A walk with Tara

This morning started nice and sunny,lots of blue sky, a slight nip in the air to signal autumn is with us, soon the leaves will be falling, as the trees change colour from the different shades of greens to the reds, browns yellow and purple shades of colours. Over the back of local park they are changing fast now.
At the start of the walk on my left hand side are some gorse bushes, the bright yellow flowers have long gone now, replaced by the drab greys and browns with a little green on the leaves fighting to survive the passage of time, a Robin the first I have seen this autumn is singing blissfully away telling the world that this is his territory and no one else’s, I called out to him good morning mr Robin, how is your day, Tara turns gets excited looking to see who I am talking to, we carry on walking, Tara a little bit disgusted, not having someone to make a fuss of her. As we pass the gorse bushes on my left, we come to the wheat field all stubble now that the harvest is in, sometimes we walk around the field, it has a steep incline that I walk up at times to get my heart beating faster, but today we give it a miss, over to my right about a hundred yards from the track I am following is a large warehouse, that houses Baxters food products for transportation to all over the world, the roof is flat, and a good nesting site for Common Gulls and Oyster Catchers in the spring and summer, all gone now. Back to the coasts.
I like to watch the Oyster catchers on the ground walking along turning over leaves and stones. The Common Gulls are a different story, once they build their nests and have eggs or young in the nest, they will dive bomb you if you get too near, over the otherwise of the warehouse is a large staff carpark, and there have been numerous reports of the gulls attacking people trying to get to and from work.
We come to the end of the track, we turn left and walk on, to our left we have the northern edge of the stubble field to our right we have a nature path built by the Baxter family for visitors to their visited centre. We could go straight on to another path that takes us on to Stynie Cottages but today we walk on up the steps into the woods. When we reach the bottom of the steps, Tara looks at me, which way are we going she seems to say, I point the way we are going she goes up the steps half way up she stops and looks at me to make sure I am ok, since my heart attack last year she has always done this. We walk on to a small picnic area, with a good view over the Spey running down to the sea, forever rushing and tumbling over the stones and shingle. Sometimes in the summer we see the osprey fishing the Spey, but this time of the year they have flown or about to fly back to North Africa.
We hear the call of a Pheasant Tara hears it too, she looks at me, I say to her not today miss us maybe another time you can chase them, today they are to far away, I hear the call again, I look across the stubble field and see mr and mrs Pheasant strutting through the stubble, suddenly the male takes flight followed by the female they call out in panic the whirring noise of their wings are borne on the breeze towards us, I look to see what had frightened them, I could not spot anything. We walk on, Baxters have placed information boards along the nature trail for the benefit of visitors explaining what is possible to see as they walk along.
Two years ago I found a strange feather on the ground here, it was black and half white towards the tip, I looked in my bird books but it could of been anything really, it was too large for a woodland bird and it was not a seabird. A couple of days later the mystery was solved, I heard this loud croaking noise indescribable but unique I heard it again this time it sounded like an old man trying to clear his throat and coughing at the same time, I could not believe what I was hearing, yes it was, I was amazed it was Scotland’s rarest bird a Capercaillie, I never saw it but heard it, that was the only time I have heard one or picked up a feather, alas I think it has gone now from where I heard it.
Another thing I have missed, we had a couple of red squirrels living here up to a year ago, but I haven’t seen them for some time, we have rabbits here Tara likes to chase them, until one turned round stopped and stared at her, Tara stopped dead turned and run the opposite way, she can be a coward at times.
We continue our walk turning towards home, I look up at the sky, soon the Whooper swans and pink footed geese will be flying in there large v formations chopping and changing leaders and shapes, you hear them before you see them, they land in the stubble fields to eat the remaining grain that has been left after the harvest. One stands guard as the others graze, it’s long neck stretched he’s needy eyes watching everything it sees move, suddenly he calls out in alarm the whole flock of swans take to the air their wings sounding like thunder, they circle round forming up into their v formation and flying off the Spey Bay or the Spey to swim and feed off the weed there.
We reach home I take my coat off and Tara’s lead, give her a treat, change her water give her fresh food, I fix breakfast, take my pills then chill out before the days chores. Next time I will describe a different walk we do