It's still a month away from official 'winter' but Pedro and I are already feeling it. Now that the time has changed, the sun is gone by 4pm and the temperatures dip into freezing. We've learned that winter is usually the rainiest season as well. Besides the west coast being the wetter part of Scotland, now that it is getting later in the year, you can almost guarantee rain once a day. Which is why whenever it is sunny, Pedro encourages us (or when he has to go to school, just me) to go out to a park or somewhere to enjoy the weather and take some nice photos. Yesterday was one of those days. We could see patches of blue sky and it hadn't rained yet. Pedro had to go to the school but shooed me out of the house to enjoy the day.
I decided on Dawsholm Park to visit the cows, because, well, cows. I grabbed all my gear, including the rare tripod and set out. It was only 1p when the 'golden hour' sunlight was streaming through.
Of course, true to Scotland's weather, as soon as I got to the field with the cows, the sun hid behind the clouds. All six cows were way out in the field, lounging in the little sun they found, so I just took my time setting up my tripod and waited for the clouds to part. As I was messing with settings however, I could hear people coming down to the little viewpoint I climbed down to. And when I looked, I recognized friends from Pedro's school! We were chit chatting when they asked if I got any good pictures, and I explain I just started setting up. Without any hesitation, they take out various items and start shaking them to find the perfect sounds to call them over. Apparently, the cows like carrots and/or the sound of carrots rattling around in a bag ('like a muted crunching noise'). They seem to have this down to a science because we immediately had all six cows' attention. One by one, they made their way over, coming right up to us. We tried to feed them some grass from the other side of the fence, but they weren't too interested and eventually just hung around for pets.
There was a bit of a friendly scuffle at one point, but soon turned to light nuzzling.
Even blondie came to visit. (Pedro actually thought this photo was a different edit, but I told him it was just a non-ginger)
I thought I would have stayed until the cows left me, but they ended up hanging around a lot longer than I thought. One even laid against the fence. So, after a few more pets, and the sun went down, I headed home for warmth.
