At the western end of Loch Quoich, where the single track road rounds a headland near a burn called the Alt Nighean Eobhain, I came upon a small group of grazing Red Deer (Cervus elaphus).
I was struck at first that all of the deer in the group were stags until I read that for much of the year the stags and hinds lead separate lives, forming separate-sex herds. Male calves live with their mothers for a couple of years, but with the onset of maturity they leave to join male herds. This group were quite nervous of me but with care I was lucky enough to get close views and take the following pictures ...
A young stag with the steep slopes of Sgurr Mor, on the south side of Loch Quoich, in the background
Another of the group with Loch Quoich in the background
This second piece describing my recent wildlife cruise on Loch Carron looks at Common Seals (Phoca vitulina).
Shortly after leaving Plockton on the Sula Mhor, we passed a small rocky island where a group of Common Seals were basking.
The Common Seal, referred to as the Harbour Seal in other parts of the world, is associated with sheltered seas and is widespread on the east coast of England and the coasts generally around Scotland and Ireland. They have a rather friendly-looking face and are little more than half the size of the Grey Seals (Halichoerus grypus) I more commonly see on the Farne Islands and at other locations along the Northumberland coast. They tend to be rather nervous and wary animals and in most circumstances are less inquisitive than their Grey cousins.
There are believed to be over 350 Common Seals resident in the Plockton area. You can see more picture pictures of Common Seals at Loch Carron on Callum Mackenzie's website
After spending the first three months of 2011 decorating almost all of my house, and taking the time since to recover, I took myself off to Scotland for a short break last week to stay with my Invergarry friend at her home on the shores of Loch Oich. Sadly, as she is moving to the south of England in June, this was to be the last holiday I would spend with her in her Highland home.
On Wednesday we travelled to Plockton, to the north of the Kyle of Lochalsh, meeting another friend for lunch before taking a wildlife cruise on Loch Carron. The cruise turned out to be one of those never-to-be-forgotten moments.
A rather cold and damp Loch Carron seen from the departure point (cruise boat not shown in this picture)
Our cruise boat, the Sula Mhor, followed a course up Loch Carron towards a fish farm where Calum the captain told us we were almost certain to see the dolphins. We didn't but kept on cruising further up the loch towards Strome Ferry and beyond to Lochcarron village, hopeful but still without a view of them. The return trip, however, proved successful and the Loch's resident pair of female Common Dolphins (Delphinus delphis), known locally as Gin and Tonic, put on a great show for us.
Above and below: the Dolphins coming to the surface
And here, in this short video, the dolphins can be seen swimming at the bow of the Sula Mhor ...
If you are travelling in the Plockton area, do take one of Culum's cruises ...
See more here at Calum's Seal and Dolphin Trips website.
It was bitterly cold today so I thought, for this short piece, I would transport myself back to a sunny day in late July when ...
... returning home from another rewarding afternoon at Sidwood, crossing the high moor below Padon Hill, I paused to take-in this view north, to the remote steading of Dargues Hope, standing in splendid isolation at the foot of Blakehope Fell, and beyond, across the Rede valley towards the Cheviot hills and the border with Scotland.
As I turned away from the view to continue homewards, I glimpsed a number of fungi growing on cow-pats in a field to my right. The fungi were Egghead Mottlegills (Panaeolus semiovatus). This Mottlegill has distinctively shaped, cream-coloured caps and a short-lived, white-fading-to-yellow ring on the stipe.
Redesdale enjoyed something of a thaw last Saturday but the days since have seen the winter's grip on the valley re-tightened. Thankfully, there's been no more snow but today, having to travel five miles outside the village to the nearest Post Office, I thought the roads quite unpleasant to drive along. I was glad just to buy stamps for my Christmas cards and, once back in the village, some vegetables and a woolly Peruvian-style hat at the mill shop before returning home for my lunch-time soup and a sandwich and an afternoon with Patrick Barkham's enchanting The Butterfly Isles, which I am very much enjoying and can thoroughly recommend.
When leaving the mill, this view of sheep feeding in an adjacent field caught my eye ...
And in the garden, the birds return again and again to the food I put out for them at their temporary feeding station on top of the wall at my front door. Here's another of the Brambling pictures I took from my living room window last week ...
The snow in my garden on Thursday morning was three feet deep and the most convenient way for me to feed the birds was to place small portions of their favourite foods along the top of the wall at my front door.
From my living room window I watched three male Bramblings, a large mixed flock of Chaffinch, four Greenfinch, a female House Sparrow, three male and two female Blackbirds, individual Blue, Coal and Great Tits and a Robin visit the food. As might be imagined, I was particularly pleased to see the Bramblings. I think this is a first winter male ...
Since the weekend, the winter weather, which was at least picturesque in my last my last piece, has continued to tighten it's grip on Redesdale. The accumulation now is certainly as deep as last winter and clearing it has meant a lot of hard work for me and my new plastic snow shovel. The car-wide track down to the road, created on Saturday when I dug out the six inches of snow lying on my drive, has filled and been cleared twice again; on Monday the snow was twelve inches deep and there was another six inches yesterday. And if I felt up to the task this morning, five inches more has fallen overnight. It's still snowing heavily as I write so I've voted for a lazy day. Sadly, the garden birds will not be able to relax.
