A Tail of woe.

A very frantic lady parked her car at the bottom of our driveway this morning and rushed up our drive with a tale of woe..or 'tail of woe'.She was a local lass from the nearby village and while walking her dogs along the forest track in front of our house one of her Jack Russell terriers had broken its lead and escaped into the woods.We were working ourselves up to go on a walk anyway up to Easter Boleskine so we said we would look out for it and call its name.The dog in question was unfortutately called 'Kipper' so we had great fun walking through the woods calling out 'Here Kipper' every now and then as if we were fish merchants..we expected people to appear with their money for the local fish van.We looked high and low as we strode up into Farigaig Forest passing the Easter Boleskine Wetlands project which now has a new wooden jetty built by a group of 35 officer cadets from Tayforth University Officers Training Corps army cadet officers recently.

Come here...there's more.....The story does have a happy ending.
After our uneventful walk we phoned up the lady owner to say we had not had any luck so far and she breathlessly but very happily informed us that 'Kipper' had been seen by German tourists.She had talked to them while they were sitting having a picnic at Farigaig Forestry Picnic Site and they said a dog answering Kipper's description had being taken in to a cottage in Inverfarigaig and the cottage owner had phoned her up and reunited the pair.Both were very, very happy and so were we.

Young woopeckers visit.

More young Great Spotted Woodpeckers have been to visit the various feeders in the garden area. Although they are almost the same size as adults they are very obvious by their prominent red crown sitting on top of their heads rather like a hat. Just before taking this photo it landed on a rather thin branch nearby but was unable to grip it tightly so it dangled rather ungainly upside down for a while before managing somehow to grasp onto the suet ball. The juvenile and female do not have the prominent red mark on the nape of the neck which is so obvious on the adult male in the photos below. Both male and female do have red markings on the abdomen and undertail.The female is rather elusive and we have only seen her once so maybe she is looked after by the family after all her hard work.

Boleskine Wetlands Project update.

A group of 35 officer cadets from Tayforth University Officers Training Corps have recently constructed a new jetty stretching out into the pond at the Boleskine Wetlands Project at Easter Boleskine near Foyers.This is part of an annual scheme to carry out community initiatives.

The new jetty will enable children to safely go pond-dipping without disturbing the edges of the pond where many delicate insects live.This jetty is the final part of the scheme to turn a piece of barren farmland into a thriving wetland.Treasurer of the wetland scheme Frank Ellam of Easter Boleskine said the jetty looked 'splendid' and the cadets had done a wonderful job.Hopefully the wildlife will continue to flourish and also be more visible to pond watchers young and old.

RockNess 2010

The RockNess Music Festival is based at the village of Dores at the eastern end of Loch Ness and take place on Friday 11th June through to Sunday 13th June. We have watched them setting up the big blue and red tents used as stages as well as the rows of sleeping tents that people can hire for the three day event. The line-up includes Fatboy Slim who was the driving force behind the original RockNess event four years ago. Some of the other turns on show are Friendly Fires, Leftfield, The Strokes, Ian Brown, Doves and Blondie as well as many more. The weather is set to be fair over the weekend so the beautiful backdrop of Loch Ness should be amazing, hopefully with a smashing sunset.

Canoeists on Loch Ness

The sport of canoeing on Loch Ness has really become very popular recently - possibly helped by Fred MacAuley and friends when the TV showed their progress from near Fort William to Inverness during the coldest winter for years. We see quite a few canoeists pass by, some are being sensible but others we worry about. They do come in all shapes, sizes and ages. A pensioner from Lower Foyers has just completed a 71 mile trip paddling round Loch Ness on a fund raising mission. Recently a 28-strong group of Asda employees from stores throughout the UK completed the 21 mile paddle along the length of Loch Ness in just 5 hours and 19 minutes claiming a world record for this event.Their feat means they have raised a sizeable amount of money for the Tickled Pink initiative supporting breast cancer. They started at 7am and crossed the finishing line at Dores beach just after noon....we were tired out just watching them!