Gobbled up by Sea Eagles....almost

The morning started with a cat fight, literally. Spog, the cowboy, I mean cat, was standing guard in the middle of the single track road, I was alerted to his presence as I made my way over to the pottery in the sunshine. It was the high pitched yowls that did it, Spog positively strutting, prowling back and forth, circling, and looking ready to draw his gun at any moment. Suddenly Henrik appeared from nowhere, and darted across the road. Spog was like lightening on his tail, the air filled with the hissing, spitting and shrieking as Henrik cowered into the hedgerow and Spog stood over him, tail wagging, menacing eyes fixated. Of course I completely ruined the moment, venturing in, easing a very angry Spog out of the way with my foot, as I rescued Henrik and lifted him up over the dry stone dyke and into the garden. Spog was not impressed and spent over an hour prowling around the entrance to the farm, before finally giving in and arriving at the back door for some breakfast.

Youngest and I have taken to walking Ruby pup in the early evenings. We head across the field to join the path that leads to the tree swing and then onto Lilly Loch, where Ruby gets to dive into the cool waters after sticks.

Ruby is trying ever so hard not to chase those sheep, and is being discouraged by Meh Meh, the pet lamb, who now lives in the field with the other sheep. The happy farmer moved her and her wooden kennel into the field a few weeks ago. Meh Meh, joins the rest of the flock to graze during the day, but at night, or if the storm clouds gather, she can be found happily chewing the cud in her little kennel. This causes some entertainment for the children as she has grown rather a lot, and her huge belly and legs, hang out over the edges of the kennel as she continues to squeeze herself into her living quarters, a privileged sheep indeed. Meh Meh always makes a bee line for Ruby when she spies her, and refuses to be chased away by her, instead gently head butting Ruby if she gets over excited.

The other evening as we made our way through the field, youngest drew my attention to what seemed to be a large animal in the burn field. I couldn’t quite make out if it was a small roe deer sitting on its hind quarters, or a large group of hares all boxing. We walked slowly across the field and quickly made the shape out to be two very large eagles, sea eagles in fact. We stopped in awe, they were absolutely huge, one, on spying us, gracefully flew off and up into the air, however the other sat for seconds longer, and having read how a sea eagle attacked someone in Perthshire the other day, I did begin to wonder whether I shouldn’t turn and head back for the safety of the farmhouse. I really did not want to get gobbled up by one of these majestic animals, and I do tend to have an over active imagination, but just as my worries were bubbling up to the surface, the second sea eagle took flight, and joined its partner, we watched in awe as it soared off, high up above the hill, where it swooped and soared with its partner for quite some time, looking more like buzzards in the distance. Sea eagles have gradually been reintroduced to Scotland over the past few years, and I knew they were in the vicinity, so felt very privileged that they had chosen to swoop in on the farm, especially as they decided not to gobble me up in the process.

Until next time…..