To Pitlochry and Beyond

It was my birthday  a few days back and I decided to take a little trip 'Up North' to the Pitlochry area, to enjoy the scenery and hopefully spot some interesting wildlife.
There had been some snow recently and although it had all disappeared from the central belt I was hopeful of snapping some wintry scenes with snow-capped hills the further north we went.
Our first stop on our trip up the A9 was at The Hermitage, just outside Dunkeld. There was a little sprinkling of snow here but the wildlife definitely was keeping a low profile and there was certainly no opportunity to photograph any. What I did manage to photograph was something that seemed out of place and out of season. It was something I normally associate with an urban environment and I normally see in late October or early November.......................it was a bonfire in the middle of a field half way up a hillside...........strange but true.

A bonfire in February?......no Guy though

Perhaps it was to do with some weird Perthshire cult, like the Wickerman, I didn't wait to find out and beat a hasty retreat.
Back on the A9 and heading North we were feeling a bit peckish and desperately in need of a cup of tea. Luckily just past Dunkeld is a great little cafe near a hamlet called Dowally (hamlet is stretching it a bit as I think there are only three houses). I like the name Dowally, sounds a bit eccentric to me, anyway the cafe was beckoning us:

Food, Drink and Crafts....what more could you want?

I plumped for the black pudding roll and Moira had a roll on bacon, all washed down with lashings of hot tea.........scrumptious.
We were ready to hit the open road once again. Talking about roads Dowally sits on one of General Wade's roads, which were built back in the 1700's to allow the rapid deployment of the Government's troops in order to quash any potential Jacobite uprising...........I wonder if they stopped for a black pudding roll and tea?
Onwards and upwards, our next stop was just outside Pitlochy, alongside the River Tummel. Although there was no snow here there was a slight covering on the distant hills, so I took a picture:

River Tummel

What I didn't notice, but Moira kindly pointed out, was a couple of cows coming down to the river to drink. They weren't Highland Coos, more of the 'How Now Brown...' type:

Refreshments Stop

I thought they were quite brave as the Tummel is a deep fast-flowing river. It flows into the River Tay a few miles further downstream to create Britain's largest river (in terms of volumetric flow). At an average flow of some 200 cubic metres per second more water flows into the sea from the River Tay than the Thames and Severn added together. Your interesting fact for the day!!
Back to our trip to Pitlochry.........which was looming close as the nearby sign indicated:

I didn't see many flowers but it was bloomin' cold.
When we drove into Pitlochry I headed straight for the car park near the Dam and Fish Ladder, strategically avoiding all the 'nice shops' in the town (after all it was MY birthday outing).
A short walk from the car park takes you right onto the top of the Dam, giving excellent views of Loch Faskally on one side and the River Tummel on the other side.

Loch Faskally

River Tummel from the Dam

The dam itself is a large concrete and steel structure with a power station at one end, but don't think that this massive man-made structure meant the area was devoid of wildlife, quite the opposite.
Although it was the wrong time of year to see salmon working their way up the fish ladder there were a few fishermen still about.
There were the human type:

Fishing on the Tummel

And the bird type:

Heron on the Tummel

There were also disco ducks:

 

Well it's a Tufted Duck really with some brightly coloured reflections on Loch Faskally.

The next photo probably illustrates better why it's called a 'tufted' duck:

Tufted Duck on Loch Faskally

Other interesting sights included the Fish Ladder or Fish Pass, which is basically a series of concrete tanks joined together running from the top of the dam to the bottom. The water in each tank flows through to the adjacent lower one via a small pipe, so the tanks don't empty. The salmon are strong enough to swim from the river up through these small pipes of fast-flowing water to reach the loch above and on to their spawning grounds. Some even jump across the dividing walls between tanks if the pipe traffic is busy. They usually do this in October/November so no photos of them in February.

Here is a photo of the Fish Ladder though:

Fish Ladder or Fish Pass

For those of you more interested in Mechanical rather than Civil Engineering here is a photo of one of the turbine impellers (or a Francis runner to give it a more classical name).

Francis Turbine Runner

There are two turbines at the Power Station each generating 7.5MW, so not huge but worth having.

Here is a photo of the Dam and Power Station:

Pitlochry Power Station

Enough of the engineering, let's get back to the wildlife watching, here is a Blue Tit at the car park on the way out:

Blue Tit in tree

And a Carrion Crow in a tree, keeping its beady eyes on me...........

 

Crow looking for some carrion

After leaving the Dam we stopped at a cafe in Pitlochry for some well deserved apple pie and coffee, then a quick turn round one of the 'very nice' shops before heading back down the A9.

On our way South we took a detour, turning off at Ballinluig and headed West towards Aberfeldy.

We didn't stop at Aberfeldy but took the A826 which heads up over the hills to Crieff (this was also part of General Wade's military road network).

The higher we went the more snow we saw at the side of the road, luckily the roads were clear but they had obviously had quite a bit of snow recently:

 

Wintry Conditions

As we came past a clearing in the trees we spotted a couple of Red Deer Stags and stopped the car:

 

Stags in the Clearing

The deer suddenly froze and just stood there watching the car. I'm sure if I had got out at this stage they would have bolted so I stayed in the car. Luckily I had my cameras on the back seat and I managed to run off a few photographs:

 

Red Deer Stags

Another car pulled up behind us and when he seen why we had stopped he started taking photos on his mobile phone. They even stood still long enough for me to get my camera with the zoom lens out and take an even closer photo:

 

Red Deer Stag

They weren't exactly 'Monarchs of the Glen' but were impressive enough and very obliging when it came to photographing them. In fact I got bored before they did and drove off............and no they were not made of plastic, they did move...........slightly.

We headed on up the hill and joined the A822 which took us through the Sma' Glen, with some dramatic scenery on the way:

 

Heading to the Sma' Glen



As we dropped into the Sma' Glen there was less snow around, although there was some still on the hills around us:

 

Yeti in the Sma'Glen

As we drove on to Crieff and made our way home via Gleneagles and Glendevon I realised that I did manage to achieve my birthday wish of snow-capped hills and some winter wildlife (not to mention apple pie).

 

Take care out there,

 

Teddy Edward