Urquhart Castle in the mist

A strange eerie mist enveloped us all day yesterday and we could just make out Urquhart Castle loomimg out onto Loch Ness. After a few very cold days last week we did have a white Christmas - although it was frost rather than snow. The temperature has risen lately and today there is a westerly wind blowing along the Great Glen producing alot of white water. We will see what 2007 brings us.

Misty morning

The rain has finally stopped and the days are crisp and clear. There is still some snow on the mountain tops opposite. An eerie mist rolled in from the west this morning almost covering the mountain side and looked like a giant smoke signal. A very cold clear day yesterday followed by a beautiful starry night making it easy to pick out some of the constellations. Early this morning there was a slight frost on the grass and the temperature is just above zero at the moment but expected to plunge tonight. The cold weather seems to have come as a bit of a shock after the mild November and early December weeks. Good to get out for a brisk walk now.

Bird life

The bird table is a flurry of activity this time of the year and there is always a mixed variety of foods on the menu. Breakfast time is especially busy and the nut feeders and fatballs hooked under the table are a mass of little colourful bodies gorging themselves. Plenty of blue tits, coal tits, great tits and the other day we had a swarm of long tailed tits which we do not see very often. The chaffinches, greenfinches and siskins appear sometime during the day.The robins and blackbirds prefer to dine on the table and love any form of cake, bread, bacon fat and yorkshire pudding scraps. Tiny wrens appear on the ground picking up any scraps. This morning a female pheasant came searching for food droppings on the ground under the table. After a good feed she casually strolled away, no doubt to investigate another neighbours bird table.

Winter weather

Greetings to our new Loch Ness blog.

This blog is to keep you in touch with life around Loch Ness.
Here goes .....

A seasonal mixture of weather patterns last week which kept us on our toes. Started off with non stop rain. Loch Ness rose by over one metre and is now washing over the top of Farigaig Pier and the lower roads.
The River Ness in Inverness is breached with sand bags and is dangerously high as is true of many of the rivers in Scotland especially in the west coast and the lowlands. Last Friday it was much colder and we woke up to a dusting of snow on the mountains opposite. The rain carried on and on and washed away most of the snow except for the very tops of the mountains.
Dryer weather forecast for the weekend.
Looking forward to a white christmas as forecast.

First Past the Post

A test post for the Loch Ness Blog