The Highlands

The Highlands covers a huge area, we were based in  the small town of Newtonmore just off the A9 about 20 minutes south of Aviemore. This wasn't a birding trip, we were giving my brother-in-law Mike, over from South Africa, a whistle-stop tour of the area. Doing the touristy things that we don't normally do. However we did manage to see a few things on our travels,
Red Deer at Loch Muick,

 Emperor Moth Caterpillar, Loch Muick,

 Red Grouse, Loch Muick,

 Reindeer!! Top of Cairngorm Mountain,

 Common Vole, Abernethy Forest,

 Chaffinch, Abernethy Forest,

 Great Spotted Woodpecker, Abernethy Forest

 Coal Tit, Abernethy Forest,

 a distant Osprey,

 Badgers and 'Tree badger', Rothiemurchus Estate. This was great evening with a guide from Speyside Wildlife in a hide in the woods of the estate, seven Badgers were seen,

 as well as two Pine Martens, our first ever sighting of Pine Martens, we were over the moon!! The photo isn't great as I couldn't use flash and the external lights still meant a very slow shutter speed.

 Long-tailed Tit, Anagach Woods (Grantown on Spey)

 Red Squirrel, one of two seen at the Heather Centre near Grantown,

 along with plenty of Siskin

Malham Cove, Yorkshire Dales

Sunday saw us taking the walk from Malham Village up to and over Malham Cove, it was a strenuous walk but well worth arriving on the Limestone Pavement at the top. Of course a few birds were seen as we went,
we started with a Wren,

 followed by a young Redstart.

 There were plenty of House Martins zooming around keeping the insects down,

 whilst a male Redstart looked on

 and luckily another Grey Wagtail posed very well.

There were plenty of Corvids around, Jackdaw, Rook and Crow. We did hear a Peregrine but couldn't find it which was a shame.

Malham Cove itself though is pretty spectacular;

Wharfedale , Yorkshire Dales

We went to spend the weekend up in Yorkshire, stopping with our good friends Tim & Wendy.
On the Saturday we went for a walk along the River Wharfe starting out from Addingham.

We had some quality sightings on the walk, starting with a Kingfisher just a few minutes into the walk,

 we were to have four separate sightings as we progressed, but this was the best of them, though it was on the other side of the river.

 There were quite a few female Mandarin Duck about, no sign of any magnificent males though.

 A couple of Grey Heron were seen too.

 As well as plenty of young Goosander, seen in two different places, so that was a total of about 20, unless it was the same group flying up river and sneaking past us!

 At least 3 Grey Wagtail were seen

 and two Dipper sightings although I do think that may have been the same bird,

 the second was in very bad light under some trees, so difficult to say, but it was only about 200 yards from the first.

So a lovely afternoon with 20 species seen in total.