July 2019 – Photos by Alison

The Tree Sparrows were once again nesting in the bird box. The first brood fledged last month and it looked as if there is going to be another brood. Once again I sat opposite the nest box and watched the attentive parents feeding their young. The garden had lots of young birds in it this month. The Magpies were still around hoping to catch one of the young birds. An unusual Feral Pigeon came into the garden for a few days. A Red Squirrel also appeared in the garden and has been feeding from the Squirrel feeding box. It concentrated so much on eating that it allowed me to get quite close to it. About the middle of the month this second brood of Tree Sparrows fledged also.

This has certainly been a month for seeing lots of butterflies mainly in the garden. The Red Admirals, Peacocks and LargeWhites are often in the garden but this year a Speckled Wood, a Small Tortoiseshell, a Ringlet and Painted Lady, all made an appearance. There seems to be an abundance of Painted Ladies in the country at the moment. When I was out walking one day on the Dava I managed to get a lovely picture of a Common Blue.

The weather was so good this month that we went back to Gairloch. We packed a picnic and set off for the day. It was beautiful sitting at the edge of Loch Maree enjoying our picnic and watching some canoeists. Unfortunately, we never saw any birds. There are Black-throated Divers on the loch but we did not see any.