Sunday Morning Walk in pics

I haven’t been for a walk in to the beach in a few weeks, so did so this morning – along with Bud.

There is so much more life around the shore just now, teeming with flowers and birds.

Here is the machair part of my croft, full of daisies.

One of my favourite places in the world is where Abhainn Chrois meets Traigh Chrois. My brothers and I played here a lot when we were younger.

Down to the shore and someone has lost a lamb to the river. This might have died a year ago and only now been washed down. Who knows. Young animal anyway.

Myself and Bud played on the beach for a wee while. Full of beans!

This is Traigh Chrois, from the south, looking north. Love this place.

I walked south along the coast to Traigh Dhall then. I almost stood on this wee fellow, an oystercatcher chick. Parents were buzzing around but he was as still as could be!

Can you spot him here? Bud remained totally oblivious of him.

Once I reached Traigh Dhail, there was a flood of gull chicks awaiting me. I came across these two, spotted another 15 or so and then decided to leave, as I didn’t want to disturb them too much.

This one needs to work on it’s hide & seek technique.

And then on the way home, I passed Boais’ cows – and calves

Eye update

I’m back home, after a quick jaunt to Inverness for a wedding, and back to deal with the sheep that lost her eye on Thursday. She’s on a course of penicillin and I’ve cleaned it as much as I can and sprayed it with iodine. Poor sheep was feeling the iodine sting!

She’s in the barn and I’m quite happy with how she is, I thought she’d be much flatter. We’ll see how she is in the next few days.

Horrible stuff

The ugly side of keeping animals reared its head today, again. Just as I was leaving the house to get a flight to Inverness for a wedding, I noticed a sheep on her side on the croft. She was on a slope, with legs higher than body, and couldn’t get back on her feet. I went out to lift her up but them saw a Black-backed Gull fly away from her – with her beak covered in blood. I knew what had happened straight away

I got her up & steadied her. By this point I was cutting it fine for the plane so I had to hit the road. I spoke to the vet, who said I have 2 options; remove the eye, at a cost of £60-80, or put her down. This is her last year, as she’s an older ewe, and I don’t really want to do either, so I’m going to give her the weekend and see how it goes.

It’s not nice and one of these horrible things you have to deal with when you have livestock. One of the main reasons, apart from cost, that I don’t want to remove the eye, is the previous experience i had with attempts at that. I’ve had it happen to a couple of sheep in the past, so she’ll hopefully be ok.