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A male an and a female Major Mitchell's Cockatoo having a good old argy bargy while hanging from a tree in outback Australia.
Common name: Major Mitchell's Cockatoos
Scientific name: Lophochroa leadbeateri
Location: Charlotte Plains, Queensland, Australia 🇦🇺
Note: this image is rotated about 90 degrees to the left
Experimenting with an infra red filter in the old graveyard where there are graves from the late 1600’s
Coastal retreat. Tis so often true that the best days begin and end on the beach and with the company of family and loved ones those days can last a lifetime sewn deep into your heart........During these tough times with restrictions in place we each still have the power to dream and hopefully in time to be able to pursue our dreams. All it takes is a believe that they can come true and the strength and conviction to make them..A dream can make life worth living and our dreams are what can get us through even the worst of days.....
Field of oilseed rape at Duffus.....
Duffus Castle, near Elgin, Moray, Scotland, was a motte-and-bailey castle and was in use from c.1140 to 1705. During its occupation it underwent many alterations. The most fundamental was the destruction of the original wooden structure and its replacement with one of stone. At the time of its establishment, it was one of the most secure fortifications in Scotland. At the death of the 2nd Lord Duffus in 1705, the castle had become totally unsuitable as a dwelling and so was abandoned.
Spectacular clouds over Duffus Castle......
Mottes were common in Scotland the 1100s and 1200s, before they were replaced by stone castles. They were fortifications, usually consisting of a wooden keep on top of an artificial earthwork mound. Some also had an enclosed courtyard or bailey, containing additional wooden buildings, protected by a ditch and palisade.
Duffus Castle was a fortress–residence for more than 500 years, from the 1100s to the 1700s. The stone castle we see today was built in the 1300s, replacing an earlier timber fortress.
Once one of the strongest castles in Scotland, it was reduced to a decaying ruin by the time of its abandonment in 1705. But the castle remains an impressive sight, situated on a mound rising out of the flat Laich of Moray.
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Part of my 'Duffus Castle through the seasons' project.
The castle is situated on the Laich of Moray, a fertile plain that was once the swampy foreshore of Spynie Loch. This was originally a more defensive position than it appears today, long after the loch was drained.
The motte is a huge man-made mound, with steep sides and a wide ditch separating it from the bailey. The whole site is enclosed by a water-filled ditch, which is more a mark of its boundary than it is a serious defensive measure.
Duffus Castle was built by a Flemish man named Freskin, who came to Scotland in the first half of the 1100s. After an uprising by the ‘men of Moray’ against David I in 1130, the king sent Freskin north as a representative of royal authority.
He was given the estate of Duffus, and here he built an earthwork-and-timber castle. Freskin’s son William adopted the title of ‘de Moravia’ – of Moray. By 1200, the family had become the most influential noble family in northern Scotland, giving rise to the earls of Sutherland and Clan Murray.
In about 1270, the castle passed to Sir Reginald Cheyne the Elder, Lord of Inverugie. He probably built the square stone keep on top of the motte, and the curtain wall encircling the bailey. In 1305, the invading King Edward I of England gave him a grant of 200 oaks from the royal forests of Darnaway and Longmorn, which were probably used for the castle’s floors and roofs.