Glorious

I love this crazy riot of autumn colours beside the road at Inverchaolain, on Loch Striven. Autumn is turning out to be wonderful after such a dire summer, and the leaves and berries are more amazing each time we go out. The fuzzy white things are all that is left of the seeds of the rose bay willow herb that I usually associate with late August - returning to work in the city was always accompanied by the floating seedheads in the wind.

Today we saw a heron standing to attention at the loch side; a sizeable raptor just above our heads in the trees; countless doomed pheasants bursting from the undergrowth and scuttling crazily down the road or launching themselves on sudden kamikaze flights with a sound of wooden toys; and - joyously - a seal leaping from the water as if it thought it was a salmon. 

Oh - and among all that life, two cyclists, three joggers, and two people who drove all the way to the end of the road just to let their dogs run in a field before they piled back into their car and drove back again. Bit pointless, really ...