Dunvegan Castle

Merida, from the Disney film, is one of Sadie's favourite princesses and as she lived in Scotland Dunvegan Castle was obviously her home. The Castle grounds are beautiful with formal and informal gardens. Lots of Early Purple Orchids, Bluebells etc. We went on a boat trip to see the Common Seals. The Lodge where we are staying was across the water from the Castle.

Coral Beach and Glendale Area

In the morning, we walked to Corsl Beach beyond Dunvegan - there were heavy showers but some sunshine. In the afternoon, a trip round the Glendale peninsula in mainly cloudy conditions. There are many deserted buildings on Skye including the primary school which appears to have last been used in 2012.

Castles and Herons

We did the final leg of our journey to Dunvegan, Isle of Skye yesterday. Having passed by all the well-known scenes the day before such as Rannock Moor, Black Rock Cottages, Ben Etive etc, we did make a short stop at Eilan Dolan Castle. The light was very poor but I liked the sky enough to add it to the holiday album. We are staying at Uillinish right oppo.site Dunvegan Castle and have a Heronry in the extended 'garden'. Unfortunately the Hooded Crows appear to have got most of the eggs from the number of predated shells around. Raining heavily intermittently when took the images so light very poor.

Evening Sunshine at Glenelg

We hoped to see the famous pair of Sea Eagles off the jetty at Glenelg but no luck although we did get views of Gannets, Cormorant, Seals, Common Ringed Plovers and Goosanders.

Common Ringed Plover

 Two Male Goosanders dispute a fish

A Wet Welcome to Scotland

We have made a minor diversion on our way up to Skye to visit a relative of Phil's and are staying for the night in Ayr. The promised clearance in the evening did not really arrive though the drizzle stopped for a while and there was a bit of light in the west.

Green-Winged Orchids

I had it in my diary to visit a site somewhere for Green-Winged Orchids and hadn't found time to go to any on my list. I was therefore delighted to find a field full of these wonderful flowers close to the B&B that I was staying in near Wymondham. The conditions were 'interesting' with thunderstorms interspersed with very bright sunlight so I tried a variety of techniques from the first shallow depth of field (f7.1 100mm macro), to getting down low in number 2 so background is distant so I could use more depth of field (f14 100 mm macro) to the fish-eye view in number three. There was an amazing variety in the colour forms present. According to a local it is an extra specially good year. 

Thanks Wymndham Photographic Society for their warm welcome last night.