Ghosts Come Out At Traquair

The ghosts of Traquair will be out this year when the Traquair Halloween experience will take place from the 26th - 28th October and will include historical ghost tours of the house on Friday and Saturday night and a family fun day on Sunday.

Ghost Tours Bring Spirits of Traquair’s Past to Life Friday 26th and Saturday 27th 6.30pm and 8.30pm

Dare you enter the ancient castle of Traquair at night where doors creak unexpectedly and the wind whistles through the ancient walls?

Find out who really lived here as the ghosts of Traquair’s past come alive and take you on a candlelit tour of the house bringing history to life as never before.

You may even catch a fleeting glimpse of the Grey Lady ….

Tours last approximately 1 hour and include a glass of mulled wine. Numbers are limited so book early to avoid disappointment. Adults £8.00.

Halloween Suppers served at the 1745 Cottage Restaurant. Combined tour and supper tickets £22.00.

Spooky Fun At Traquair

Dust off your witch and skeleton costumes and enjoy a day of spooky fun Traquair. There will be all sorts of activities including a Wizard & Witches workshop in the High Gallery. Ghost Stories in the Library, A Very Scary Spooky Passage Experience, Tarot Reading, an Owl & Falconry display as well as Halloween Games, Spooky Face Painting and a Scavenger Hunt in the grounds. Have a ghostly face painted for the day and see the wonderful owl and falconry display in front of the house.

Delicious home made lunches and teas will be served in the 1745 Restaurant with a Halloween theme and there will be fabulous prizes for the best dressed ghouls so bring the family dressed to kill!

Entrance to the house and grounds Adults £5.00 and Children £2.50.

For ghost tour tickets and all other enquiries Tel; 01896 830323

An Audience With Bill Wyman

At the Eastgate, 18th October 2007, 7.30pm

Drinks in the studio, a chance for people to see Bill Wyman's photographic exhibition.

8 p.m. Colin Somerville of BBC Radio Scotland to interview Bill Wyman about his career with the Rolling Stones, his love for the music that inspired his Blues Odyssey, his new found 'career' as a photographer and his passion for history and metal detecting.

A Q & A session as integral part of this evening. Like the "Audience with" series on BBC TV where Colin will ask pertinent questions so that the BBC can record it, with room for audience questions. This show will be recorded for broadcast later in the year.

After the show there will be a buffet in the studio, Bill will be on hand to "Meet and greet." There will be works available to buy and Bill will be happy to sign copies.

Mountain Biking Events (and Christmas!)

Here's some dates for your diary:

13th - 14th October
Scottish Downhill Mountain Bike event at Innerleithen.

6th - 7th & 20th - 21st October, 3rd - 4th & 17th - 18th November, 1st - 2nd & 15th - 16th December
www.upliftscotland.com
Uplift service to mountain bikers at Innerleithen.

24th - 28th October
Tweed Valley Forest Festival.

24th - 25th November
Hill Rally at Newcastleton.

2nd December
Duathlon at Glentress.

7th - 22nd December
Glentress Christmas Tree sales centre will be open daily.

The First Peebles Food Festival (Oct 19-21, 2007)

The first Peebles Food Festival (Oct 19-21) aims to reinforce the town’s excellent reputation for first class cooking and locally grown produce.

The town’s leading hotels and restaurants which will feature specially themed menus and is being supported by some of Scotland’s top chefs.

Cookery demonstrations will feature Kenny Coltman, executive head chef at the Caledonian Hilton in Edinburgh; Scottish Olympic Culinary team member Kevin McGillivray, who is executive head chef at the 3 Rosette Castleton House Hotel in Perthshire; and Braehead Foods executive and former chef, Tim Dover.

Other events include a seven course gala dinner with each course prepared by a local chef using Scotland’s best produce and an indoor food market showcasing the Borders’ finest food and drink suppliers and offering visitors the chance to sample and purchase products.

Running alongside the main events, Kenny Vannan of Villeneuve Wines will present a series of wine courses including “Round the Wine World in 80 Minutes”.

And pupils from the town’s three primary schools will take part in a cook-off competition with a healthy eating theme under the watchful eyes of Peebles Hydro head chef Len Cumming.

The food festival is part of the town’s ambitious Hidden Treasure marketing initiative which is aimed at bringing more visitors to the town.

For a full list of events, times, ticket prices and other attractions visit www.peeblesfoodfestival.com.

Tweed Valley Osprey Diary 6 August 2007

Main Nest

It was an exciting day at the nest today, with plenty of comings and goings from the family. When the cameras came on this morning the female adult and the female chick were both present on the nest with a fish each and where heartily tucking into their breakfast. The young male soon joined them and his mother then fed him. Even though he is now capable of independent flight he still reverts to the behaviour of a younger chick for a feed. Eventually the two females flew off and the young male continued to finish off the remainder of his mother’s fish. Once he was full he then took off.

Sometime later the adult female returned with a fish and began to show signs of agitation, she left her fish and flew off. Perhaps she was giving chase to an intruder bird. After a while another female landed at the nest, it was an adult and her markings in the chest were very strikingly different to our female bird she looked about furtively and stole the fish!

The adult male arrived at the nest and stayed for a while but he didn’t bring any fish and the rest of his family were not around.

The whole season of highlights for this family of ospreys is now being shown on DVD in the centres. It begins when the females first arrived back in the spring through to this years chicks taking to the wing. This recorded footage has superb sound quality and the birds every call and movement can be heard, all set to the backdrop of forest noises and at times howling winds.

Windows On Wildlife

The small mammals trapping events at Glentress Forest were a great success and proved to be very popular with the public who attended. There is now a highlights DVD showing at the centres with footage of the mammals trapped and released at these events. We caught bank voles, short tailed field voles and wood mice. After a brief stop over in the traps they were then released unharmed back to their territories, most were quite reluctant to go before they had eaten as much of the lovely food we had left for them.

Because of the success of these events we have decided to run a few more to be held at Kailzie Gardens after the Glentress Osprey Watch closes for the season.

Details below.

Small Mammals Mystery Tours. 17th August, 25th August and 28th August. Meet at Kailzie Gardens Osprey Watch Centre at 10.00am. No Booking required.

Come along and see which small mammals we have caught in the live traps. A chance to see, mice and voles close up and then release them back to the wild. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

Admission fee. £3 per adult, £1 per child over 5 years, under 5’s free.

This specially reduced fee for the events will allow entrance into the osprey watch centre and the gardens.

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.

Tweed Valley Osprey Diary 24th July

Main Nest

The first flight for one of the chicks took place today. When the centres opened this morning only one chick sat in the nest, all alone. We think it was the male chick and he seems reluctant to take to the skies. After about twenty minutes the female chick returned followed by the return of the female adult.

The female adult and the female chick did not stay around too long and left the nest for most of the day leaving a forlorn looking little brother at the nest. Occasionally he would do a bit of wing stretching and even lifted off by a few centimetres but never made it to an adventurous first flight away from the nest.

Maybe tomorrow he will make a serious attempt.

The Back up Nest

All three chicks were still there this morning and they are looking like they are ready to go. They were preening their plumage and wing stretching and we hope that the recorded footage taken today may reveal the first flight of these youngsters.

Windows on Wildlife

The swallows at Glentress have moved onto another nest and have begun to line it with feathers in readiness for laying again for a second brood. We have moved the camera across so that this can now be watched live.

The live feeding station cameras are revealing beautiful close ups of a juvenile great spotted woodpecker which is feeding on the peanuts. The birdseed feeders were resplendent with finches today, species such as goldfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches, blue tits and great tits could all be seen in great close up detail.

All of these species can be seen outside the osprey centre in Kailzie as well at the feeding station, which can be viewed from the centre. Nuthatches are a welcome addition to the birds feeding at Kailzie as well.

The latest highlights DVD from a house sparrow nest can be seen at both of the centres.

Coming soon there will be a DVD of the small mammals that live around Glentress Osprey Watch, as we have held some live mammal trapping events and filmed the mammals that we caught. So far we have filmed bank voles, wood mice, and a short tailed field vole.�

Tweed Valley Osprey Diary 17th July

Main Nest 17th July

The two chicks in the nest have now been confirmed as male and female from the results of the DNA testing, which, was carried out by vet Anna Meredith at the time of ringing.

It is incredible the speed at which these two chicks have developed and even in the short time since ringing there has been a remarkable change in overall size and feathering. The female chick is larger than her brother but both birds are now at the stage where time is spent wing stretching and flapping, it will be only a matter of maybe a week or more before the birds take to the air for the first time. Much of their time is taken up with preening as well, which is another sure sign that they are not far from flight.

During one of the flapping sessions one of the chicks lifted a couple of centimetres up from the nest and quickly ceased exercising, so not quite ready yet!

The Back up Nest

The chicks in this nest have now been confirmed as two females and a male.

The family is at the same stage as the main nest so it will be a race between nests to see which chicks are the first to become airborne.

The latest highlights DVD has now been produced for this nest and is available to be seen at the osprey centres. This shows the family from their arrival in the spring right up to the ringing of the chicks on 5th July. There is even a nice sequence of bedtime with the ospreys! We often get asked what the ospreys do at night so now you can see for yourselves on a horrible windy, wet night the female sheltered her brood and slept.

There is some incredible footage taken in gale force winds were the female has to brace herself against the wind and use her wings as stabilisers to prevent her from being swept off the nest.

Come along to see the birds at the osprey watch centres before they fledge and watch some of the highlights from both families, which have been filmed during this season so far.

Windows on Wildlife

All of our other species have fledged now but we did film every stage of their lives while they were with us and these are available to see on DVD at the centres. Glentress is currently showing the barn owl family, the tawny owls and Forests of Butterflies. There is still live action on the bird feeder cameras and we are waiting for the swallows to decide which nest they will use for the second brood. Once they have chosen a site the camera will be moved on to their new nest.

At Kailzie Gardens we are currently showing great tits, spotted flycatchers, buzzard ringing, barn owls and tawny owls, all on DVD highlights. Live images from the stock pond are also on show.

Coming soon – Newcastleton barn owls - the whole story, once we have the full footage from this nest a highlights DVD will be screened to show the chicks as they grew up in the box.

House sparrows have been filmed and this will also be on show soon. We are also hoping to get some great footage from a maternity roost of pippistrelle bats. Small mammals will be filmed at our small mammal event

Tweed Valley Osprey Diary 12th July

The Main Nest

Our two delightful ‘teenage’ Ospreys now bear little resemblance to the fluffy balls born just six weeks ago. With their full juvenile plumage of speckled brown, they look very handsome indeed and are approaching adult size. There has been lots of wing flapping and exercising by the youngsters, giving us a chance to appreciate their considerable wing span and developing flight feathers. It won’t be long before they are putting those to good use in their early flight attempts.

Our male Osprey has been continuing to provide well for his family, and as the weather has been improving he has had time to relax on the outer nest perch between fishing runs, giving us some nice views of the whole family together. The female has been taking to using the perch more and more as well, now she doesn’t have to constantly shelter the chicks from the weather, though she is still close enough to protect them from danger if need be.

We have had numerous disturbances at the nest lately by an intruder - believed to be another Osprey. Almost daily another bird has been circling over and even occasionally dive bombing the nest. Our resident female has been displaying fascinating defensive behaviour, 'mantling' and covering her young with her wings, and calling loudly. We wonder if the intruder is a juvenile bird frustrated by its own lack of nesting success, or perhaps even the male pretender we saw earlier in the season at the nest.

The three Backup Nest chicks continue their phenomenal growth curve, and like the main nest are now huge and very adult looking. We are going to be watching the nest very carefully in the next week or so for signs of readiness for their first flights.

Windows on Wildlife

Our Glentress swallows have finally fledged, having grown so big two of them were literally squeezed out of the nest. Our live feeding station camera continues to show us great views of common species and the odd surprise! At Kailzie gardens our viewing window reliably gives us good views of many birds such as greater spotted woodpeckers, and nuthatches as well as our favourite 'garden' species. Come and try your luck (binoculars provided) but be warned it can be rather addictive.