Well it certainly felt like spring this afternoon but one can't help feeling that there is still a little winter left to come.  The young calves and lambs are still to arrive, and while we have seen lots of young frogs out and about in the evenings recently, and bumble bees and butterflies have been active for the past few days, and even some birds appear to be singing like it is the breeding season, most of the plants remain unconvinced.  These catkins were one of the few signs of activity increasing in the plant kingdom, but the majority of stems remain bare.

The croft land at Drumbuie and Duirinish remains pretty bare although the grass is a bit greener than I have seen it at this time of year.  This afternoon would have been an incredibly warm time to be out and about but for a determined haze that built up into cloud cover as the afternoon moved on.  This did limit the scope for dramatic landscape shots but the shades of the distant hils can sometmes provide an interesting composition.  The following shot was taken looking across the crofts at Duirinish looking towards the road that passes Drumbuie, as it snakes up a small rise in the ground.  There is a series of lumps and bumps in the landscape that I thought might make for an interesting shot, with the wet ground in the foreground providing sharp contrast.  I opted for conversion to black & white as there was limited colour in the shot anyway and I felt it would emphasise the shades of grey and tonality better.

Yesterday afternoon I popped out to try and get some snowy pictures of the estate where I work.  Unfortunately the light was not great for landscape shots, but there were a few Highlanders about, including a few recent youngsters.  This one stood nicely for a few shots and when I looked at it on the computer afterwards I was taken by the two ear tags, hence the title BNWT as they say on Ebay.  There is no doubt that young highland cattle are among the cutest of young animals, looking almost like little teddy bears and I particularly like these brown ones as opposed to the more common red colour..