There are many buzzards in Scotland and we have them often at Mingulay House. Here’s a photograph of one in our garden.

Mingulay House is a luxury bed and breakfast in Duror, just 10 minutes from Glencoe.  Our guests have had the pleasure of seeing Roe deer coming into our garden since we first opened 2 years ago.

Recently we have had a pair of roe deer appearing at the back of the house most mornings just as the day is breaking.  We feel quite privileged, as these creatures are known to be shy of humans and quite solitary.

Roe deer (‘Capreolus capreolus’) are small deer, compared to Scotland’s other native deer, the Red Deer.  Roe Deer are reddish-brown in summer, while greyer in winter months. They are distinguishable facially by a black ‘moustache’ stripe and white chin.  There is also by a cream coloured rump patch, this patch expands in size to form a large disc when they are excited or alarmed.  Male roe deer are larger than females and have short antlers bearing no more than three points.

The common time of year to see Roe Deer is the autumn and spring, however, here at Mingulay House, we seem to have them visiting most of the year.  It is estimated that there are around 400,000 Roe Deer in Scotland.

Mating season for Roe Deer is July and August and we can often here the loud bark of Roe bucks.  During the mating season the bucks (males) chase the does (females) around a feature such as a tree or large rock.  These chases flatten the heather or forest vegetation into circles and are known as ‘Roe Deer Rings’.

As Mingulay House is on the doorstep of Glencoe, we also get to experience the wonderful Red deer (‘Cervus elaphus’).  These are beautiful, majestic animals and they can be seen roaming wild throughout Glencoe.   Red deer are the largest land mammal in Scotland, with the males weighing up to 190kg and the females 120kgs.

We had our first breakfast for 4 today! Luckily we had 2 lovely couples staying; one from Sussex and the other from Elgin. While standing in the kitchen we looked out of the window and there munching on our shrubs on the back bank was the most beautiful ‘doe’ roe deer with 2 of her fawn. The fawns must have been less than 2 months of age as they still have some spots on their coats. They were quite content eating the foliage, happily feeding, the mum was on the look out, eating, but watching and very aware of any movement – hence the poor picture taken from inside the kitchen through a shut window.
Fantastic though.

We have a family of siskins nesting close by and they visit our bird table daily.

Now we have many swallows swooping around our garden – they have nested nearby and yesterday some baby swallows were washing themselves in a puddle on our single track road.