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. 

A Week on the Isle of Mull - The Birds!

 Apart from the Otters we had a great week birding in between the rain! 66 Species in all, you'll be glad to know not too many photos, due to the weather mainly. But I'll start with one of my favourites from the week. A Snipe on a post, in the rain of course.

The sun did come out from time to time, helping to show off this Lapwing a bit.

Back in the murk, Great Northern Divers.

Oystercatchers

A White-tailed Eagle on approach,

landing near it's mate.

A friendly Buzzard, usually as soon as you stop they fly off, I can only guess this one was a bit soggy and couldn't be bothered.

Oystercatcher and chick...

We do love a Curlew,

Siskin in the garden at Lochdon,

White tailed Eagle.

Self explanatory!

Finally a Golden Eagle being bothered by a Raven.

A Week on the Isle of Mull - Otters

 We returned last weekend from a fantastic week on the Isle of Mull, we had a great time despite the weather. We had great sightings of Otters, Dolphins, Golden Eagle, White-tailed Eagle, Hen Harrier and much more.

Actually we had 8 separate Otter sightings during the week, three of which were from the living room window of our cottage at Lochdon. Awesome.

This is the chap: The photos are a bit dull as it was early evening on a rainy day.

Another one on Loch Na Keal. Believe it or not that's an otter on a rock!

Then a sesond one just a few hundred yards away, that obligingly got out, but quickly hid behind the rocks!

We did get an Otter on a reasonably sunny day though, on our last day, this one was on Loch Spelve.