for holidays and leisure a hundred years later.

I learned about the superclan (that’s my word) Chattan, and its motto ‘Touch not the cat bot [without] a glove’, meaning that they were fierce fighters. This was a confederation of clans and large families with origins at least as far back as the fourteenth century. The wild cats engraved on this large 1600s brooch, the Cromdale brooch, suggest it may have a connection to the Clan Chattan.

Sir James’s plan of Grantown-on-Spey, showing the Anagach Woods, and The Square, in fact a thin oblong, where the Grant Arms Hotel is located.

The former town clock mechanism

Alone in the museum, for 15 minutes I got quite emotional as I took up the invitation, below, to try the clàrsach, which was perfectly in tune, picking out tunes and even singing with it. (In the evening, I spent some time researching the cost of and how to play the instrument, I had been so moved by the experience, but have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I am unlikely to be any more successful with this instrument than I have been with any requiring the co-ordination of more than two fingers!)

Tearing myself away – I felt I could have stayed there for hours – I perused the rest of the museum, which featured various professions and achievements of the town’s residents, including the inventor of the flush toilet. (No pictures!)

Endorsement of he hotel by Prime Minster Ramsay MacDonald in 1934, from its wording apparently solicited.

I was fascinated by these next two images when I came to see them on screen. The light was flickering a little on the display of the curling stone, but my eyes did not see the complete darkness the camera did as it took the photos on burst.

Finally, the 1970s are clearly history to some, though I can remember the day we converted to decimal coins as if it were yesterday. Ironically, I was working in H M Treasury in Whitehall at the time. The lady on the sandwich kiosk was having a terrible time with the new coinage, and the queue was very long indeed!

Grantown-on-Spey 1

Tags

Cairngorms, fishwife, Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey, Herring gull, jackdaw, Lochindorb, mallard, Moray Firth, Nairn, oystercatcher, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, Southern Africa, Yellowstone National Park

Thursday, 30th May. It would have been nearly three months since my trip to southern Africa, so a few weeks ago I fixed a short, four-night break in this small town in Morayshire, on the northern edge of the Cairngorms. In the event, just a few days after burying my lovely cat, Lulu, killed on a country lane near to where I live, this was not the best of times to leave poor Bella behind, not was I really in the right mood to explore this new, for me, part of Scotland. But all was booked – flight, hire car, hotel – so I left home, hoping my sadness and guilt would not intrude too much.

The weather forecast for the five days was not great, but the worst was meant to be as I arrived, gradually improving over the period. So it was pleasing that, when I picked up the car (I’d booked and paid for the tiniest car possible, and they gave me a 2019 Astra with just 1350 miles on the clock) at Inverness Airport around midday, it was not actually raining, though there was a bitter wind. The hotel – more later – had sent me a load of information, so I had already made my plans for the afternoon. While waiting for the car, I had bought a sandwich, and drove along the Moray Firth to Nairn, when I parked by the small harbour and ate my lunch, looking at the northern side of the Firth through the windscreen. In the distance is a red ship, at, I think, the neck of the Cromarty Firth. It didn’t move all the time I was there.

Well wrapped up against the biting wind, I wandered around for a few minutes.

This is a fishwife, who erstwhile played a very important role in the fishing community. The statue was erected as part of the Highland Year of Culture, 2007.

Oystercatcher, feathers somewhat ruffled in the wind

Jackdaws always glare, even when their feathers are not being ruffled.

It was pleasing to see this sign on the harbour wall, but why only swans?

In the information from the hotel was a tip that there was a public car park, giving access to the beach, at the end of a road through a campsite, which otherwise I would have assumed to be entirely private. I went over the dunes …

on to the nearly deserted beach, and enjoyed the natural decorations.†

I was wondering about the precise sizes of the oystercatcher and the black-headed gull …

… when a herring gull photo-bombed the picture and answered my question.

After a few minutes it started spitting, so, not wanting to get drenched, I set off to make my way back to the car. But it soon stopped, so I was able to take more pictures, of which this is one, looking back to Nairn.

It was now my intention to go to a place described as, ‘A beautifully scenic spot – the ruined Lochindorb Castle lies in the middle of Lochindorb, surrounded by heather-clad moorland and scattered woodland.’ Followed by a long list of birds which might be seen there and thereabouts. But well before I got there it was teeming with rain. I got out to take a couple of pictures on my way.

Approaching the loch I stopped to take this picture of the ruined castle.

And was delighted when a mother and six offspring ran across the road in front of my car. Fortunately I lunged for my camera. Had I not, but just driven on, one, then another, further offspring might well have been crushed. I managed to get this picture with all nine safely reunited.

Proving this was wonderful weather for ducks

I drove on, scarcely stopping anymore. There was no point with the rain lashing down. I just got this picture of the increasingly mountainous scenery.

I was pleased to arrive at the Grant Arms Hotel, in Grantown-on-Spey (pronounced ‘Granton’).

I had chosen it because it advertises itself as a wildlife hotel. It had already sent me a great deal of information, as I have said. As a guest you become a member of its ‘Bird Watching and Wildlife Club’. There is a library, masses more information about walks and suggested outings, and real live human experts on hand twice a day for tips and information, plus a few guided walks from the hotel, and evening talks about twice a week. They also have celebrity-led weeks from time to time.

The hotel itself is comfortable, traditional in furnishings, serving excellent food, and for me was very good value for money, as they charge per person not per room. I felt very well looked after.

Queen Victoria stayed there, incognito I read elsewhere.

Not incognito, and some time ago, another royal couple stayed there…

There was just one talk during my stay there, and it was that first evening. It was on Yellowstone National Park in the Fall. It was very interesting to make comparisons with my own stay there in the snow of February last year.