Catching up

I finally got round to editing the photos stacking up on my hard drive!

The robin is back in the garden and having singing competitions with the robin next door. If you think the perspective looks a bit odd, you'd be right - he was sitting on top of a telegraph pole!



Back down at fence-post level:



The rabbits have been stuffing themselves in preparation for winter:



And we had a surprise next door - one of the Shetlands foaled (no-one knew she was pregnant!):





The dogs are enjoying the last of the good weather on the beach:









The seas are picking up and soon it'll be winter again...



I saw an otter on the beach on Wednesday and nearly saw it again this morning - there were fresh prints in the sand and if I hadn't stopped to go 'Ooooooh, foal!' I'd have probably seen it again.

Big seas and little bays

Once again I've been tardy in my blogging - I do apologise. The pictures have been put up on Flickr; I just haven't got round to writing about them.

Anyway, just over a week ago OH and I went for a walk along past Thurso castle to see if the shipwreck he remembered from when he was a kid was still there (it wasn't). The sea was big and the wind was up:



which made it foamy:



The birds, as usual, were completely unbothered by it all:



although I did see an oystercatcher absolutely legging it out of the way of a wave, which was very funny. Sadly the picture was out of focus!

Wednesday's trip out was closer to home. At the far end of the village there's a track to a deserted village called Polouriscaig. It's quite a walk to get there (for an unfit photographer carrying a bag of gear anyway) and I was considering just walking to the top of the second hill, which is about two thirds of the way there, but then saw on the map that the burn at the foot of that hill led down to an inlet marked Port Mor. The contour lines on the sides were very steep, but it looked as if the burn itself went down a much shallower slope, so I decided to go and take a look.

I was right:



The burn was lovely; lots and lots of miniature waterfalls:



The climb down really wasn't too hard at all. There were a couple of points where I had to stop and consider my options (as in 'Do I attempt to follow that sheep track or do I turn round and go back?'), but pretty soon the bay was tantalisingly close and I was hoping against hope that there wasn't a vertical drop for the last bit like so many of these places have:



Fortunately the slope down from that grassy bit on the right was quite gentle and I made it all the way down to the beach:



My thigh muscles did not thank me for the climb back up!

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!