Chips with everything

Now that we were ensconced in our actual holiday location (as opposed to taking the circuitous three day route to get there), mornings were quite slow, especially as there was so much wildlife on tap at the cottage. We would wake to the dawn chorus, fall back asleep, then eventually surface once more to shuffle to the lounge to watch the bird feeders on the patio and their clientele of feather and fur. But that's a story for another day.

Once such morning, we journeyed to RSPB Loch of Kinnordy, a small wetland habitat midst rolling farmland in Angus. As was becoming a holiday theme, we had to take a diversion due to some roadworks, but the place was still peaceful and quiet when we arrived. For the rest of the morning we were sensory sponges, soaking up the sights and sounds of a mixed woodland, reedbeds, marsh scrub and open water. Ospreys regularly flew over the loch, occasionally hovering and diving at fish, Marsh Harriers quartered the reedbeds, Water Rails squealed from deep cover and Orange Tip butterflies danced through the air of sunny glades.

A Carrion Crow mobs a male Marsh Harrier

A male Marsh Harrier

Osprey

Red Squirrel

For lunch, we decamped to the nearby town of Kirriemuir, and after navigating its unfamiliar streets with the added spice of another traffic diversion, we dined in The Thrums Hotel, complete with its many references to J M Barrie's Peter Pan.

Before we returned to Kinnordy to explore more of its paths, we needed to fuel the car. And so it was that I was idling by the filler cap as the petrol gurgled into the tank, when a House Martin swooped through the forecourt. This being our first of the year, I shouted to Megan to let her know but, from within the car, she already had bins in hand and was grinning from ear to ear.

Back at the nature reserve for the afternoon, there were more Ospreys and a few successful catches of fish, the unexpected sight of a Large Red Damselfly (in April, in Scotland) and a few signs of Beaver activity.

Brown Hare

A very confiding male Orange Tip butterfly

Beaver shavings

We meandered a "country lane" route back to Blairgowrie, which at least allowed us to recce a couple of routes to other places of natural history interest during the remainder of the holiday. Then it was G&Ts on the patio in the early evening sunshine whilst the local wildlife buzzed, clambered or flew around the garden.