April

Lance

Longformacus – Dye Water – Dye Cottage – Scar Law – Watch Water Reservoir - Longformacus.

Excellent, wall to wall sunshine, generally warm with an occasional breeze.

Lance, Julie, Leda, Sandy, George B, Olwen.

Carol - tidying up the house before christening party.

Ron - male bonding exercise at church.

Ashley - Thai-ed up in Thailand.

Bernie - entertaining the family.

Evelyn - not fit enough to walk, but wandered round Berwick.

Comments

The start proved a bit difficult as there were too many car parks. We were joined by Leda from Brisbane, a social psychologist who is currently observing the behaviour of Tayside police in the less salubrious parts of Dundee.

First walk reconnoitred by Google.

It was warm enough for shorts. A postman delayed the ladies’ loo stop near the start while the lads disappeared behind a corrugated iron barn for a pee. We walked along the bank of the meandering Dye Water – very picturesque. Leda was introduced to nettles by the practical method. Unfortunately there were no docken leaves to hand to reduce the swelling. Julie collected some frog spawn and tadpoles to replace frog taken by a heron from their garden pond. Lots of animal corpses, (pheasants, rabbits, hedgehogs) and skeletal remains.

The lunch stop overlooked the river. We encountered two friendly lambs lying on the bank of the burn but mum was a bit anxious so we did not dally. A stretch of the path had collapsed into the burn as a result of the winter weather so we had to divert uphill a bit - except for George who managed to negotiate the tricky section. There was a nice bridge at Dye Cottage where we encounterd two men in a van from an organisation called Open Space, who appeared to be carrying out some form of survey.

The path up from Dye Cottage was broad, part of access for a new wind farm construction. We had a good view of another huge wind farm in the distance. There was a big dumper trunk from Dunkeld.

There was a lot of concern for a little lamb (number 65) who could not find its mother, although it did eventually.

We took a tea stop at the end of the reservoir dam, where we watched the fishermen in their boats and saw a fish jump. A shepherd went past on his quad bike with his dog enjoying the lift. We saw two colourful strutting cockerels and their harems in a farmyard, and another Weimarer dog.

Wildlife/Flora/Animals:

Birds: dippers, oyster catchers, pink foot and Canada geese, mallard ducks, swallows, red leg and black grouse, pheasants, chickens, chaffinch, peewits, two raptors and a heron.

Insects: unidentified small brown ladybird-like insects.

Mammals/others: lots of lambs, many wearing plastic macs, with their mothers. Rabbits, a hare still with its white winter coat on. Cows and big bulls, tadpoles and a jumping fish (brown trout?).

Plants/Trees: Nettles, lots of daffodils, little primroses and wood anemones.

Black Bull at Duns. Spicy Haggis, excellent steaks and super sweets.

April walkers

Lambs

Dye Water

Picturesque bridge

Leda and the nettles

Cockerels and harem