For our first trip of 2014 we headed north up the A9 to Aviemore. This is Loch an Eilein ( Loch of the island) with its ruined 15th century castle in the far distance.
The castle is said to have once been the property of Alexander Stewart the wolf of Badenoch.The Jacobites, retreating from Cromdale in 1690, besieged the castle, which was held by Dame Grizel Mor Grant, widow of the fifth laird Grant. At this time the castle was connected to the shore by a causeway. The causeway was lost when the water level in the loch was raised in the 18th century.
When ospreys were driven to extinction by the Victorians, the island castle was the site of one of the last eyries. Unfortunately, although ospreys have returned to Scotland, they have not recolonised their old nesting site here
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