Wednesday 13 January 2010

A SHORT BREAK IN GRANTOWN ON SPEY

Last winter we spent a few days in Grantown on Spey, below are some shots of the beautiful scenery of the area and also some of the birds and animals we captured.
For more detail click on photos.
Greg on the bank of the River Spey hoping to catch sight of a salmon.

The birch alder and willow trees in this shot prove that trees are still colourful in winter.
This house looks uninhabited, I wonder where the people went and why.
More winter colour .

Greg on an ornamental bridge on the Revack Estate, if you click on the shot you will see the lovely orange colour on the tree in the foreground.


A pair of Oystercatchers




A Lapwing with rainbow colours on his wing


A very proud looking Greylag Goose


This Red Deer stag seems to be keeping his females in order


A pair of obviously tired Mallards.

Talk about "hanging on by your finger tips" this cheeky chap was hogging the peanuts much to the disgust of the poor little chaffinch to the left.



14 comments:

jabblog said...

Gosh! Beautiful shots, Chris, and such variety . . . thank you for sharing the beauty of your surroundings :-)

PurestGreen said...

Great photos - I love the one of the squirrel.

happyone said...

All great shots. I noticed that the squirrel is red. The ones around where I live are gray and I've seen some black one too.

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Great pictures, Chris. I LOVE seeing your area --and sharing ours with you. I laughed when seeing that squirrel --since ours do the same thing. However, our squirrels are the old gray variety..

Love your birds too--and the picture showing the little bridge.

Thanks Chris for sharing.
Hugs,
Betsy

Anonymous said...

I think the red squirrel's allowed to steal from the birds :) Excellent pictures of the birds! I rarely see lapwings close up - it's very pretty!

Lindy said...

Looks like it was a gorgeous day. Love all the landscape photos and the rolling hills. There are some nice colors for being wintertime.

Beautiful bird photos, as well. Those are the first oystercatchers and lapwing I have ever seen, and what a stunning shot of the Greylag! Good looking herd of deer.

As for the squirrel, they all seem to be quite the character no matter where they live. Great capture of the little acrobat!

George said...

It looks as if you found a perfect place for a winter holiday. The scenery is beautiful. You got a great picture of the stag and his 'harem'. It's interesting that your squirrels know the same tricks as the squirrels on this side of the pond.

Karen said...

Beautiful photographs, Chris. Many thanks. I'm so glad I don't have to eat upside down like that squirrel, incidentally!

ms toast burner said...

Great post, Chris. Beautiful photos.

I love the squirrel! My whole five years in Britain and I never did see a red squirrel but I did learn of how the grey ones are a threat to them (bastards!).

It was also my time in in Britain when I developed a love of coastal birds (eventhough I've lived on the west coast of Canada most of my life!) and it was lapwings and oyster catchers (and little egrets) that sparked my interest. They're so handsome and their calls are wonderful.

Did you not have your dogs with you that day? I miss pics of them doing what they do!

Chris said...

Thank you all for your lovely comments, it's great to share or lovely country with you all and I love to get your thoughts. All the squirrels here are red but as ms toastburner noted, grey squirrels are a threat in other parts of the country. I hope they don't take over up here.
ms toast burner, the dogs were with us on that walk,it's unusual for them not to have managed to get in on the shots.

Chris said...

ms toast burner asked me who the sculptor of the work in my previous post was. His name was Frank Bruce 1931 - 2009. He was dyslectic and expressed himself in forms and image. The sculptures are carved from dead caladonian pine trees inspired by nature, scottish folk-lore and patriotic feelings. The one by the pool is called The Thinker, The Multi-headed one is One World. I can't remember the other one. He never sold any of his work, believing it should be enjoyed by everyone.

Lindy said...

Hi Chris,
Please visit my blog again when you have a minute. I managed to fix the photo so it will enlarge again. It was something in the HTML code. I think I just got lucky. LOL! I deleted the "request for help" post. Here's the new link:

http://azindylifeandbeyond.blogspot.com/2010/01/mellow-yellow-monday-15-blue-monday-2.html

Pyatshaw said...

Marvellous photos!

ms toast burner said...

Thanks for the info about the sculptor, Chris!