return to Monymusk

 

7th~10th March. Another trip North to see Mary's mum in hospital. She is making good progress and hopes to be getting home soon. Meantime we felt we should go visit; staying with Karen and Andy in Monymusk. Given the idea was to give them a break from daily visits it seemed better that we turn up with our own transport rather than rely on Mary's sister Karen (like last time) to drive us everywhere. So Mary (& I) bought a car. Her third Citroen. (Which makes sense as we have a tame Citroen garage along the road who will be missing the Berlingo's regular visits.) It managed the round trip and daily hospital routine (20miles there and 20 back) fine although being something of a budget model takes a little bit of getting used to. (Remember opening windows with a winding handle? Yeah me neither!) It is not the luxury model. Although does have a CD player, which inspired digging out some favourite mixed CDs from storage to play during the drive there and back.

The hospital (a different one from last time) was hidden up a very rural road out the back of Banchory. The sat-nav took us most of the way but then abandoned us in the last mile before we got there because we haven't used it in ages and forgot the fine tuning. Also I think the sat-nav has more a sense of humour than sense of direction and often tried to get us to turn around and travel 24miles to return to a point 12 miles away. However, given the number of things that could have gone wrong, the whole trip went well and we enjoyed the weekend away. Not least because there was some unseasonably warm-ish weather and the sun shone for much of it. Mary even saw a comma butterfly (first of the year) in the beautiful Monymusk garden. No photos, but it was good to know they were about. It was spotted having a drink at the small pond which also contained frogs, (a toad), frog spawn and newts and was visited by the neighbour's honey bees which seemed very keen to stand on the absorbent mossy edges and drink water while I took their photos.

nice weather for mooching about taking pics
and taking it easy

stumpy the 3-foot newt

Newts don't care much for being taken out the pond for a photo-shoot. They particularly don't like it when you flip them over to show their orange tummies and are very quick to flip themselves back up the right way. Which is a shame as they are really lovely. I (mostly) resisted the urge to get everything out the water for a photo. There was a very handy fishing net beside the pond which made this even harder to resist. The frogs who were very quick to submerge and disappear when they sensed approaching footsteps, seemed almost hypnotised by the approaching net and let themselves be scooped up with an ease I wasn't expecting. I suppose they have been honing their predator awareness and will have taken thousands of years to build up a profile of herons and foxes, but only a comparative few hundred years of looking out for the dangers of nets. When fished out they pretended to sit happily on a hand for photos, then when you were lulled into a false sense of security they would leap from whatever height, pondwise, and highjump with haste back into the water. 

honey bee on frogspawn

I found this toad (the only one of the weekend) half out the pond and a bit knackered. I presumed from the orgy of the previous night. However I think it had clambered out the pond and become dessicated in the warm sun. I took a photo or 2 although he/she had nearly expired. When I put it back in the water it took a few minutes but began to look a lot more lively and the nearly closed slits in its eyes opened and it began to take evasive action.

newt reluctantly showing that underbelly

yeah, geroff me

This from the internet...
Honey bees need water to digest food and maintain temperature in the brood nest.  When they are living on stores of honey and fondant they need large quantities of it to dilute them to a concentration they can digest.  You can help your bees by making sure they have a water source close by.  They can’t land on the water to feed, so need a ramp, stones or a sponge to stand on while they drink.

The moss on the pond edges obviously provided an ideal surface on which the bees could land but also access moisture from the saturated plants. When it was warm there was a nearly constant stream of bees landing and taking off, and I spent many happy moments on hands and knees with the macro lens jammed up against the bees as they collected water with outstretched (orange/red) glossa.

"The mouthpart of a honeybee is comprised of two galeae, two labial palpi and a hairy glossa."

photo Mary

red kite

The daily trip to Banchory was not always straightforward as there are dozens of small winding roads on the 20 miles (17.1miles / 18.9miles) between Monymusk and Banchory. We were told one of them was closed due to roadworks and another was longer but more scenic. The sat-nav also had opinions and sometimes they were difficult to intuit whether they were in our interests or some sort of revenge for regularly ignoring its pearls of wisdom. We got so used to it letting us know when the speed limit was being flaunted, that when switched off there was a feeling we couldn't have been going too fast as Mrs. Bossy wasn't telling us off. Reliance on a unreliable source can be dangerous.

On one occasion we saw an amazing red kite just above the road. I requested Mary stop and she says I was out the car before it even came to a halt. Unfortunately I had put the small lens on as we had gone in search of the scenic route and I was after wide shots of the countryside. How frustrating the only red kite of the weekend should choose that moment to fly within a few yards of the car and give us an excellent display of hunting low over the nearby fields. It was awesome and the photos do not do it justice.

red kite, wide shot, ffs

visiting in hospital

The Glen O' Dee hospital was small and really quite charming (if you weren't being confined there!) and had bird feeders hung in the pretty grounds which morphed into the woods behind. There were bike trails through the woods and we explored these while lunch was being served. There was a relaxed and friendly feel to the place and due to the remote seclusion and rural geography it almost felt like an old fashioned sanitorium or spa. Most of the accents were local Doric and another quirk was there were currently only female inmates. All the gents had recovered (or not).

the "new" car - a Citroen C1, basic model

On Saturday we went for the same run as last time - over Pitfichie and Cairn William. Although it was a bit misty and cool to start with the haze lifted and we finished in sunshine. I carried the DJI Pocket but mostly shot stills rather than video as that was covered last time in better weather.

a recently gutted badger by the roadside 😥

no paparazzi please

as we climbed the views cleared
looking towards Cairn William from Pitfichie

we met 2 hiking ladies at the top of CW who were "impressed"
as they had seen us just moments before on the other hill

flowering butterbur at the roadside - a prime candidate for early butterflies

and back home

A few years ago when we visited here, (blog here) K&A had bird feeders hanging and were getting a load of visitors to their garden; siskins, yellowhammers, woodpeckers, pheasants and loads of the usual suspects. I noticed last trip that although they had a squirrel feeder on a post, there were no bird feeders, so I took a seed feeder a half-coconut feeder and a fat ball feeder to hang outside the kitchen window. Over the weekend, the bird population, led by robins and great tits began to take an interest. 

there was no shortage of local food

It was a great experience to witness the local bird population singing and declaring territories, which started with thrushes around 5.35am doing a dawn chorus. One sat in the highest tree near the house and gave it full blast. I resisted the urge to get up and record it. Across the field in high trees we could hear woodpeckers drumming and although they moved about quite a bit I didn't manage any photos.

the neighbouring beehives maybe a third of a mile away
which would account for the all the bees visiting the pond

all the trees were covered in lichens

Mary and Thandie a Rhodesian Ridgeback

bee or wasp nest 

viburnum in flower

lots of tits  - great, blue and coal - in the garden

a green woodpecker knocker (pull the string and it knocks on the hut door)
I felt it mocked my recent attempts to find one at Pressmennan

The sun brought out all sorts of wildlife. Of course as soon as I changed from the birding lens to the macro lens I could no longer find these jumping spiders that were out sunbathing on a shed. The garden is a long strip of huts (all of which Andy made from kits, each more impressive than the last, some with electricity and plumbing!) an old greenhouse, and patios and sit-ooteries. As well as BBQ areas, a hot tub and bar, and a raised wooden platform. I really enjoyed wandering in the sunshine taking photos of everything which looked fab in the spring light. I was busy up at the one end of the garden when Mary came and told me she had disturbed a comma at the other end near the pond. We spent a long time at the pond (photographing bees and frogs) but it didn't return. It was the only butterfly of the weekend and Mary's first of the year. There was so much other wildlife going on I didn't mind missing an opportunity to get the first butterfly pics of the year.

jumping spider

badger skull?

our new car - it managed the trip comfortably

briefly saw a pair of green finches

greenfinch (f)

chaffinch

foxy hat

delighted to see a pair of long-tailed tits on the fatballs

coal tit on the squirrel feeder

coal tit

LTT

blue tit

wearing a cammo poncho which probably helped less than just
sitting still in a chair and not making any sudden movements

decoration which features in the video

ridiculous amount of lichens

chaffinch

When we visited the hospital a red squirrel was also visiting there. The bird feeders outside the ward windows were regularly topped up which attracted local birds as well as this squirrel. Unfortunately the feeder was round the back of the tree-trunk and not best placed for photos. When I went outside I was immediately spotted and the squirrel dashed into the rhododendrons.

Back to Monymusk and we spent a lot of Sunday afternoon just wandering about the garden taking photos. Quite a few frogs seemed to have migrated from the water-filled ditch behind the garden and were watching us from the pond. If you approached too noisily they would hide but then come back to the surface and keep and eye on things. I found they weren't put off by a macro lens and could lean really close for a photo as long as I made no sudden movements. Great to see so much wildlife in and around the pond, and I look forward to seeing dragonflies there later in the year.

honey bees at the drinking hole

shanty town!

BBQ weather!?

On Sunday night we had an excellent BBQ and Andy cooked a couple of his homemade giant sausages which were tremendous. I was slightly relieved to return inside to eat, as despite Karen's bare feet it really wasn't that warm for sitting about outside drinking beers. Great finish to a really enjoyable weekend. We drove home the next day although the weather returned to more normal March cold cloud cover and plans to stop off at Morton Lochs on the way home were abandoned.

video of bees collecting water from the garden pond in which frogs were spawning.

Sound up, to hear woodpeckers drumming and bees buzzing
if viewing full screen make sure in settings it is HD quality