Loch Leven and the Whoopers are Back!

 Another bit of a round up post, we haven't ventured far recently after Tina's knee op, so here's some more local stuff....

So I'll start with the return of the Whooper Swans at Loch Leven, these were seen from Findatie;

There were also at least 8 Little Grebes, now in winter plumage;

In addition to the return of the Whooper Swans, the Pink-footed Geese are up to about 7000 now (according to the RSPB) here's a few of them;

Not to be outdone, there were a large number of Canada Geese on the Loch, congregating over at Burliegh Sands;

along with the hundreds if not thousands of Mute Swans.

A few bits from the last two months!

 For various reasons I haven't posted for a while, so here's a few photos from the last two months......

Grey Wagtail and Heron on the River Tweed at Peebles,

Heron at Loch Leven,

Oystercatcher at Kinghorn,

Butterflies at Kinghorn,

Yellowhammer and Heron at Kilminning NR,

Pied Wagtail, Gannet and Wheatears at Fife Ness.

TTFN.

Gone Fishing...... at the Loch of the Lowes

 On Wednesday this week we drove up to Loch of the Lowes to the Scottish Wildlife Trust reserve, which is only about 40 minutes away, to see how the Osprey are getting on.

The surviving chick is near to fledging now and the adults are feeding it up nicely, so fingers crossed it makes it's way back to West Africa ok this autumn.

The adult male Osprey gave us a good fishing show while we were there....

We saw it make 5 or 6 attempts during the afternoon of which two were successful. It was a great show!

In the picture below he's flying past the nest and you can just see the female sitting up, the chick was lying down wings spread a bit trying to keep cool.

Some other pictures from around the reserve:

Red Squirrel see from the visitor centre,

along with this Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Squirrels backside...😂

A very scraggy juvenile Nuthatch.

Fly-by by a Pterodactyl, I mean Grey Heron.

Some of the thousands of Common Blue Damselflies seen from the hide.

A great day out.

Chanonry Point - Dolphins

 A week or so ago we popped up to Chanonry Point on the Black Isle for a couple of visits, staying the night just outside Inverness. It was allegedly a good time to see the Dolphins running through after the salmon. But did anyone tell the dolphins that,

We did dee Dolphins but not in numbers, just the odd one or two and never really close.

There were always some birds about, mainly Guillemots and Gannets;

Before trying again on day 2, we had time before the incoming tide to go to the RSPB hide at Udale Bay, and as we pulled up there was an Osprey on a post!

It stayed about 15 minutes and decided to move on when the rain started.

A male Reed Bunting showed very nicely in front of the hide

Otherwise it was fairly quite as the tide was miles out, a few Shelduck, Mallards, Hooded Crow, Carrion Crow, Oystercatchers, Canada Geese were about as well as surprisingly two Pink-footed Geese.

So back to Chanonry point for a few hours, again just a couple of Dolphins turned up.

Plus Jellyfish

and passing Common Terns.

So we will have to make another visit at some point.