snow has fallen snow on snow

Rufus enjoying the snow on day one, it is now up to his oxters

Snow has been falling in Fraserburgh since last Thursday and about 10 inches have accumulated. Rufus bounds through it like  a small deer, pausing from time to time to dig Grey Granite's feet out. To his  great consternation  his favourite green ball sank  without trace under the snow when Grey Granite threw it for him yesterday. This is a great loss.Walks are shortened and restricted to Fraserburgh which neither he nor Grey Granite particularly enjoy but there is far too much snow for Grey Granite to take to the road in the car. Side roads in particular resemble sledge runs. Since the arrival of the snow there have been great squadrons of geese - skein upon skein flying in noisily. 'The lang, lang skeins of beating wings come fleeing frae the north'. Increased numbers of wild birds are drawn to the feeders in the garden: starlings, chaffinches, dunnocks, blue and great tits and a solitary robin. On our last decent walk through Philorth woods, when there was just a covering of snow and the atmosphere  in the silent woods was magical, crows were huddled on the telegraph wires like notes on a stave. Grey Granite cannot help wondering how many of the birds will survive if , as predicted, this cold spell continues for another couple of weeks.

Whooper Swans

This morning as we walked  from Monthooly Dookit up the Knoggan Brae and back round by Coburty, we were accompanied by constant small flights of whooper swans trumpeting as they flew over the howe and transforming a driech morning. There were groups of about 7 to 10 swans flying low, not appearing to be moving in any particular direction, some flew towards Aberdour House, others towards Peathill. I have never seen so many swans in flight, all were astonishingly beautiful and the effect was quite magical and dreamlike, especially in this the bleakest and most familiar patch of Buchan.

The Neep Fields by The Sea

 

This morning we walked from the Monthooly dookit, through showers of sleet and winds gusting to 50 mph,  along the back road to New Aberdour, turning back just short of the Mains of enjoyable walk with splendid views across Aberdour Bay where several large boats were sheltering. The wind was side on and We were surprised to see that a small patch of neeps growing at the side of a field was golden with large quantities of corn marigolds. The 'gules' still flowering amongst the neep shaws, in sharp contrast to the generally

Aberdour road. Despite the mainly foul weather, this was an

once we were wet it didn't much matter except for the stinging of the worst of the sleet.Looking down towards Dundarg Castle we could see gulls and cormorants on the sandstone rocks to the East of the ruins. There were curlews crying in the parks.

dull browns faded greens of the parks, seemed to be of another season and reminded me of Violet Jacob's poem;

'Ye'd wonder foo the seasons rin

This side o'Tweed and Tyne;

The hairst's awa;October month

Cam' in a whilie syne,

But the stooks are oot in Scotland yet,

There's green upon the tree

An' oh! what grand's the smell ye'll get

Frae the neep fields by the sea'

Autumn Walk




We are told that 'what the sea takes it keeps, what  it gets it gives back' . The sea must have carried this pine tree a considerable distance before washing it up at the Broch.

  This morning we had the beach almost to ourselves and walked along it to the Waters of Philorth where we cut across the boardwalk, followed the track up to the main road before turning left to take us to the mains of Cairnbulg Road. This road is actually a pleasant, gradually ascending  lane with grass growing in the middle and a superb  panoramic view over towards Mormond Hill and round towards Windyheads and Troup. - a tapestry of shifting shadow and light as showers moved across it, to be photographed on a clearer day.






Rufus insisted on trying to climb on to the old road bridge over the Water of Philorth whilst Grey Granite was photographing Cairnbulg Castle. In doing so he succeeded in flushing out three hen peasants.



Cairnbulg Castle, glimpsed through the trees at Philorth Bridge

Our object for this walk was to find and photograph the carved stone we had seen previously in the dyke near Mains of Cairnbulg. The weather forecast had led us to expect a bright day with good light for photography. Since the carving is indistinct we needed this. Alas,  the morning gradually dulled and by the time we were walking up the brae by Mains of Cairbulg it was raining heavily.


We found the granite stone, apparently a milestone, in the bank near 'Islamor'. 


We turned right at the road junction, before descending  past Invernorth House and Ashburn to join the Line. There was a wren in the hedge near Ashburn and a small flock of finches feasting on the knapweed heads by the bridge at the Line.The sun broke through the clouds as we recrossed  the Water of Philorth catching the plumage  of a flock of curlew feeding in Wet Fold. The sun highlighted  the sheen on the silver velvet of the embryonic catkins which are already  forming on grey willows along the embankments. There are also signs of catkins on the alders and silver birches along the Line and large green buds on the sycamores. Spring is already in sight,putting in mind a line  from Edward Thomas:
'Now I know that Spring will come again, ....however late I've patience'.

 

Lay Morals and slugs

'It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire. Although neither is to be despised, it is always better policy to learn an interest than to make a thousand pounds; for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may feel no joy in spending it; but the interest remains imperishable and ever new.'


from Lay Morals, by Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894.

Grey Granite found the above quotation on the Conchological Society of Great Britain & Ireland
whilst trying (unsuccessfully) to identify this interesting slug, found on the Line this morning and records it as an endorsement of the immeasurable pleasure to be derived from cultivating ones  interests. (However anorakish and futile they may seem to be to the uninitiated)

The slug has been identified by the Conchological Society

as the Great Grey or Leopard Slug (Limax maximus) and is of sufficient interest to be recorded in the national data base of slug distribution.