Pine marten in the area.

Had to replace all of the metal suet ball feeders as they have been demolished and scattered far and wide by the local pine martens residing in Farigaig Forest. They are now securely tied to the hooks along the fence. Guests staying in our cottage overlooking Loch Ness were fortunate enough to witness a pine marten boldly eating at the peanut feeders in the early evening a couple of years ago and took this video.

Snow and Sparrowhawk.

 The sudden spell of wintry weather is still with us with temperatures just above freezing during the day and minus at night.There is thick snow on the mountains opposite but luckily the snow has disappeared from around our house as we are so near the warming influence of Loch Ness. A friend came to visit us from the nearby village of Foyers yesterday and she could not believe we were snow free as they had a foot of it surrounding their farm and more snow was falling. It is amazing the change in landscape you can see in a short distance as you are climbing upwards. The birds are being well fed and so is the predatory sparrowhawk. This one was in pursuit of a siskin but both flew into the window of the conservatory as we were enjoying a quiet lunch. The sparrowhawk was really winded and kindly sat for a few minutes posing for these photos before flying off into the forest. I picked the siskin up which was shocked but still alive and left him on the bird table to recover which he did before flying off to live another day.

Bird Life

During the past two weeks we have noticed that there are less birds feeding at the various feeding stations.

Although the predatory sparrowhawk has been in the local area looking for his lunch with his beady eyes the main reason seems to be that the smaller birds are building nests in the nearby coniferous woodlands. We can hear them noisily going about their business in Farigaig Forest but we now have a welcome break from the frenetic feeding they required during the cold winter spell.
After a brief warm spell it has become rather chilly lately with a south-westerly breeze coming along the Great Glen producing white waves on Loch Ness. This is forecast to last until the end of the week so maybe they know something we don't.