Facing down the weather bomb

Much of the West coast was braced for the "weather bomb" that was due to hit midweek. The swell chart below illustrates what we were looking at, red arrow pointing at where Oronsay is. It was fairly wild for a couple of days but nothing major.

Below, the storm damage - We will rebuild.

On Wednesday we went out and about in the land rover to see what was going on around the south end of the island, hoping for lots of birds.

Huge waves but not a lot else really - made for some good photos. Islay in the background there.

This lamb was brought into the shed during the worst of it. We found it a few weeks ago in a bit of a sorry state but it has made a remarkable recovery.

Female chaffinch in the woods today after the peanuts in the feeder that's out.

Another week gone

 Some how another week has flown by. Really don't know where time is going, busy busy. The calves are in the barn now, so it really feels like winter is upon us. The weather has turned bitterly cold this weekend too.



I took the dogs out this afternoon in the RTV to go round the south end of the island collecting driftwood for the fire. Was good to have somewhere to shelter from the intermittent hail storms.



This adult whooper with youngster, the best variety in terms of birds I could find today.

 A little bit of snow/hail on the paps of Jura now.

Tuesday already

Here are some pancakes, that's how saturday started:

Vegan of course. And yes, I ate that whole stack - to myself.

This is the view from my loft room in the cottage. Quite often see the pair of chough that breed on Oronsay from here. Just brilliant to be able to hear chough from bed.

Happened to notice this juvenile sparrowhawk while having a cup of coffee saturday morning, this was from the kitchen window - Just a little bit too far for my camera.

 I was after chough photos again for most of Sunday. Spent the morning over at the aptly nicknamed "chough beach" sitting in the landrover waiting for them to turn up.

Not a bad view while I waited.

I'm still getting to know my camera which I only got a few weeks ago, I'm getting there.

I also tried out an amazing pop-up hide we've got on the reserve. I set up where I'd seen the chough feeding earlier in the day. Only managed to sit in it for about an hour and a half as I didn't take enough layers and was starting to get chilly, but it's got great potential for getting up close views and photos of the chough.

Been sorting cows out the last two days. Calves are in the barn now for the winter.