Traquair Hots Up For Latin Fair

This year’s Traquair Fair will take place on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th August at Traquair House. Promising to be more colourful than ever, the Latin American theme will include dance, music and acrobatics from Cuba to Brazil.

Hot rhythms, wonderful costumes, masks, puppets and fantastic stilt walkers will transform the tranquil grounds of this ancient Scottish castle now celebrating its 900th anniversary.

Highlights of the weekend will include Salsa Celtica, one of the UK’s leading Latin American big dance bands with a Scottish Accent. Then there is the fiery Macumba an Edinburgh based band fusing traditional sounds of Scottish bagpipes with infectious rhythms of Brazilian percussion. Superb funky Latin Jazz with the Dias Quartet and marvellous Chilean vocals from Voces del Sur.

On the wineglass lawn the amazing Brazilian acrobats, De Ramos will be performing a variety of extraordinary acrobatic feats, knife throwing and capoeira. Also, one of the best street theatre acts in the country, and more recently with several TV appearances, Bruce Airhead will be performing the metarmorphis of a man into a six foot balloon!

Around the Fair the Latin theme continues with Legendary Lynn a spectacular stilt act based on Carmen Miranda and Two Left Feet - a ballroom dancing couple sequinned to the hilt and ready to rumba!

For children there is a great programme of things to see and workshops to take part in. The Mora Brothers from Cuba will be running papier mache workshops making masks and animals. There are puppet shows from Ailie Paley and Over the Top as well as the inimitable Mr Boom and slapstick from Maynard Flipflap. There will be storytelling in the Green Shee yurt and show boats, inflatables and face painting.

For those who like to participate there will be a chance to take part in salsa and merengue, capoeira and acrobatics. But for those who prefer to relax there will be the usual array of complementry therapies, crafts and delicious foods. Drinks including South American cocktails and Fair Ale brewed exclusively for the weekend in the Traquair Brewery. For full details of all the acts appearing at this year’s Fair, see the Traquair website www.traquair.co.uk/fair

For photos and further information contact: Catherine Maxwell Stuart, Traquair House, Innerleithen, Peeblesshire EH44 6PW Tel; 01896 830323 enquiries@traquair.co.uk

Tweed Valley Osprey Diary 29th July

"Ladies First"

There’s been so much activity on our Osprey nests over the last few days it’s been hard to keep a track of the birds comings and goings. All the chicks are now adult size and only distinguishable from their parents by their plumage which has pale feather edges, which gives them a speckled appearance.

On both nests the female chicks have now outgrown their brothers and seem to be bolder and more advanced. On the 24th of July the female chick on the main nest first took off, and whilst her brother gave it a go the next day, she seems to be leaving him behind. She is now doing very regular circles around the nest and the valley and practising her landings, which are quickly becoming quite accomplished. She has also progressed to taking whole fish from her parents and devouring them greedily herself without sharing! Her bother by contrast has been much quieter and still spends most of his time on the nest, only reluctantly taking off a couple of times a day, and his landings leave something to be desired! Mum is also still feeding him like a baby! Hopefully he will mature in the next week or so and become more independent because it’s not too long before he’ll be on his own in the big wide world and he’ll need to be able to fend for himself.

The Backup Nest

Our two monitored nests this year are almost synchronised and all the chicks took their first flight around about the same time. On the backup nest, again it was one of the female chicks who was bravest, leaving her siblings in the nest to admire her skills. With three youngsters on the nest it’s rather crowded with all their wing stretching, flapping and rather wobbly landings.

Windows on Wildlife

We now have some fantastic bat footage on display in both centres, filmed locally by Diane Bennett our Community Wildlife Officer. It features a Pipistrelle bat colony and thanks to Diane’s quick thinking rescue efforts a wee bat who fell from the colony in rare close up, before it was returned to the roost. We also have a large section of highlights from other species filmed over the season so far. Coming soon: small mammals filmed locally during our close encounter events.