An hour in the garden

Inspired by Springwatch, I thought I'd try to get some pictures of the wildlife around the garden at the moment.

I started with the starlings in the letterbox. They're still feeding madly - caterpillars for breakfast again:





Then I headed down the fields and had to take a couple of gratuitously cute rabbit shots:





In our bottom field we have a skylark nesting:



And the sheep are, as ever, a joy to photograph, though I wish I hadn't taken this one through sheep netting - I'll have to shoot her again on a sunny day:



Then I topped up the bird feeders and settled down to see what turned up. This is my shot of the day:



It got busy:



The sparrows brought their three fledglings down from the kitchen roof - here are two of them stretching their wings, though I think they look like they're about to burst into a rousing music hall chorus!



Lots more bird pictures if you click on any of the above to go through to my Flickr account, but I'll leave you with this picture of Dunnet beach taken last weekend. Remember all those shots they show on the news of beaches so packed that every square inch of sand is covered with towels? This is what the most popular beach in the area looked like on the hottest Sunday afternoon of the year so far (about 25C):



We counted 18 families on its two-mile stretch :o)

Poulouriscaig

Poulouriscaig is a Clearances village. It was a tiny hamlet of 7 houses, built some time in the 1800s and abandoned around about 1934. This is the most intact house left of the 7:



And just to show you how different the weather can be within 100 yards of one spot, this is the same house from the reverse angle about 5 minutes later - clock that sky!



There are sheep grazing out there, but I'm not sure how much human contact they have. These were curious until I got closer than 20 feet away and then they bolted.



The walk out there is tough (for a townie!) - it took me about an hour each way even though it's only 1.5 miles away. But with skylarks singing at me all the way and views like this, which is back towards Armadale from the highest point on the track, you don't really notice the aching legs.



Now all I need to do is go up to that point at dawn with a tripod for the golden hour...

Googling Poulouriscaig to find out about it has tipped me off about a hidden waterfall through one of the caves in Port a' Chinn. Looking at the map, there appears to be a pretty big loch hidden in the hills as well, but I'm not fit enough for that walk yet.