Scozmo's Photery

April 11th, off to Backwater reservoir, it feels like a long time since I was last up there for a wander….. it isn’t 🙂

There were no cars in the car park when I got there, always a good sign for me. The sun was shining, the sky was mostly blue and a decent breeze was blowing.

I was up here to spot the Black-throated Diver pair, I saw them for the first time last year and saw them again recently so, I like to come up, make sure they’re staying around and hope they might breed here.

Standing in the car park, I could hear and see a lot of Common Gulls around the water tower, they turn up every year to breed I assume, does that mean the numbers go up every year as youngsters return too?

There were a few Cormorants on the tower as well and I looked over the wall onto the grassy front of the dam to see Song & Mistle Thrush, Meadow Pipits and a couple of Pied Wagtails. That’s what good weather does, great to see all the birds out and about .

I turned to start my walk, scanning the tree tops, I sometimes see Crossbills up there, way up there 🙂 but today, it was a Kestrel, a male I think?

Nice start, it watched me for a few minutes before disappearing over the trees. So, onward up the trail and lots of Chaffinches everywhere, I’d put a light fleece on and entering the shadows of the tall pines, it was indeed pretty chilly.

In truth, I enjoyed the walk, all the way up to the picnic bench, around 1.5 miles, no photos, just enjoying the sunshine, the bird sounds and the walk, no other sounds to hear, beautiful.

The sky was pretty fabulous, nothing special I suppose but there were a few “spaceship” clouds that caught my eye. quite often a sky can look great but just doesn’t translate into a good photograph.

These were taken at the first bend which opens up the vista to the North

I absolutely love the textures in that cloud.

I have SO many photos of the landscape and skies around here, what’s not to love?

You get to see the area I walk in as well as the weather yesterday, not a soul up there with me, well, farmers and a few forestry workers up on the hillside.

It seems to me that we now get skies and clouds I never saw before? That could either be changing weather conditions or, never having access to such big skies before? Hmmmmm

That shot shows a bit more of the reservoir and the selection of clouds above. As a point of interest, the road coming down the hill slightly right of centre used to carry on across the valley, you can see the old road lines in the field. The objects in that field are tree protectors, there has been a gang of guys planting the entire field for a good few weeks now. This shot is roughly one mile up the trail.

Past the picnic ben ch, no photos, the bin was full and overflowing where people had obviously had a get together bbq and the rubbish was only mostly in the bin 😦

I’d been hearing a Song Thrush for most of the latter part of my walk so…

Singing its heart out up there, beautiful. I often use a birding app called Merlin to help identify bird calls and it really struggles with our Thrushes, their song is so varied I guess.

Those who have read my Backwater posts before may have heard me talk about the first and second gates. They are essentially at each end of a farmer’s field and are closed when the sheep are down here.

This is the first gate, most usually closed, with a lovely wooden stile / gate just behind the metal field gate. Those trees on the left can be a great spot for birds, there’s a burn runs below them and they use it for drinking and bathing.

I do love a nice panorama, this from a little further on, the second gate is just round the bend ahead and where I would sit for my break.

There’s quite a demarcation in bird types found from here onwards, you can see it’s a grassy area and lots of Gorse and young pines up to the left so no surprise I spotted a lot of Meadow Pipits along the way. They’ll be gathering for nesting I’d reckon.

The fence alongside the path is great for them to perch on and for me to photograph them; there will be a few more species as we move further into the year.

It’s quite often possible to get pretty close along here.

I carried on to and through the second gate, then down to the rock clump I often use to just sit and ponder life, the universe and everything. Oh and a Red Kite 🙂 There were two hunting and cavorting just over that low treeline on the right in that shot. One of them then landed on the muddy shore of the reservoir just below the rocks.

I have no idea why it landed there? It just seemed to have a wander around looking at stuff, maybe it had seen something from the air?

Having just typed this up, along with editing g the photos, I’ve decided to split this walk in two, I’d forgotten about the landscape shots and there are ‘quite a few’ Red Kite shots so, please follow on to Pt. 2 (tbc asap)

The sun has been shining all morning here, there’s impending rain over the weekend, much needed I must add so, we’re off for another walk, up the Ericht this time.

See you again soon.