A Grand Tour

It was a lovely and sunny when I woke this morning, the remnants of some frost still lingered on the ground but was soon thawed by the morning sunshine. After breakfast I went and took my turn at the moorland feeder station. The feeders have been all set as near to the hide as possible to give watchers a better view and hopefully some good photo opportunities. Last week when I was up the small pond that has been created next to the hide was looking fresh and was host to some frog spawn, but this week it had an oily substance across the surface and I could see no sign of the frog spawn. After a short stay I left the birds to enjoy their breakfast and headed home for mine.

Later I joined Mr & Mrs Tootlepedal for morning coffee at Wauchope Cottage where it was suggested by Mrs Tootlepedal that maybe we should all go for a run out somewhere, after some deliberation it was decided we would head up the Eskdalemuir valley and on towards St Mary's Loch and then on to Moffat.

When they come to pick me up Mrs Tootlepedal was keen to come in and see my recently refurbished bungalow and was very kind with her comments, hopefully I can rely on her gardening skills to give me suggestions on improvement. 

We set off with Tootlepedal kindly driving and skillfully avoiding the many potholes along the way. We stopped off at the Eskdalemuir Community Hub for  lunch that consisted of red pepper and tomato soup, which was very tasty. We also took the opportunity to arrange a camera club exhibition at the hub come September.

I took this shot looking down the valley from the hub car park.

Luckily enough we had pulled in to a passing place to take a photo when this wood wagon came along and as you can see there's not much room. 

We arrived at the loch and parked up and set off for a short stroll along the lochside. 

  

I particularly  like the reflection of the bridge in this shot.

  

Tushielaw Inn

A rather amusing form of weather forecasting. 

We set off up the loch shore which was also part of the Southern Upland Way.

We passed the rather grand yacht club.

Mrs Tootlepedal stops to admire the view across the loch.

She was intrigued by the bubbles that were forming on the stones along the shore, we could only surmise they were being produced by algae. 

The oyster catchers were enjoying lunch with a flock of sheep.

 A rather grand house on the far shore.

We were passed by these rather speedy canoeists.

 father and son fishing.

Mrs Tootlepedal closely inspects the Ettrick Shepherd, James Hogg

We then made our way to Moffat, stopping off to take the odd shot along the way.

We finally arrived at Moffat and I was treated to a cup of tea and toasted teacake at the Rumbling Tum cafe.

Mrs Tootlepedal took the opportunity to visit the local garden centre where there was plenty of healthy plants.......

.......and gifts to be had.

We finally arrived home, all very tired but quite jolly. 
To see Tootlepedal's day click here

Congratulations

 Shot of the Day

Today should have been Anne's birthday. Instead of looking at it with great sadness I exulted in the happy memories she left me with. 

There was another reason to celebrate today; because when I went down to Wauchope Cottage after lunch Mr & Mrs Tootlepedal announced they had become grandparents. (shot of the day) Their youngest son and his wife were proud parents of a baby girl (yet to be named). I wish them all good health and happiness.

The following shots are from our walk up the rivers side towards Irving House. This was Mrs Tootlepedal's first excursion on this part of the river; She was enchanted.

 To see a more detailed account of our walk try Tootlepedal's blog

Help Your Self

Shot of the Day

I had no real plans for Easter Sunday except pottering about in the garden, which I did with not much enthusiasm but I did manage to clear a small corner of the garden that was quickly being overgrown with Buttercups. Having done that I took a run up to moorland feeding station for a short time before lunch

Later in the afternoon I called in to Wauchope cottage to drop off some creosote that I had spare in my shed for Mrs Tootlepedal. Tootlepedal was entertaining our fellow archiver Jean. She is very accomplished artist and wanted to browse Tootlepedal's extensive collection of images for something to put on canvas. The timing was good as I intended to ask Tootlepedal if he fancied a little jaunt which he did, so we decided to repeat our Nuthatch hunt that we did the previous day.

I wasn't so successful this time but I did manage to get a shot of another Blue-tit taking over the Nuthatch nest at the Jubilee bridge.

When I returned home I went to fill up the fatball feeder when I found this little guy helping its self to the fatballs

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