Bottom Watching!

Yes this is a charming photo of Ruby's bum; I seem to spend lots of time looking at the girls' rear ends at the moment. Milk bags are getting bigger; can't be long now.

Welcome to Argyll

The last few days have been simply glorious here in Scotland. The sun has shone, the birds have been singing their little hearts out and all over the place flowers are popping up and brightening the fields and woodlands; and so they should, for today is the first day of Spring and yesterday was my birthday!

Chris and I have been enjoying exploring our new home with blue sky over head and a warm sun on our backs.

We are living on the edge of Knapdale Forest which sits at the top of the Kintyre Peninsula, south of Oban. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl

The area is mainly commercial forestry so lots of sitka spruce, which is home to Red Squirrel and Pine Marten. There are also some fabulous rare habitats and the animals that like in them. One of the great joys is the amount of diversity here. The woodlands are temperate rainforest and have a wealth of associated ferns, lichens and bryophytes. They are home to nationally important breeding bird populations and may still harbour a remnant population of the rapidly declining Scottish Wildcat.

The lochs (lakes) in the area include freshwater, brackish and saltwater. Depending on their type these are home to otters, seals, a wealth of dragonflies and many fish. They are hunted by Osprey and White-tailed Eagle.

On higher ground the vegetation is dominated by heather and here we find Golden Eagle, Red Grouse and rare butterflies. From our bedroom window we can see the Moine Mhor National Nature Reserve where Short-eared Owl and Hen Harrier hunt over the boggy ground with it's fascinating plant community.

Paradise for wildlife watchers, and great fun for wildlife watcher's dogs!

Happy dogs

The dogs are in work with me today. We've been out in the field and now they are enjoying the last rays of sunshine!

Here come the girls!

On Thursday evening, Chris and I waited up excitedly for the much anticipated arrival of our Shetland girls. They finally made it up here at about 10pm on the top deck of an enormous 4 tier Livestock transporter! After a bit of a palava moving them into their new paddock (the truck was far too large to get anywhere near the field gate) we left them to settle down overnight.
The next day Chris and I got down to the field pretty sharpish and tempted the girls over with a bucket of feed. They are looking in really good shape, no doubt in no small part due to the expert care that they received while staying with Lenice. We really can't thank Lenice enough for being so generous as to look after the girls while we went through a very busy and rather stressful move.


Although the girls didn't seem too impressed with their new location, I thought that bloggers might be slightly more appreciative. They are at Bellanoch close to the end of the Crinan Canal. Their view looks out over a little harbour with sailing boats and across the Moine Mhor nature reserve beyond.

They have our Landlady and Landlord, Margaret and Iain's Jacobs and Scottish Blackfaces as neighbours and should lamb at about the same time. Not long now!
Rosie seemed please to see us... or was that just the food buckt?!