Sunrise & the Singing Sands

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Another early start to watch the sunrise, started even earlier this time so got some beautiful colours in the sky & loch, but no red deer this time. We discovered when we checked the camera trap that the heavy rain during the night had triggered it so loads of photos of rain! Did get a few good shots of the pine marten too, as well as us going to & from the pub & a pair of small mammal (mouse?) eyes on the grain below the feeder!

Sadly the planned walk for the day was postponed as one of our party was ill so a couple of us went off to investigate the Singing Sands near Kentra. There was a helicopter flying stuff into the forest on the headland which intrigued us, as did the police car heading up the private track we were walking along! The track was an easy one, along the shore of Kentra Bay then through the forsest by Creag an Fhradhairc. At the forest we discovered what all the fuss was about, we'd discovered the set for Eden! It was surrounded by a 6 foot wall to keep out the public and peeking through we couldn't see anything of interest. On the way to the beach we found a lovely brown catepillar which I think is a Fox Moth (Macrothylacia rubi) & saw a couple of birds overhead making a strange knocking call... we think they were crows as didn't seem big enough for ravens but in some of the pictures the tail does look wedge shaped... we also found a few nice rockpools with shrimp & anemones but try as we might we couldn't make the sand sing!

On the way back we bought venison for stew & venison sausages for breakfast. As someone who only eats meat when it's high welfare (or "happy meat" as we've termed it) it was great to be able to so easily get meat from deer culled for conservation reasons 😊

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Photos

Cat
99.9% sure it's not a wildcat sadly

Rodent on the feeder
You can just see 2 pinpricks of light in the reflected eyes of a woodmouse or something similar

Tree-lind track
Track to a cottage by Kentra Bay

Fox Moth catepillar
Macrothylacia rubi