Litter Pick Postponed

The Blair Atholl Community Litter Pick that was scheduled for today at 10 am has been postponed due to the weather. There's just enough snow lying on the ground to cover up the litter.

The litter pick has been moved back to next week

 Wednesday 27th March at 10am

Last year's litter pick: bright, sunny and warm... not like today!

Information Centre: Grand Opening Friday

The Blair Atholl Information Centre, operated by the Ranger Service, is getting it's 'Grand Opening' this Friday, 22nd March. The centre has been in use since completion of the refurbishment work carried out last summer but now that the car park and external facilities have been finished, it's time to celebrate the fact and prepare for the coming season. The 'ceremony' should be quite fun and as well as local dignitaries and MP's coming along, the local school children and other members of the community will be coming too.

If you come along on the day -or if you're just passing through- call in and have a look around. You can leave us a message in the visitor book to let us know how your visit went. We'd love to hear your stories and any comments or suggestions you might have.

Cally Car Park: Track Resurfaced

The track at the entrance to Cally Car Park, north of Dunkeld, has been resurfaced. This is a welcome improvement because the track was getting very potholed and getting your car (or Ranger van!) into the car park was a bumpy and unsettling experience.

Resurfaced entrance track to Cally Car Park, by Dunkeld

It has taken some time for this work to be carried out as there was some difficulty in ascertaining who had 'ownership' of the task of maintenence - the car park was established and is operated through a continuing collaboration between Atholl Estates and Perth & Kinross Council (PKC). It had been understood by the Ranger Service that PKC had jurisdiction for maintaining the track because of public access but, as it turns out from chasing a long paper trail, Atholl Estates is in fact the responsible party. After this had been determined it was only a matter of waiting for a window of reasonable weather in which to carry out the work... possibly the hardest part of the whole process...!

Thinking of Winter Sunshine

The outlook for today and the next while may be dull and grey today but Beinn A' Ghlo was looking rather splendid in the sunshine on Monday last week as we carried out our monthly wetland bird survey for the BTO. Considering that over three quarters of the water surface was covered in ice, it was fairly busy out on Loch Moraig: lots of Mallard and Goldeneye, several Tufted Ducks, a small flock of Whooper Swans and a Grey Herron standing still and fishing from the banks.

Beinn A' Ghlo looking good, snow capped in the sunshine

Cairngorms Ranger Gathering 2013

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week we were at the Cairngorms National Park Ranger Gathering. This annual event run by the National Park Authority is a great opportunity for all of the rangers in the National Park to get together and share our ideas and experience and be updated on news and projects happening within the park. All the ranger services in the National Park are operated by individual organisations, rather than being employed directly by the Park Authority, so this is a really valuable way for us to learn more about what each other do and to forge better links to work together as a team. Hopefully everyone came away feeling inspired and full of enthusiasm to pass on to the public.

Thank you to all the National Park Authority staff who organised the gathering, both up-front and behind the scenes, and also to the speakers and workshop leaders who attended.

Don't forget to keep an eye out for a ranger and say hello next time you visit the Cairngorms!

Some of the Cairngorms Rangers making their way to the top of a snowy
Meall a' Bhuachaille. You can make out the Cairngorm plateau in the distance.
It wasn't all getting out and visiting sites though, there were plenty of presentations
and serious discussion too - they just don't make such good photos!

Winter Scenes

The Dunkeld end of the estate and area around Loch Ordie was looking very wintry yesterday. It was a very changeable day: bright sunshine one moment, followed by grey, snow laden skies the next, with very little warning of the transition in between. This made the planned work of counting water birds for the BTO's Wetland Bird Survey (which we have mentioned before) slightly more difficult than ususal. It also meant that the photograph of a cormorant on Rotmell Loch contained more snow than feathers, even though the bird was only a short distance away - so there are no bird pictures below, unfortunately. Instead you can see some scenes of snow and sunshine.

This 'ice plant' has been formed by the water from wind-driven
waves on Loch Ordie soaking the rushes and freezing, over
and over, until the whole plant became encased in ice.

One of the brighter moments of the day, Looking west from the
main track up to Loch Ordie

Land Rover with the bleak grey-white sky behind,
 in the middle of a flash 'blizzard'

...And a view from inside the vehicle (it was stopped when this was taken!)

Bats in the Daytime: Part II

A quick update following on from the previous post:

It turns out that someone did get a photograph of the bat that we saw enjoying a spot of daytime flying, it just took a bit of time finding the bat in the picture as it came out so small and blurry due to the speed at which it was flying. With a little bit of digital 'magic' you can see how the bat's features emerge from the initial blurred photo. Although perhaps still not good enough to make a decisive identification of the species, it being a Pipistrelle is still a pretty safe bet. Thanks to my Dad for passing on the photo (and double checking for bats in the first place!).

Click on the images for a larger view

Close-up crop of  the original photo. A bit blurry but you can easily see
the 'bat' shape. (click on the pictures to enlarge) Image: E.Gilhooley

 

'Tweaked' version of the original. Still blurred but the wing
outline is much clearer. Image: E.Gilhooley

Black and white version of the image, zoomed in and sharpened up . The overall shape is clear and
even facial features begin to emerge. Not bad from a slightly blurry original photo. Image: E.Gilhooley