Tomorrow marks the end of what has been a very long break and it would be quite ridiculous to offer any complaint about having to go to work for a fortnight, so I won't. Having a wee rake through the last months pictures for unreported odds and ends I notice a batch that belonged to my trip up to Dunoon last week. I go there every month or so because my kids live there but normally I don't have my camera as I go straight from work.
In Dumfries, as I was going for the train, the local falconry centre had a stall out in the High Street trying to drum up a few funds and new enthusiasts. I find birds of prey quite magnificent things and always worthy of a couple of snaps, even when they are firmly attached to the pavement.
A harris hawk
A lanner/peregrine hybrid
An owl (see my deep knowledge of birds)
Going to Dunoon involves a half hour ferry trip across the Clyde (at a point where it's more the sea than a river). Being Scotland, it was a bit wet then sunny for a while - good for rainbows if nothing else.
Most foot passengers take the Caledonian Macbrayne, from which these pictures are taken. Most car types are better of using the Western ferry, which operate a few of the wee red affairs below.
A yacht passes the entrance to the Holy Loch
Seemed quite a busy day for yachts
Arriving in Dunoon
A few days later in Edinburgh, where I arrived in time to get a mighty fright from the one o'clock gun and from here the previous blogs carry on quite nicely
This mighty time off has been great for catching up on my reading
Probably only a reduced, if any blogging service in the next two or three weeks (although you never know, my lab internet might work like a dream and I'll be full of things to write). I'll leave you just now with a picture of the castle near my sisters house in Doonfoot near Ayr, whose name I don't know.
8 comments:
Thanks for the tour and especially the birds of prey. They're excellent!
Thanks Chip, I was once in a shopping centre in Glasgow where they had a fish eagle or an American bald eagle (I think they're all the same bird with different names in different countries) - must be about the biggest bird I've every seen. Perhaps your turkey vultures are bigger, but I suspect they look better up in the sky than in a shopping centre.
it's nice to see a harris hawk that dos'nt prefer to hang upside down all the time,
ps,,,,,,, you like the fast show then too, "mostly"
Billy, I never made the obvious leap after Harry Enfield and his friend went home for the night and the internet is wants to keep harris hawk a secret but on the plus side I did get a giggle out of Swiss Toni (been taking a few notes, you never know when they might come in handy)
How interesting. I have some birder friends who can usually point out the birds, and when they visited us, a harris was identified. They said, "Here's another first for you," which means we will have a champagne toast that night at supper. (I only really count it if I identify it myself.) But it was wonderful to see one close up in your photo. The owl was lovely, too. Are they released soon after...or was it previously injured and needed care to survive?
Oh, are you a sailor?
The birds are kept for falconry. They are flown free and trained to come back. I doubt they will ever be wild birds or perhaps even able to be wild birds.
I'm actually a chemist (of the industrial variety)- where I am is actually an oil rig (although it's all been put on top of a ship so we move about in bad weather and point different directions although we never actually go anywhere)
Hi Sandy,
Thanks for your comments - I enjoyed a reciprocal gaze through your words and pictures, and am chagrined that my visitor's flag makes me seem like an American. I have a groundless theory that if you just visit the front page, it counts you differently to how it does if you click through, but what do I know
Indeed you have been listed on the flag counter as an American although you've managed to sneek in and leave a message without clocking up a visit on the official stats. The software required to detect a Brit online in San Francisco is probably well beyond my humble purse and that's before you start to look at the human right implications.
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