Around the Scottish Dolphin Centre.....

Around the Scottish Dolphin Centre you can see many things that are not dolphins. Like...

gooseanders

ospreys

terms

Sensible waste disposal

The centre itself (shop, wildlife-viewing and much more)                                  

Giant Water Hogweed (this one is                                                                                  about 10ft high)

House martins

 Mute swans

The 'dolphin-whisperer'

                                                                           Charlie Phillips (more often sighted at

                                               Chanonry Point.)

Wigwams of drift wood

People with big lenses

The River Spey (complete with leaping salmon - not shown)

And much more (including dolphins - see below)!

More Scottish Dolphins

Even better pictures today - all from Chanonry Point.

The people and the dolphins - the dolphins are just to the left of their admirer in the green top.

Just a light snack!

Scottish dolphins ahoy!

Can there be a better place than Chanonry Point in north Scotland (just above Inverness) for viewing bottlenose dolphins?

When I arrived there this afternoon a small crowd of photographers were already in place (many with bazooka-sized professional lenses) on the gravel spit that sticks out into the Moray Firth.

Channory Point

Soon everyone was pointing excitedly and lenses moved in unison to point in parallel as the school - in several separate groups - swept in from the seaward size. They milled for a while off the point and then moved on.

Now I am no Charlie Phillips (his blog here) but even I could not fail to get some pictures.

The sighting clearly made the day for many holidaymakers and the gang of photographers reinforced themselves with some hot tea and settled back to await the dolphins' return.

Distinctive sickle-shaped dorsal fin

Here - a distant dolphin sees off a gannet - or is it the other way around?

Summertime visitors - badgers

So I did not expect these visitors, but there were a few clues: odd little holes in the lawn and occasional rustlings in the hedgerow that runs to the back of my garden - neither of which I could explain. Then, suddenly, one dull summer's evening when the drizzle was finely falling, I saw a face come around the old flower pot that helps to hold up the bird feeder. It was twilight. And after one striped face came another. They seemed to be finishing off the left-over bird food and as there could not have been much of this I suspect that what they are really after are the worms in the guano-enriched soil.

They seem entirely oblivious to being watched from the upper story windows and pretty tolerant to the noises that come from the house. I think they are well used to them and have been watching us for sometime and decided we are mainly harmless..... which is true. It is a great privilege to see these pretty little animals close up.

And here...

... a three badger evening!

Back in the bird nursery

Young - recently fledged - birds are still a feature of the summer garden here. They include Stumpy, the tail-less starling. It is now clear that he is not able to keep up with the rest of the flock. He cannot fly as well as them at the moment and he cannot get onto the fat feeder, which the other young starlings (and their parents) seems to spend much of the day squabbling over, but he is surviving and, hopefully, his tail will grow back.

We are also now down to one juvenile robin. Its a tough life out there.

Young robin

Young blue tit

We have also had some other more unexpected visitors to the garden and they will be the subject of the next blog. They too are fond of peanuts but they cannot fly at all.