Today’s blog is mostly about Red Squirrels.
A lovely sunny day with patchy cloud awaited us as we opened
the curtains on Pitlochry.
After breakfast Mick got onto the laptop and signed on to the Loch of the Lowes
wildlife centre web site which gives real time video of the feeding stations and spotted a red squirrel shooting across the field
of view of the web cam. There were also a good
variety of birds so we decided to drive down to Dunkeld to have a look.
Mick’s sister Joyce had tasked us with getting photographs
of red squirrels and we didn’t want to disappoint her. We had seen plenty of
grey squirrels which are not native to the UK and are driving out the native
red squirrels.
When we arrived at the centre and got out of the car, Lyn
immediately spotted a red squirrel running across the top of some logs and jumping
to the ground and almost immediately disappear into the bushes. They are very
quick and photographing them is a real challenge.
We then spotted a mother and 5 young pheasants feeding
amongst the trees and we hadn’t even gone inside the gate.
We went in and paid our £3.50 each and settled into the
viewing area to wait for the red squirrels to appear. When we visited a week or
so ago we only caught a fleeting glimpse of one.
This time we were earlier in the day and we weren’t
disappointed.
Within minutes of our arrival we spotted one dashing through
the grass and up a tree and from out of nowhere it appeared in full view right
in front of us.
For the next couple of hours we watched, fascinated as they
came and went eating and then digging holes to bury some of the nuts for later.
Quite a few people came and went, some not having the patience to wait for
them.
As indicated previously, they make very difficult subjects
to photograph and Mick’s $150 Fuji Finepix S2980 with the 16x lens just wasn’t
fast enough to get all of the available picture opportunities. The other camera
we have, a Canon 450D, had the speed but just didn’t have a long enough lens to
get close-ups. (Mick left the lens in Australia).
However, despite this and the difficulty with reflections
from the inside of the viewing windows, we still managed to get some nice
photographs.
After getting plenty of pics we thanked the staff and headed
off down the ‘A’ road to Blairgowrie, a pleasant little town in the Scottish
countryside. Whilst visiting the shops we noticed that they had a large Tesco
store in town which is not hard as they are one of the biggest stores around.
We needed to stock up on food as we are managing our own breakfast for the next
five days in Inverness and they also were
offering 5p per litre off fuel when spending $50 or more.
In the evening we decided to go to a show at the Pitlochry town hall
called "A Scottish Night Out" which featured Eddie Rose as MC/singer/comedian, Sandy Lindsay playing a piano accordion, Liam Mannion a 16 year old violinist and flautist.Sharon Kelly an amazing female bagpipe player and Ashley Walker a highland dancer. They put on a great show which we really enjoyed.
Greater spotted woodpecker
Blairgowrie town centre
Runs through Blairgowrie
No comments:
Post a Comment