Winter around Rannoch

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We made it up to the Rannoch area mid-afternoon in time to admire the pure calm stillness and misty distant mountain reflections on Loch Rannoch.

Beautiful simplicity: flat calm, mirror reflections on Loch Rannoch.

(Obligatory plug – the above image is now uploaded to my main fine-art / landscape website: Blue Stillness, Loch Rannoch.)

Drone photos also happened – flying around inversion layers over the Black Woods of Rannoch.

  • Patches of mist above Loch Rannoch near Croiscraig / Camghouran.
  • ..then we went for a stroll underneath all that mist, too.

And the forest was its usual welcoming self, albeit in subdued winter mode:

  • Black Woods of Rannoch late in the day – hints of mist rising in the distance, colours turned cool. It’s interesting how this end of the Black Woods is so much more densely planted – even though the Scots Pine is a native species, it’s still not naturally evolved. Indeed the history of the Black Woods includes attempts to log the forest – one can only presume this was an attempt to replant, with native species, but still with some potential degree of profit in mind.
  • Black Woods of Rannoch

In Kinclaven

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I was so awed at the sheer acreage of bluebells (harebells?) at Kinclaven woods on my first visit with friends, I went back a couple of days later with the parents as well. Photos happened. It was still awesome. Also cool – a lovely place to just wander through dappled light amongst the trees. Yay.

Lovely atmosphere:

Great light:

Recovery: Keil’s Den, Fife

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Still feeling very under the weather from a bout of food poisoning, I spent a happy Sunday afternoon walking around Keil’s Den outside Lower Largo, Fife – recommended by the Woodland Trust as a site for seeing bluebells.

It was still a week or two early in the spring for bluebells, but there were a few in evidence, along with a few expanses of unmistakeable white wild garlic.

There’s something pleasantly restorative about a walk in the woods: something about the green hues, dappled light and shade, cool breezes under the trees. It works.

My favourite photo from the afternoon was this strange beech tree – a strong young stem well on its way to producing a new crown of foliage, growing from the remains of an old battered and eroded upright trunk:

Life from old – a young stem growing into a strong crown of foliage from the remains of a much-damaged eroded old tree trunk.