Out and About

Come Sunday the lergy seemed in abeyance so we went out. It was a crisp and sunny day and we decided to have a trip out to Loch Lomond. Water, trees, mountains, fresh air - wonderful! 

We made for Balloch which is at the southern end of the Loch and where 'things are'. The things turned out to be mostly a huge car park, which was much fuller than it had any right to be on a chilly Sunday in January and a new low-rise-but-still-ugly shopping centre. Which is obviously where we found the bedlinen in my previous post. 

We had a brief look at the steam boat The Maid of the Loch - obviously not running in January!

There was a random statue of a seal which was small but quite nice  

 and we admired the view of Ben Lomond which was topped with snow.

We had a choice of visiting the Sea Life Centre or a Birds of Prey Centre and opted for the Birds of Prey Centre. Despite various qualms about whether birds should be kept in small enclosures or outside  tethered to posts I still enjoyed myself admiring the many species of owl, and a varied assortment of other falcons, hawks, eagles etc. It wasn't a huge place but it educates and breeds birds that are endangered in the wild and I'm sure it must be a Good Thing. I confess to a lingering uneasiness (about the concept, not the specifics of how the birds are kept here, since they all looked perfectly healthy) but this is probably due to ignorance. You tend to think birds just want to be flying free in the sky, but in the wild they tend to be stationary a lot of the time, and the hawks here are flown, just not on cold wet January Sundays. Anyway - pictures of a falcon, a hawk and an eagle

For some reason I took no pictures of the owls, despite many of them being heart meltingly cute looking.