On Our Travels Again - Orkney

 Off we go again.....

We started a two week holiday by driving up to Scrabster to get the evening ferry to Stromness on Orkney Mainland. It was nine years since our last visit, when we went in February for a slim chance of seeing the Northern Lights, which we didn't! But the birding was good as we remember.

For the whole 8 days on Orkney the wind was  shall we say 'keen' to put it mildly, lots of showers, that we mostly managed to avoid, but thankfully there were 4 hides not too far from out digs in St. Mary's to take shelter in. (3 RSPB and 1 Community hide)

So we started the next day by visiting The Loons RSPB.....

Some Mute Swans posing nicely in front of the Loons hide.

The hide at the Loons overlooks some pools, but the main action is further away, where Lapwing, Curlew, Redshank, Godwit and Snipe are nesting and foraging in the boggy meadows and reeds. I think I have some shots from later in the week. Distant Hare were seen in the adjacent fields so that was nice, as well as Teal, Shelduck, Tufted Duck, Little Grebe, Mallard, Coot and Moorhen in the further away pools. They could really do with another hide further around the reserve., although the Listening Wall is a good viewpoint with parking.

We drove on to the coast at the Bay of Skaill, where there were quite a few waders about, Dunlin, Sanderling, Turnstone and Ringed Plover. The wind was so strong though we could hardly open the car doors, so photographic opportunities were limited as the wind was buffeting the camera around, I could hardly keep it still, so just the one picture for you!

We carried on exploring and ended up at the Ring of Brodgar, so a couple of tourist photos to be going on with.... The Stones...

there were a few Orchids around the site, I think this is a Northern Marsh Orchid, but I'm willing to be corrected!

More of the ring,

and there is plenty of Cotton Grass (Bog Cotton) on the islands.

After the ring we found a nice little viewpoint on the opposite side of the Loch of Harray to have a stop and a brew, as we approached it, we couldn't believe a male Hen Harrier came and flew alongside the car, we sopped and I jumped out and tried to get a photo, this was the best of a bad bunch as it flew on ahead of us:

We did watch it for a while as it hunted in the nearby fields. This was the first of many Hen Harrier sightings.

One of the must see sights on Orkney are the Churchill Barriers and the Scapa Flow Wrecks, I won't go into the history, but if you want to know more go to:

Scapa Flow Wrecks

Here's a shot of one of the wrecks at Barrier No 2:

Finally for day 1! We discovered a wildlife hide a couple of minutes from where we staying in St. Mary's. It overlooked Loch Ayre, a very small loch on the edge of St Mary's. There were loads of Arctic Terns using it to bathe after fishing out at sea, unfortunately the weather and light was awful, but here you go:

Black-headed Gull and Red-breasted Merganser,

Male Red-breasted Merganser,

Male Eider,

Mute Swans with Cygnets,

Female Eiders with Eiderlings (is that a word?),

So that'll do for starters...don't want you to get bored...yet!!

Loch Leven - Findatie

 I haven't posted for a while, a number of factors, but we've mainly been very busy and not a lot of time for birding!

However we managed to get up to Loch Leven for a few hours on Wednesday, going for a walk from the Findatie car park. We enjoy Findatie as it's a good mix of loch, river and woodland, so a good variety of birds if you can spot them! 😏

In the end though we had a good list, with few photo opportunities though, but I did manage a few.

As we started down the path from the car park, I caught a brief glimpse of a Goldcrest before it shot off, the nearby field held a few Greylag, one of which is shown below,

From the hide a number of Grey Heron were seen constantly moving from fishing spot to fishing spot in the strong winds,

Amorous frogs were about on the paths,

a male Goldeneye showed briefly on the river, through the undergrowth, befoire it flew off!

A Treecreeper gave us a good show,

and we saw our first Sand Martins of the year hawking over the loch.

An Oystercatcher smartening himself up,

and a pair of Black-headed Gulls sunning themselves now in full summer plumage.

That'll do for now!

Local Birding (Loch Leven, Loch Ore, Seafield & Kinghorn)

 We are so lucky to have some great places on our doorstep. Loch Ore is a 10 minute walk, Loch Leven is less than a 15 minute drive, then Kinghorn and Seafield are about 25 minutes in the car. So here a few pics from all of those that we visited in the second half of July.

Kinghorn:

We are in process of joining Shorewatch, this is a group of volunteers that monitor Cetaceans  (That's Dolphins, Porpoise and Whales to you and me!) on the east coast of Scotland and Kinghorn is one of the watch points, as it affords fantastic views over the Firth of Forth. So recently we have been going there a lot, but as yet we have come up with no sightings, we have been terribly unlucky as others have seen them at all times of the day! However there is always plenty to enjoy there. Watching Gannets and Terns fishing offshore. The nesting Fulmars on the cliff face less than a hundred yards from where we sit, so we have been watching the chicks grow up from tiny fluff balls to now quite large fluff balls!

A Fulmar on the nest, I have some chick photos still on the camera, so will add those when I get chance in a new post.

Some views from Kinghorn:

Inchkeith Island,

a distant Bass Rock,

and Kinghorn Harbour.

Lochore:

As I've probably said before Loch Ore Meadows is only a short walk from out house, it has a small nature reserve, with a (poorly designed) hide, which we visit as often as we can as you never know what turns up:

A couple of Snipe among the Lapwings. (it was a dull day so the photos are pretty poor)

Lapwing,

Curlew:

Elsewhere around the Loch there's always plenty to see:

Great Crested Grebe,

Greylag Geese,

Black-headed Gulls,

Jackdaw

a young Robin,

Great Spotted Woodpecker,

and a Grey Heron.

Loch Leven:

Loch Leven is big! It's about 13-14 miles to walk around, compare to just 3 for Loch Ore. But we have lots of different spots that we go to around it. The following photos are from the RSPB reserve at Vane Farm on the Loch.

Wild flowers at the reserve,

Orchid,

Goldfinch & Redpoll,

Young Swallow,

Goldfinch,

Little Grebe

That will do for now, I'll do Seafield (near Kircaldy) in the next post!

TTFN!

Where Did January Go!

 I know January isn't quite finished yet, but I won't get chance to do another post this month, as we are off to the Highlands for a week, so what have we been up to?

We have kept it fairly local. We have made two attempts to find a Smew, the female at Bathgate and the male at Cameron Reservoir, we failed both times, no sign of them when we went, although both have been reported since! Never mind.

Elsewhere we have gone down to the Forth (Kinghorn) a few times after sightings of  Whales have been reported and of course, nothing about when we were there!

On the plus side it was our first visit to Cameron Reservoir since we moved up and it certainly looks a good place to return to. We have made our first visit to out local loch, Lochore, which is always great. I have started a thread for Lochore Meadows on the birds forum with the intent of updating it regularly, that's the plan anyway.

So here are a few pics for January......

Whooper Swans by Cameron Reservoir,

Pink-footed Geese over Cameron Reservoir,

Dunlin, Turnstone, Redshank and Oystercatcher at Musselburgh (Fisherrow Harbour),

Redshank at Fisherrow,

Turnstones at Fisherrow,

Turnstone at Fisherrow,

Curlew and Lapwing at Musselburgh Lagoons,

Lapwing and a Shoveler in the background at the Lagoons,

Curlew at the Lagoons,

A Parcel load of Oystercatchers!

A few Black-headed Gulls and a couple of Shelduck at the back.

Oystercatchers at Pittenweem

and some Cormorant too.

Goosander at Bathgate, but where's the Smew!

TTFN.