Trees pledge on the election trail
Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie encountered an owl and an eagle as he promoted the party's environmental message on the General Election campaign trail.
With the party pledging to plant 60 million trees by 2025 as part of efforts to tackle the climate emergency, Mr Rennie made two feathered friends at an owl and falconry centre in Fife.
During his visit to Elite Falconry, Mr Rennie met Indian eagle owl Sage and Stanley, a golden eagle with a 6ft wingspan, with them both taking off and landing on his gloved arm.
Mr Rennie, whose exploits on previous election campaign trails have included water skiing and being interviewed on camera at a farm while two pigs mated behind him, said his interaction with the birds was "wonderful, if slightly terrifying''.
He added: "It was like waiting to be executed, standing with your back to the birds, knowing that they would be landing at any time but not knowing whether I looked more appetising than the bit of chicken that was in my hand.''
On his party's environmental plans, Mr Rennie said: "Liberal Democrats regard the climate emergency as probably even more important than stopping Brexit, and that's why we're here to talk about biodiversity, about tackling climate change and about making sure our local environments are improved as well.
"That's why we want to plant 60 million trees by 2025 so that we can have greater forestation and so that we can have a new British lung that will just absorb all these gases that are damaging our climate.
"It'll be a tree for every person in the United Kingdom, so we want forests and woodland in every single community right across the land so that we can really make them part of our daily lives.
"They are great things to have and to enjoy and they also provide a very important role in trying to suck up all those climate-damaging gases.''
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon warned Brexit will hit the north-east of Scotland hardest, while on a campaign visit to Arbroath and the Brewdog brewery in Aberdeenshire.
Ahead of her visits, Ms Sturgeon cited no-deal Brexit analysis by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which found north-east Scotland faces a potential hit of 6.3% to GDP - the highest fall anywhere in the UK.
She said: "The north-east of Scotland is a vital part of Scotland's economy - but that is now under threat with it set to be the hardest-hit part of the UK from a Tory Brexit.
"It's clear that at this election, a vote for the SNP is a vote to protect Scotland from the serious economic damage that a hard Tory Brexit will do."
"And with the Brexit Party pulling the Tories' strings, it is increasingly likely that the Tories - if they are re-elected - will go for a no-deal Brexit at the end of next year, damaging the economy even further.''
Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie met General Election candidates and local activists before heading out to canvass in west Glasgow, while Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw gave a campaign speech at a Newton Mearns hotel.
Mr Carlaw said "the rocks will melt with the sun'' before his party supports Ms Sturgeon's plan for a second independence referendum, and he claimed that under a Labour government, there would be "a real and present danger of another divisive referendum on independence happening very soon''
Hear all the latest news from the North East of Scotland on Northsound 1. Listen on FM, via our Rayo app, DAB, or smart speaker.