A Good Day All Round

Shot of the Day

I rang Tootlepedal in the latter part of the morning to see if he fancied a run up to the feeding station with the intention of using our tripods to try and get some good woodpecker shots, he said he was. When we arrived there was already people there so rather than disturb them we opted for a walk up the Tarras burn from the bridge near the old distillery.

 We were passed by John Murray on his vintage tractor

There were some rather large puddles on the track all playing host to hundreds of tadpoles.

Tree Creeper

In mid afternoon I decided to have a stroll along the forestry track that runs along the hillside at the back of my house

Planting on the diagonal

Part of the route I took on my cycle ride yesterday

A grandstand view 

I had arranged to go to the Castleholm late afternoon with Tootlepedal to see if we could spot a Nuthatch. We stopped off at the Kilngreen where there was very little going on before moving on. We parked the car at the Armstrong museum and took a walk up past the lodge to where a Nuthatch was nesting last year. We stood for a lengthy time but no Nuthatch.

A Blackbird pauses to look for a tasty morsel 

We moved further down the Castleholm to a spot where a Nuthatch was spotted earlier in the day. This time we had better luck although I wasn't fast enough to get a decent shot.

Tootlepedal was better prepared

This is what we thought was the entrance to the Nuthatch's nest.....

......until this Blue-tit appeared at the front door

The bees were busy among the Lime trees

  

The only place left to check out was at the Jubilee bridge to a tree where a Nuthatch has been resident for a number of years. 

The elusive Nuthatch