To-day Wednesday the 19th was a complete change from the last few days, clear blue skies were replaced with grey, breezy then wet. Last nights sunset was not as good as Tuesday’s.

Seal Sunset

But it was not too bad.

No sign of the hen killer yet, three traps sprung, the bait gone in two, I must be losing my touch. But more questions than answers, the bait was gone and the door of the cage trap was closed. It could be an otter, too big for the door to close. Which is good because I don’t really want to get hands on with an otter. We put sand in front of the traps to catch their prints and it does looks like it is the mink. We will hopefully find out in due course. By the time I went down this afternoon to the trap by the burn the rain had flattened the sand.

We had had a good couple of days away, a visit to Sleat was the highlight and it was good to have a quiet road free of tourists. The Ornsay Hotel provided Sunday dinner then a trip to Breakish, Bric a Brac, or is it Broadford Antiques. Quite an amazing place but after 5 minutes of looking at the total disarray I get totally confused and need to leave. There is just too much stuff.

Breakish Bric a Brac

A lovely ‘Sunset’ cruise back to Rona was very enjoyable on MV Spindrift, the highlight was a big pod of Porpoises at the mouth of the Harbour.

Sunset Cruise

With the weather being so good the outside work is coming together. I almost finished the Genny shed shelter but need some gutter fittings, you can’t just nip to Jewsons here. Hopefully this will dry up the inside of the shed and save the electrics for a wee bit longer.

Looking Good

I moved all the gear up to the forest where I’m going to do the same to the water treatment shed, I started but very quickly ran out of stuff, again a trip to Jewsons is required. More onduline sheets, more planks. It is never ending. It was too dark in the forest all day to get a picture, in fact it was almost dark all day.

After lunch I spotted two sea eagles over the big forest West of the Lodge. I got the bino’s because one of them had something pretty big hanging from its talons. When I had a spy I realised it was a very large branch, so it may be that the sea eagles have finally decided to nest here, we will be looking.

The herons usually nest in these woods, maybe up to 20 of them. All this month they have been flying off en masse and I was wondering what was going on, now it makes sense. I always thought the herons would chase them off but who knows.

Of course by the time I got the ‘big’ camera out it was too late, they had dropped the branch or placed it.

The Pair of Sea Eagles

If they nest maybe we’ll give up on the hens!!!!!!