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Salmon Leaping at Buchanty Spout

The close views of Salmon leaping promised at Buchanty Spout definitely didn’t disappoint. The heavy rainfall of the day before swelling the river added to the spectacle. The sun came out lighting up these beautiful fish as they leapt in the air. It was reported that hundreds were seen this day, October 14th 2012. I was spoilt for choice selecting footage. I am delighted to finally be sharing my captures.

After previous lengthy posts I’m keeping this brief. I’ve added some text in the video below which I really hope you’ve time to watch. These are just a few highlights from an hour spent in absolute awe of the wild Atlantic salmon passing through a small spout in a Perthshire river. We were very lucky with the timing of our visit.

Salmon Leaping at Buchanty Spout in Perthshire,
video 4:07 with river noise and background music, try 720p HD quality.

A week later we returned with my MIL (very carefully helping her down on to the rocks) as she had never seen this spectacle before. Pre blog this wasn’t something I had seen either! Capturing photos on this visit was tad tricky but I got a few and they are mixed with video screen grabs for the montage below. If photos and video were easy to capture they wouldn’t be as much fun.

 

For those new to my blog and those who might be interested in seeing Salmon leaping at another location in Scotland (near Dunkeld) I’ve added another video here that was previously seen on my blog back in October 2011. Enjoy 🙂

Salmon Leaping up Black Linn falls on the River Braan.
video 1:27 with river noise and background music, try 720p HD quality.

There is quite a backlog of unseen video footage that I hope to sort and share here on my blog during March including the building of a house Martin nest on the front of my house. That too was fascinating to watch – again another lucky moment to be there and notice what was going on at the time.

Hoping you’ve all had a good weekend 🙂

This post was published by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in March 2013.

15 thoughts on “Salmon Leaping at Buchanty Spout

  1. How thrilling! I've never seen this in person – it must really be something special to see. How nice that your MIL got to see it, too!

  2. Excellent footage of the leaping salmon, your river seems to have many more salmon returning to spawn than the River Ribble down here in Lancashire. Your footage has inspired me to film this yearly event next Autumn but I can see from your footage I'll have to try harder.

  3. Hi Shirley,

    Lovely photos/videos. I haven't seen Salmon leaping since I was a young girl and even then it's a foggy memory at the Falls of Shin. I'd like to go back, but it's just so busy with tourists now that it's near impossible to get to see anymore!
    Haha, listen to me moaning about tourists… Ah, gone are the days of quaint little independent cafes at places of interest and here are the expensive visitor centres 🙂

  4. Hi there everyone – I’m just delighted to finally get round to sharing this wonderful wildlife moment with you all. I captured it at a difficult family time. When I say I was spoilt for choice with footage – I really meant it. I had almost 80 clips to pick from with so many great jumps and colours of the salmon in the sunlight. This was the biggest ever selection of good footage for anything I have ever captured on video for my blog – and I’ve captured many, many hours of video. I can’t bear to delete any of it 😀

    HolleyGarden, great – I really hoped my video showed how thrilling it was. I also wish you get to see this special sight one day yourself. Yes, my MIL was quite taken with this but also worried by a couple of small dogs (not on leads) that were investigating the edges of the rocks – they did distract her a bit which was a shame.

    David, thank-you for your comment which I do appreciate knowing that you also love to capture video and make films for a local group down in Lancashire. Your Wear footage inspired me (and BBC Autumnwatch’s Charlie Hamilton James visiting and filming slow mo at Buchanty) to attempt to get a closer view of the Salmon. I can’t deny it was a bit uncomfortable underfoot on some of these slippery huge rocks but so keen was I to capture video footage that (without boots) I walked through mud to get there! I genuinely will look forward to any captures of salmon you share 😀

    Liz, oh Liz… oh Liz.. oh Liz… you’d absolutely love this spot!!! If you ever come up this way at that time of year do let me know 🙂 Tourists? Oh… they would be hard pushed to find this spot – I was fairly local and we struggled first time! Lol… no quaint little independent cafes… just a man walking a dog along a road telling us we had arrived and the car park was the slope on a corner where he just walked across – that you almost needed a x4 to get over one edge! Places of interest nearby… hahaha… a red telephone box that we used as a marker next time we visited 😉 We found friendly families and passers by that chatted by the rock edges – a really genuine wildlife moment that groups of interested local people enjoyed too 😀

  5. The falls of shin used to be a patch of stony gravel and a cafe made of like. Three caravans somehow put together, walls were covered in souvenir tea towels, stag heads and lord knows what other stuff. Doors were odd, obviously from other places. It wasn't easy to find either, we didn't visit for a number of years and when we went back there was a proper visitor centre, few places to park and I don't think we even went down to the falls.
    Fond memories of collecting bluebells on our way down when I was little 🙂
    Same thing happened with Eilean donan, rough car park – a field really, a dodgy burger van thing and the castle…. Now it's very different.

    Love to go up to Scotland again- Edinburgh really. Not sure if I will this year although I am temped to go up to aviemore; need my red squirrel fix.

  6. Wow, it's not often you see things like this happening, well done for capturing that. I just can't imagine the amount of energy it must take for the Salmon to make it upstream like that, it's quite incredible when you think about it.

    I liked the text on the video too, nice idea and some interesting info 🙂

  7. I enjoyed your video – it's fascinating that the fish are able to negotiate such obstacles. It's a shame that they die after spawning. Aren't the males a brighter colour than the female? If so it could explain some of the difference in colour in those you observed.

  8. Brilliant video well put together Shirl. Thanks for sharing.

    Re the colouring there is some information about Atlantic salmon on this Canadian site:

    dfo-mpo.gc.ca/regions/central/pub/factsheets-feuilletsinfos-ogla-rglo/atlanticsalmon-saumonatlantique-eng.htm

  9. Hello everyone, thanks for all your comments 🙂

    Liz, I absolutely hear all you are saying 🙂 I hope you get your red squirrel fix soon 🙂

    Joe, absolutely! We finally found this out of the way place the week before and saw nothing but a family visiting said when the salmon are jumping here you can see lots at one time. Returning the next week and seeing a few cars in the car park signalled there was more of a chance but I never expected to see the constant stream of jumping Salmon. I took my tripod with me just in case, set my camera on it and focused on the one area. I just filmed, stopped, filmed for the whole hour and that way I got to watch the Salmon spectacle for myself too. Thanks, I doubt I’ll ever manage a better chance again – I knew it was special at the time. I have stop started editing this video since then (for a variety of reasons) and am thrilled to finally have it done for my memories and to share now 😀

    Lisa, this was a very exciting and memorable sighting 😀

    Costas, thanks – I felt sad at the many jumps I didn’t include though.

    Sue, so glad to see you back! I was a tad worried and wondering if you knew your blog had gone! Delighted you enjoyed seeing this, it’s great to be able to share something as special outside the garden too. Pre blog I never would have paid attention to what the fuss was about. It is a shame most die after spawning. Not sure on the male female differences but I definitely did read something back at the time saying diet did play a factor on colouring – can’t find the link now. I believe I also read that the Salmon didn’t feed once they got to the rivers which makes their stamina all the more impressive! (can’t find that link now either)

    John, thanks, I was quite disappointed I didn’t get this up at the time but I’ve enjoyed doing it now before the gardening begins in earnest. Thanks for the links – I don’t think I came across this site when I was searching for info back in October last year.

  10. I've read they don't feed in the rivers too. I know they sell fish food that enhances the colour of fish and that flamingoes get their colouring from the pinkish krill so your theory 'holds water' pardon the pun.

    It was a worry about the blog when I found it gone!

  11. Hi Shirley 🙂 You captured it beautifully. It really is an incredible sight which I have only ever seen on television and on your earlier post of course. You were braver than I would have been with the slippery rocks! Like Sue, I wonder if some of the colour differences could have been to do with male and female.

    Congrats on the Bullfinch sighting mentioned on the previous post which I have also just enjoyed. The colour of the males is stunning. I see them only very ocassionally in my garden but remember they were always in the garden when I was a child.

    Incidentally, have you noticed Blogger being any more temperamental than usual lately when putting a post together? I have always had problems with putting line spaces where I want them rather than where Blogger thinks they should be and also with formatting but it seems even worse lately 🙁

  12. It's a spectacular sight, isn't it, hard to believe too, even when you are stood there watching it. Lovely captures, you did far better than I did when I last saw the salmon running upriver in Scotland, which is a few years ago now. And they tast good too 😉

  13. Hello everyone, thanks for all your comments 🙂

    Sue, I’m sure your right on the krill too – I’m sure I remember reading that Salmon will eat krill too. Hope your blog stays safe now 🙂

    Jan, thank-you, I’m delighted you saw this. I hope you get to see this sight for real yourself one day. Being in awe of the strength and determination of relentless jumps we saw that day I had a real conscience in editing my clips down to a few – I felt bad like the others weren’t worthy. Thanks, I was surprised at the male Bullfinch colour – it was way better than I thought it would be. Oh… what a lovely childhood memory. I can’t say I noticed blogger issues that day (can’t remember now) but they definitely do happen from time to time and line spaces I have always changed around. Hope it’s easier for your next post. Loved seeing your fieldfares 😀

    Janet, absolutely! What courage these fish have! I was just really lucky to be there that day to have so many captures on film 😀

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