"Scottish Snippets"

"Colour Supplement"

14 January 2006

Each week the Scottish Snippets Newsletter includes a number of photographs which illustrate the weather, flora and fauna of the current week around Scotland. There are so many such graphics worth including that a separate "colour supplement" is created so as not to totally overload the Newsletter. Here is this week's crop!

Edinburgh Castle

Most of the photographs of Edinburgh Castle on the Rampant Scotland web site were taken when there was blue sky and a few puffy white clouds. But here is the castle at its brooding best, on a cold January morning, with the wind whistling through the trees and little vegetation growing on the rocks below the walls.

Swans

While the predominant weather this week was dull and grey, there was some wintry sunshine last Sunday when this photo of two swans was taken. It will not be long before some of the adult swans start their courtship dances!

Teal

The low overnight temperatures meant that many lochs and ponds remained frozen at the start of the week. These teal may well have travelled from their usual stretch of water to Hogganfield Loch in Glasgow, where they found at least some of the water was still unfrozen. While they may look a bit disconsolate standing on the ice with a layer of water on top, the photo was taken at a time when they are often having their afternoon siesta - the one in the middle is certainly dreaming of spring and warmer weather...

Viburnum

Flowers are in very short supply in Scotland at this time of year, but viburnum is one of the exceptions. The shrub was growing in a suburban garden near Glasgow.

Coots

This flotilla of coots, accompanied by a swan and a cygnet and a few mallards, were heading to the side of the loch at Drumpellier Country Park in North Lanarkshire because there was some bread being thrown to help them through the cold winter day. The swans actually have great difficulty in getting any of the food - the army of little coots darts in first, before the swans can get their long necks down to the water!

Bluetit

During the recent very cold weather, a "peanut brick" has been hung out on a branch of a hawthorn tree in my own garden. While the squirrels are also likely to attempt to reach it too (with varied levels of success!), the local birds get a good share of the goodies too. This bluetit looks most proprietorial, standing with one leg on top of the "brick" and the other on the supporting wire!

If you want to look back at earlier editions of this Colour Supplement, there is an Index Page



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