Apologies for the radio silence

...but in the two months since I last posted, I've barely had time to pick up a camera unless it was to shoot pictures of beads.

I saw the otter again yesterday whilst walking the dogs - you guessed it, no camera. And, worse, the dogs chased it and caught up with it, though it swam off with no apparent injuries, a ginormous fish still firmly clamped in its mouth. Today I walked the dogs in the field and then went back down to the beach with my camera. No otter, but plenty of oystercatchers:





And it wouldn't be a beach birds set without a ringed plover in there somewhere!



I think this is a female wheatear - I'm checking with knowledgeable people:



On the way back up to the house I took the opportunity to photograph my favourite sheep. This is Polly, she belongs to my neighbours and is due to lamb any day now:



I'm beginning to love sheep portraits - should I be getting worried??

Terned on

After spending the afternoon in Strathy Forest on a ranger walk (didn't have the camera, so of course we saw deer!), I got home just in time to jump out of the car, grab my camera bag and head down to the beach with Mick and Smokey. The otter, predictably, failed to put in an appearance, but I think this picture of two Arctic terns has to be on my shortlist for favourite shot of the year :o)



We watched them fishing for a while and although I didn't get any shots of the spectacular dive they do, I did get these:





Smokey was content to hunt down and kill those lethal tennis balls:



And finally some shots from Borgie Glen on Sunday. Not the best light, but definitely a place to go back to on a summer evening or in the snow:

It's all about luck

Because I'd done the last three dog walks by myself, I was all prepared to let Mick take Smokey out on his own this evening, especially since he was going back up on the hill. But then he stuck his head back through the kitchen door and said because the tide was out he was going to go down to the beach instead and I changed my mind and went with him.

We walked along at the water's edge and saw the sand appear to bubble as the waves washed over it. Lugworm holes, lots and lots of them. And that was when Mick saw the otter.

It took me a good five minutes to see it, I was looking too far out, but it stayed in view for easily half an hour, swimming between waves, diving through them with a flick of its tail.

Did I have my camera with me? Of course not :o) But I shall go down tomorrow at the same time and look again. Maybe I'll be lucky...

Note to self: seen approx 5.30pm, low tide approx 2.45pm.

Back on the beach

I didn't go out yesterday afternoon because we had 50mph gusts rising to 70mph later on and I didn't think it was a particularly wise idea to go scrambling round the countryside when it was hard enough standing up in the back garden. So to make up for it I took a wander down to the beach today (OK, so I wanted to check the rabbits were leaving my garlic alone, the beach was sort of incidental!).

Our neighbour used to take his boat down to the beach behind his tractor and it makes a useful path for getting down to the main footpath:



It was a good day for skies (and I'm still loving Lightroom's ability to add an ND grad filter onto pictures!):



And the wind was coming off the sea and pushing the Armadale burn back up the beach:



Normally I try not to split pictures in half with the horizon, but when it's a reflection you can just about get away with it:



And just to prove to my family that I've finally succumbed to genetics and started gardening - a weeded bit of border:



As you can see, there's a lot more to do...:



And that's before I start on the veggie field - the tiny little brown strip in the top left of the field is a 10ft x 4ft bed!:



The garlic is coming on nicely though :o)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Gosh, two posts in one day - don't get used to this! But we had about 4" of snow in 45 minutes this afternoon, so I had to go out really, didn't I?

First stop was the bird feeders. I topped them up and was rewarded by a number of hungry visitors including this robin:



and a young sparrow dunnock (thank you caithness.org for the correction!):



Next door's pig is not so impressed with the snow:



And to be fair to him, we did have rather a lot in short space of time:



Just compare this shot with the sunrise one earlier today:

Oh what a beautiful morning...

Sorry for the lack of posting, but last Wednesday's outing was cancelled due to extremely cold weather and me being a wuss!

Have a picture of this morning's exceptionally beautiful sunrise instead:



(3" deep snow and slippers are not a good combination!!)

A frosty walk

Happy New Year!

No, the camera hasn't arrived yet, but I've been wearing my boots around the house for nearly a week and thought the time had come to test them out on something a bit more lumpy than carpet.

I chose to go up the Campbells' farm tracks, which follow the Armadale burn and lead up into the hills behind. There were a couple of robins in the gorse near the gate at the foot of the track:



Further on up the hill I could hear a crow going absolutely berserk at something. It's a noise I've heard them make before when there's a buzzard about, so I scanned the sky but couldn't see anything that looked like a predator. Squinting into the sun, I located the crow circling over a small mound a couple of hundred feet away but still couldn't see anything that might have alarmed it. Until I got the camera out, that is:



Most of the rest of the walk was in the shadow of the hill, so not enough light for good pictures, but I did take these:





If I remember right, the mounds are evidence of settlement - I'll have to look on my map (which I've temporarily tidied up and can't find!). It must have been a pretty good place to live: sheltered with water and decent grazing plus the sea just up the road for fish.

And I think my ringed plover obsession of last year is being replaced with a buzzard obsession - here's another one:



One of my new year's resolutions is to take every Wednesday afternoon off and explore a new bit of the area, so that'll mean at least one post a week and hopefully lots more. I'm looking forward to it :o)

Following on from my last post...

With the moon on my left and the sun on my right,
To my brother, good morning, my sister, good night.

8.50am, back doorstep:

Snow

I do apologise for the lack of activity on this blog recently. There are several reasons for this, but the two main ones are that a) I'm a retailer and this is silly season and b) my walking boots have big holes in. Both situations will be resolved by the end of next month as my lovely other half is buying me new boots for Christmas!

In the meantime, here are some pictures of last weekend's snow and this morning's sunrise:

Somewhere over the rainbow...

...there's a photographer who knows how to use their camera, unlike me! Guess which muppet forget to double check her ISO setting and took these on ISO 800...?

These very grainy rainbows were taken on the Black Isle, looking over the Cromarty Firth. As I went over the bridge, it developed into a full bow, but unfortunately there was nowhere to stop. You can get an idea of the size of it from the second picture though.





Back to ISO 100 for this morning's sunrise though. 7.34am , my back doorstep in Armadale this morning.

A visitor on the beach

We're starting to get some Weather here now and the seas have picked up further:



I went down to the beach this morning and found this fellow considering his/her options:



Rather sensibly, it decided that discretion was the better part of valour (it was hailing at this point!) and settled down in the shallows:



There's a lot of foam washing in:



And the Allt Beag is running faster, deeper and wider than I've ever seen it:



(no, I didn't try crossing it! That's the *smaller* of the two!)

Typically the weather cheered up as I climbed back up to the house:



And I discovered that we do have hedgehogs round here, though sadly this one appears to have succumbed to the weather:



EDIT: I've been informed by m'learned friends on caithness.org that it's not a goose, it's actually a first year Whooper swan. Live and learn!

Tides

As autumn approaches, the seas start to pick up and the flat, Caribbean-like bay we've had all summer is now something a little bit wilder. We're predicted a 14ft swell tomorrow and one of my neighbours told me that he's seen the end of the point disappear under spray before now. Here's a couple of snaps from yesterday of a pair of oystercatchers flying low over the waves:

Last night

Just to show you how good the light is up here at the moment - these were taken last night from the field below the house. No filters, no Photoshop.





And I'm splurging on a piece of new equipment - thanks to a generous Amazon birthday voucher from my brother, I'm going to order a Lowepro Mini Trekker AW, a rucksack that takes a digital SLR camera plus three or four lenses and a tripod. It'll be better for my back when I'm walking, because the weight I carry will be central rather than on one shoulder, and it'll leave both hands free when I'm climbing hills and rocks rather than having to catch the shoulder back as it swings round when I wobble a bit.

My boyfriend got me two Joe Cornish books that I wanted as well, so watch this space as I read, learn and attempt to apply...

Armadale sunset

At 9:10pm last night I looked out of the living room window and saw a pink cloud:



This is usually a sign that there's going to be a superb sunset behind the house, so I went out to have a look. And sure enough...



The moon had come out:




I went inside to get my coat and a shorter lens and set off towards Port a'Chinn, the colours deepening as I walked:



And as I watched from the road by the Salmon Bothy, the sun finally set:





No filters on the camera, no Photoshop magic - that's really how it looked. If the clouds are anything like that tonight, I'm going to Strathy Point about 8.30!