Natural highs and lows

During our April holiday in Perthshire, we also revisited the town of Alyth and its eponymous Den. This steep-sided valley is an absolute joy to wander around, with its Ash and Beech trees, and fast-flowing burn. Sadly, due to the wet Winter, several landslides had closed some of the paths. However, we were able to navigate the remaining paths in a convoluted route to make the most of the site's wonderful wildlife. Blue, Great and Coal Tits sang as they foraged through the canopy. Nuthatches and Treecreepers called from boughs and trunks. Wood Anemone and Wood Sorrel coated the valley floor, along with Lesser Celandine and Greater Stitchwort. Dippers and Grey Wagtails frequented the burn, whilst Green-veined White, Comma and Speckled Wood butterflies basked in sunny glades. At the lower end of the Den, is an open area where the base of a low cliff is fringed with wildflowers. Here were more species of insect: Orange Tip, Peacock and Red Admiral butterflies, Dark-edged Bee-flies and...

A few of our day trips were to wildlife sites about an hour away from the cottage, not too far to travel, whilst at the same time being an exploration of locales for future holidays. One of these sites was the national nature reserve at Tentsmuir, on the east coast, where we visited Morton Lochs on the warmest day of our trip in the hope of some early-emerging dragons. No such luck, unfortunately, but we were rewarded for our dedication with several flybys from a Kingfisher. We also drove most of the way to Tay Reedbeds, but with temperatures in the mid 20s, we didn't fancy a 6km walk on dusty tracks, opting instead for an ice cream in a nearby village, followed by a meandering route back to the cottage and an  appointment at patio o'clock. An Orange Tip nectaring on apple blossom Grey Heron A reflective heron Probably our most adventurous day was another gorge walk, this time at the Birks of Aberfeldy, where the Moness Burn tumbles its way through a beech wood. We found severa...

At this time of year, it is nigh on impossible to suppress the urge for dappled sunlight through Beech leaves. Add in a wide, shallow burn, sinuously flowing through the scene and the only option is to give in to temptation.  We found a woodland car park at the Den o' Alyth, set off on a circuitous path through the valley, with the plan to make the mid point of the walk a lunch stop in the town of Alyth itself. Dipper A female Mallard On a woodland bench, a Common Footman moth caterpillar, a teeny-tiny forager of algae and lichen Breathe... Let the tension gently subside As well as lovely views of Dipper, we had seen several Grey Wagtails, as they hunted for invertebrates along the burn. During one of our frequent pauses, letting the tranquillity seep into our souls, Megan suddenly exclaimed, "There's a Grey Wagtail up in that tree!" Stood a few feet away, I was unsighted by another tree trunk, so was initially sceptical, especially when a Great Tit flew out of the ap...

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 c...

As may have been discerned from the comments at the end of the previous blogpost, we have been away on our "Summer" holiday, fortuitously discovering some balmy weather but sadly missing out on a serendipitous meet-up with Mark, the beinn bicycling bard of Blogger . Whilst he and Deb were pedalling by our home in Stromness, Megan and I were driving by their holiday accommodation near Melvich. For 2025, our holiday location was Blairgowrie, on the south west side of the River Ericht in Perth and Kinross. This was a little further south than our usual jaunts but, as the meteorology proved, was certainly near enough to the Equator for this scribe. The journey down through northern Scotland and the Cairngorms was done in several sections, with overnight stays in Dornoch and Aboyne, before finally arriving in leafy and blossomy Blairgowrie. Whenever the narrowness of the road or the speed limit dictated that we keep below 40mph, the car windows were opened and we listened intently...