Osprey

Here in Ross-shire, it is quietly beautiful, with tourists whooshing past in cars but not clogging up the arteries.
I have been up North Souter and looked at South Souter (they are giant's slippers!) crossed the Firth on a tiny ferry to Cromarty and sat on the harbour steps, next to local children jumping into the sea, a man washing lobster pots and some optimistic fishermen, and peered through the window of a closed antique shop at a giant moose's head.
I have eaten fish and chips from a shop run by a man who wears blue latex gloves because he's allergic to fish, and seen a tree whose bare upper branches were studded with huge black crows, about 50 of them, looking like a ripe crop ready to be harvested.
I have been to beautiful Dornoch beach with its miles of buttery sand, bearing the imprint of trainers, dogs and recent rainfall at the entrance, before it sweeps away cleanly into the distance and meets the deep blue hues of the evening sky.
I have sat on silly blue plastic chairs from Lidls, and seen an osprey wobbling down the Cromarty Firth, silently laughing at the bird watchers laden with binocular and camera gear, brand new green waterproof clothing and worry-free faces who had crammed themselves into the bird observation hut on the other side of the Firth desperately trying to see him.