IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
AUCHTERARDER, PH3 1PN

A wonderful place to stay, fully equipped with a welcome pack of eggs, milk, bread etc. Towels are also included. Very spacious accommodation, Can well recommend it.

Attached to and in the grounds of the Duchally Hotel and Estate.

Looking across the valley of Ruthven Water towards Muirton and the Gleneagles Hotel.

A Swallow (Hirundo rustica) contemplates a wet morning in Perth & Kinross. Of course, they come back every year for the summer to assist in midge control - imagine how much worse walking in Scotland would be without the efforts of the Swallows, Swifts and Martins. The Duchally Resort has a mixed colony of Swallows and House Martins, all busily building nests at the beginning of May.

A Rook (Corvus frugilegus) calls to others on the grass at Duchally Resort. Rooks are foraging generalists and will eat a wide variety of food found on farms, in large gardens and by the roadside. Highly intelligent, they will solve complex problems to get to food. They are social birds, forming large colonies referred to as Rookeries - there is a large one in the trees surrounding Duchally Resort, where they share the mown lawns with groups of Jackdaws. Rooks are very common in the countryside though their numbers slumped badly in the 1970's. This has been variously put down to pesticides and the loss of Elm trees (often a preferred nesting site) to Dutch Elm Disease - we used to have a Rookery in Finchley (North London) until the Elms died. However numbers have generally increased again, although the British Trust for Ornithology reports a decrease in numbers in Scotland since 2000 and a reduction in brood size has been noted. Rooks are highly adaptable and are not currently considered to be an at risk species.

Holiday houses near Duchally Hotel.

Flowing into the pond

The Duchally Lodges are hidden in the trees on the right.