The Drey is situated in a wonderful location for wildlife lovers, right in the heart of the Highlands.  It is a short distance from the NC 500 route.

Photographers - Ffordes camera shop is only a few miles away!

Shops and amenities are 5 miles away - there are Co-ops in both in Beauly and Inverness. Inverness has a wide variety of shops and restaurants.  Beauly has a petrol station (often cheaper for either/or diesel and petrol than others - but do check), a couple of hotels that do meals, a fish and chip shop (The Friary) and an Indian.

The North Star Inn in Inchmore is close enough to walk to for meals and drinks and does take-out pizzas.  You can walk via the back roads, but please note these are single-track roads with no pavements or street lighting.

Walking Distance

The cabin is surrounded by fields and woodland which can be explored although bracken does make wandering through the woods a challenge in the summer, and do check for ticks! Many birds reside in the woods and hedgerows: listen out for the horrible screeching calls of the jays and the far more melodic call of the yellowhammer.  

In the summer the woods are home to a number of warblers including blackcap, willow warbler, whitethroat and chiffchaff; swallows and house martins swoop over the garden and fields and you'll hear cuckoos calling.  Wrens are everywhere and there are great spotted woodpeckers, treecreepers and goldcrest.

In autumn huge numbers of pink-footed geese return for the winter months. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, land in the fields making the most incredible noise. All year round look up and you may see red kites and buzzards. The woods come alive at night when the nocturnal animals come out to play. Badgers, pine marten, roe deer, fox and tawny owl are all in the local area but rarely seen except on trail cameras - there is an opportunity to photograph the badgers in the garden though, please ask for details.  Check out host, Karen Miller's youtube channel to see what happens whilst the world sleeps!

The garden is home to a huge variety of birds - depending on the time of year you are very likely to see goldfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, siskin, blue tits, great tits, coal tits and long-tailed tits, robins, dunnocks, house sparrows, tree sparrows, blackbirds, carrion crows, great spotted woodpeckers, starlings, wrens, tree creepers...  We've also had yellowhammer, reed bunting, stonechat, pied wagtail, grey wagtail, heron, field fare, brambling and red poll.   There are feeders behind the cabin.

It's only a 20 minute walk down to the Beauly Firth, a well known site for waders and, in the summer, osprey.  In the summer the sunsets over the Firth are truly stunning.  It's a beautiful place to sit and watch the world go by.

If you'd like a guided walk through the woods; down to the Beauly Firth or a chance to spend a couple of hours in the company of the red squirrels (this is to watch, not photograph the squirrels, except with smart phone) at a dedicated feeding station please ask when booking. Price for either is £25pp for two hours but depends on host availability.

Further Afield

Both Inverness and Beauly are only 6 miles away, there are supermarkets, cafes and shops in both (do visit Corner on the Square in Beauly, the baking is delicious!).

Rogie Falls - stunning waterfalls in very picturesque location.  In summer/autumn look out for salmon jumping - it's incredible to witness!

Chanonry Point - arguably the best place to see bottle-nosed dolphins up close.  Visit on a rising tide May-September. Please note carpark is small and awkward, so you may need to park elsewhere and walk.  There are a number of dolphin watching boat trips, I'd recommend Ecoventures from Cromarty, but there's also Dolphin Spirit (Inverness Marina, not so good for photography) and other companies in Avoch and Burghead, neither of which I've tried as yet.

Loch Ness and the Caledonian Canal.  Urquhart Castle is worth a visit, but is very busy all year round and especially the summer.

Even Further Afield

It's possible to go on a day trip to the West Coast and Skye.  

The Cairngorm National Park & Aviemore are only an hour away down the A9.

The Moray Coastline is a fantastic place for birders.

Glen Affric - especially beautiful in the autumn, but worth a visit at all times of the year.  The other Great Glens are beautiful too.

Tarbet Ness - a fabulous place for birders.

Check availability

(Images © Karen Miller.  Top to bottom: jay in local wood, curlew flying along Beauly Firth, local badger, great spotted woodpecker, pink-footed geese in field behind cabin, rabbit kitten, crested tit)