Starling Birds On Spring Monday Visit To My Cottage Garden Scone Perth Perthshire Scotland

Tour Scotland short 4K Spring Monday wildlife nature camera travel video clip of the sight and sounds of purple and green Starling birds spotted eating on morning visit and trip to my Scottish cottage garden in Scone by Perth, Perthshire, Britain, United Kingdom. The Starling is a familiar bird that breeds in farmland, suburban areas and open woodlands. Seen from a distance, starlings look black with a short tail and pointed yellow bill, but when seen close-to, they are very glossy with a metallic sheen of purples and greens. Starlings forage in lawns, fields, and other open areas with short vegetation. They are primarily insectivores in their natural habitat, but will feed on a wide variety of items outside of their natural diet, including fruits and seeds. The starling can be found throughout lowland Scotland where there is cultivation and pasture. It is generally absent in highlands and in areas dominated by grass or heather moorland. Highest densities are found along the East coast, Central lowlands and Dumfries and Galloway. Being in nature, or even viewing scenes of nature, reduces anger, fear, and stress and increases pleasant feelings. Exposure to nature not only makes you feel better emotionally, it contributes to your physical wellbeing. The date for astronomical spring is Sunday 20th March, ending on Tuesday 21st June, while by the meteorological calendar, spring will start on Tuesday 1st March @tourscotland #scotland #shortsvideo #spring #birds #nature #birdsong All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs

Robin Bird And Squirrel On Spring Monday Visit To My Cottage Garden Scone Perth Perthshire Scotland

Tour Scotland short Spring Monday 4K wildlife camera travel video clip of the sight and sounds of a Robin bird and Grey Squirrel on a morning visit and trip to my Scottish cottage garden in Scone by Perth, Perthshire, Britain, United Kingdom. With its bright red breast it is familiar visitor to my garden. As its name suggests, this squirrel typically has a grey coat with white undersides, though the coat colour can also be quite brown at times. The date for astronomical spring is Sunday 20th March, ending on Tuesday 21st June, while by the meteorological calendar, spring will start on Tuesday 1st March. @tourscotland #nature #spring #scotland #shortsvideo #squirrel #birdsong All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs

Spring Road Trip Drive With Music On History Visit To Cellardyke East Neuk Of Fife Scotland

Tour Scotland 4K Spring travel video of a road trip drive, with Scottish bagpipes music, through narrow streets, on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to Mian Street in Cellardyke in the East Neuk of Fife, Britain, United Kingdom. The name of long street at the West end of the coast of Cellardyke was first known as Main Street. In 1871 it was divided into three individual streets, and these were given the names of James Street, John Street and George Street, these being the forenames of prominent local councillors: James after James Fowler; John after Provost John Martin; George after George Sharp. In 1841, most of the families in the western part of Main Street, later to become James Street, were those of tradesmen and farm workers. Together with happening elsewhere in Britain, cholera hit the village of Cellardyke in both 1832 and 1849, and dozens died in the epidemic. Such was the fear of the inhabitants, that those who died were buried immediately. Cellardyke was formerly known as Nether Kilrenny, Scots for Lower Kilrenny, or Sillerdyke. I was raised in this old fishing village on the East coast and attended Cellardyke Primary School and Waid Academy in Anstruther. I was raised a Dyker. The Fife Coastal Walking Path goes through Cellardyke and runs from the Forth Estuary in the south, to the Tay Estuary in the north and stretches for 117 miles. The date for astronomical spring is Sunday 20th March, ending on Tuesday 21st June, while by the meteorological calendar, spring will start on Tuesday 1st March. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. When driving on Scottish roads in Scotland slow down and enjoy the trip @tourscotland #spring #bagpipes #music #drivingtrip #shortsvideo All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs

Short Drive Along Shore Street With Music On History Visit To Pittenweem East Neuk Of Fife Scotland

Tour Scotland short 4K Spring travel video clip, with Scottish bagpipes music, of road trip drive along Shore Street on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to the old fishing village of Pittenweem, East Neuk of Fife, Britain, United Kingdom. Pittenweem was founded as a fishing village around an early Christian religious settlement, it was granted the status of a Royal Burgh by King James V in 1541, giving it the right to self government and the right to trade with other countries in return for paying taxes to the crown. By 1587 Pittenween ranked as the twelfth richest town in Scotland. The Cook family had its foundations as burgesses in the royal burgh of Pittenweem. The family founder John was probably born in Pittenweem around 1620, the son of a Pittenweem burgess. He became a merchant burgess himself in 1648, shortly after his marriage to Christian Stevenson whose family was also part of Pittenweem’s privileged ruling elite: John was well positioned at the pinnacle of the burgh power structure by virtue of his own family connections, his status as a merchant burgess rather than a craftsman and because he had married the daughter of a merchant burgess. As John came to manhood, Pittenweem’s comfortable prosperity came to an abrupt end with the depredations of the Covenanting movement and the Civil War. The Fife burghs supported the Covenanters, and the battle of Kilsyth in August 1645, won by the Royalists under Montrose, proved particularly calamitous for Pittenweem. The burgh was ‘left destitute of men’ with no means ‘for helping the present indigencie of fourty-nine widows and ane one hundred fatherless children’ as well as an unquantified loss of single men. The burgh also suffered heavy material losses to its economic infrastructure with six ships either wrecked or being sold at considerably less than their real value because all the masters and crews were dead. John probably made his money in the relative boom years of the 1670s so that by the time of his death, aged about sixty five, in March 1685, he was comfortably off. Two of John’s sons, James and Thomas, continued their father’s occupation as merchant skippers. James, like his father, was always associated with Pittenweem, while Thomas lived and operated out of Elie, marrying a daughter of Alexander Gillespie, an Elie skipper. Thomas and his father-in-law certainly had a close working relationship. In April 1684 Alexander took salt on the James of Elie to Danzig and three years later, Thomas himself was master of the same ship. It is possible that the relationship had evolved from one of master and apprentice. James also represented Pittenweem in Parliament in 1685 and 1686 and such a public office required James to sign the controversial Test Act of 1681, confirming that he accepted that the monarch was absolute even in matters of religion. The Cook brothers were supportive of the Revolution settlement of 1689. The Act in favour of some noblemen and gentlemen in the shire of Fife’ of May 1689 recorded peacekeeping proposals involving the raising fighting men and named amongst others Captain Aitchison and Captain Cook in Pittenweem, and Thomas Cook in Elie as ‘empowered’ to raise such a force. In 1695 James’s business appeared to have undergone a major strategic shift when he may have sold his shipping interests, probably reduced his trading in goods and concentrated on acting as a moneylender. Whereas aspects of John and his merchant skipper sons James and Thomas typified East Neuk business folk of the period, Robert, the middle surviving son, presented a somewhat different figure. As far as is known, Robert was the first family member to enter the professions and whether Robert’s training as an advocate was a farsighted business move of his father’s or an expression of Robert’s personal preferences and aptitudes, will never be known. There might also have been limited room in the family business for apprentice skippers and an element of a desire for upward social mobility and business diversification. The Pittenweem witches were five Scottish women accused of witchcraft in the small fishing village of Pittenweem in Fife on the east coast of Scotland in 1704. Another two women and a man were named as accomplices. Accusations made by a teenage boy, Patrick Morton, against a local woman, Beatrix Layng, led to the death in prison of Thomas Brown, and, in January 1705, the murder of Janet Cornfoot by a lynch mob in the village. The date for astronomical spring is Sunday 20th March 2022, ending on Tuesday 21st June, while by the meteorological calendar, spring will start on Tuesday 1st March. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. When driving in Scotland slow down and enjoy the trip @tourscotland #scotland #bagpipes #music #drivingtrip #spring #shortsvideo All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs

Spring Road Trip Drive With Music On History Visit To St Monans East Neuk Of Fife Scotland

Tour Scotland 4K short Spring travel video, with Scottish bagpipes music, of a morning road trip drive along Shore Street on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to St Monans in the East Neuk of Fife, Britain, United Kingdom. The majority of buildings on Shore Street are built in the characteristic East Neuk vernacular style, with pantiled roofs and raised gable skews, some with corbie or ‘crow-steps’. Walls are generally constructed in sandstone rubble, left exposed or sometimes painted, or finished in a modern smooth painted render. The dominant roofing material is a traditional clay pantile. Slate easing courses can be seen on a number of pantile roofs probably to provide better rain and wind protection over the eaves and wall heads. Another benefit would have been to spread and slow the rain water run-off from the pantile roof to allow it to be better caught in the gutters. Few of the forestairs, which many of the 18th and 19th century buildings would have had, survive, making those that do of particular significance. Living accommodation would often have been on the first floor with a boat store and workshop and sail store on the ground floor. In the late 19th century when fishing gear became bulkier, lofts were utilised and hoists installed. The Battle of St Monans was fought in June 1548, just eight months after the slaughter of Scots at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh near Musselburgh. At the time, the English were ­pursuing their brutal Rough ­Wooing campaign against Scotland, partly to break the alliance with France but also in an attempt to force the ­marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and Henry VIII’s son, Edward. I was raised in the East Neuk. St Monans, often spelt St Monance, is a village and parish in the East Neuk of Fife and is named after the legendary Saint Monan. This small community, whose inhabitants formerly made their living mainly from fishing, is now a tourist destination situated on the Fife Coastal Walking Path. Like other small East Neuk towns, St Monans is rich in vernacular fisher and merchant houses of the 17th to early 19th centuries, with characteristic old Scots features, e.g. forestairs, crow-stepped gables, datestones, pantiled roofs. The original settlement was, according to early sources, known as Inverin, Invery, Inverie, Finvirie, Inweerie, Inverry or even elsewhere Innerny and possibly derived from the Gaelic for at the mouth of a stream. The origin of the present name, St Monans, although similarly there were other spellings St Monance persisting until quite recently, is derived from a 6th century Irish abbot bishop, St Moinenn, from Clonfert who died in 571.St Monans was created a burgh of barony with a free port and harbour on the grant of a charter from King James VI to his tenant in chief William Sandilands of St Monans in 1596. The original harbour pier, on site of the current middle one, was built by Baron Newark in the mid-15th century. Herring had been fished on the Forth from medieval times. From the 17th century there was off-shore great-line fishing for white fish; with herring fishing in the autumn and spring. Young men traditionally also joined the whaling fleets, returned in the autumn for the herring and then crewed on private ships during the winter. St Monans was for much of this formative period in its development, the poorest of the East Neuk Burghs and the one most dependent on a single industry, namely fishing. Women and girls worked at baiting the lines and making nets. Many of the men and boys were away at sea for much of the year. St Monans, as a consequence, became an isolated community, both socially and geographically. In 1877 the old west pier was demolished and a new harbour again surveyed, designed and constructed by lighthouse engineers, brothers, Thomas and David Stevenson. Finally, in 1902 a new pier was built to the west. However, after the Great War the Scottish fishing industry entered a period of serious decline. The date for astronomical spring is Sunday 20th March 2022, ending on Tuesday 21st June, while by the meteorological calendar, spring will start on Tuesday 1st March. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. When driving in Scotland slow down and enjoy the trip @tourscotland #scotland #bagpipes #music #drivingtrip #spring All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs