Scotland Again - Cape Wrath and Bits and Pieces

This is the last post for this Scottish trip, but it won't be the last for Scotland this year as there is at least one more more wildlife based trip planned this year.
So on our 'Windy' Thursday explorations we added, Redshank and Greenshank to our list of birds,

 Stonechats were everywhere,

 and we came across Pink-footed Geese on a surprising number of occasions

 and another great sighting of Black-throated Diver was had.

 On the Friday the wind had dropped so after checking with John the Ferryman we drove north again and went for the ferry at 10:30. The 'ferry' only takes four people at a time and there were 15 of us, plus the mini-bus driver. While we were waiting we saw our first Sandwich Terns of the year, I didn't expect to see a Sandwich tern until we visit the Farnes in June.

 A Rock Pipit obliged us as well while we waited for John to row out and get the slightly larger boat,

 The crossing.....

Once all of us were assembled and after adding a Willow Warbler to the list, we boarded the bus for the 1 hour, 11 mile journey to Cape Wrath, where upon the weather decided to stop being nice and it rained the whole way and with 16 people in a bus the windows steamed up fairly quickly, but we did see some Red Deer and then some Whoopers in a small loch. Others on the bus saw some Red Grouse, but neither of us saw them. We eventually made it to the most North Westerly point of the UK and the rain stopped, hurrah! So we pose for a photo, where the next stop behind us would be Canada!

 Up on the point we saw thousands of Pink-foots heading to Greenland for the Summer, plus a few Redwing, Meadow Pipit, Fulmar, distant Gannet, Razorbill and Guillemot

 After an hour it was all back on the bus and the return journey, then as if on cue the rain started again! Only allowing a murky scenery shot along route,

Once back we drove up to Durness for a late lunch and a visit to Smoo Cave and waterfall.

 Then as the weather was now not very nice, wet and cold, we visited Cocoa Mountain, a brilliant chocolate shop at Balnakiel and had the best Hot Chocolate ever!!

We paid one last visit to the harbour at Kinlochbervie before going back to pack, the reward this time being another Red-throated Diver (in the rain of course!!)

 So finally on the way back home via Edinburgh, we stopped to see our faithful pair of Osprey, at first the nest looked deserted, but after a few minutes we weren't disappointed and we had about 10 minutes of decent views, a great birding end to a week in Scotland

Scotland Again - Sutherland - Kinlochbervie, Kyle of Durness and Beyond

We have just returned from another Scottish trip. We stayed at Kinlochbervie and used it as a base to explore. We had two main goals for the trip, to get to Cape Wrath and visit Handa Island. Both of these trips were dependent on decent weather as if the wind is too strong neither boat would run.

Initially the weather forecast for the week was not looking great, with the better weather going to be on the Thursday and Friday, so the plan for Sunday to Wednesday was going to be to explore the nooks and crannies around the area.

On day one the Sunday, I didn't want to drive far after two long drives on the Friday and Saturday (we over nighted in Edinburgh on the way up, so that was a 6-7 hour journey on the Friday followed by a 5-6 hour journey on the Saturday) So we explored our peninsular around Kinlochbervie. It was a really good start despite some rough weather, seeing Black Guillemot in our harbour,

and Ringed Plover on the shoreline. We came across a pair of Whoopers on one of the small Lochs, too distant for a photo, plus at the time it was raining, so the light was poor. We also picked up as you would expect plenty of Wheatear, Meadow Pipit and Stonechat. Offshore Gannet, Great Black-backed Gull, Fulmar were seen. On a slipway we saw our first Common Sandpiper of the year. We didn't get out of the car much as the wind was fierce coming in off the Atlantic, nothing to stop it between us and Canada!

We popped down to Tarbet just for a look as Divers can be seen between the slipway and Handa Island, but not today! We did see our first Shag, Eider and Rock Pipit of the week though. The best sighting of the day though was on Loch na Thull, a single Red-throated Diver,

a distant shot in murky weather, but it had to be done. We were to get better views later in the week.

On day 2 we woke up to a white day, plenty of snow about, the mountains looked fantatstic,

this meant we saw plenty of Red Deer, as the came down to graze.

Almost forgot, before we set out on day 2 had a surprise in the garden of the house we were renting,

in the end we came across Redwing quite a few times on our travels. We first drove up to the Kyle of Durness, this was only 25 minutes from us, the tide was out so were pleased to see some waders on the estuary, the starts being Curlew and Whimbrel.

We drove on up to Durness and Balnakiel, where more Redwing were seen and some Pink-footed Geese having a rest before carrying on to Greenland.

We saw our only Turnstone of the week on the beach at Balnakiel and our first Redshank of the year.

From here we drove along the north coast for a while, where we saw a Great Northern Diver in Loch Eriboll.

Surprisingly this was our only sighting of a GND for the week.
We eventually headed south across moorland and mountains, passing remote lochs and some spectacular scenery on the way before looping around back to Durness, the best sighting on this leg apart from Buzzards were a pair of Black-throated Divers on Loch Hope. It was pouring of rain when we found them and pretty dull, but never mind,

That will do for now, seeing all three Divers in the first two days was amazing!

A Tour of the Outer Hebrides Part2 - North Uist, Harris and Lewis

So part 2 starts with a bit of spare time after checking out of our hotel before catching our ferry to Harris, so we started first to have a little look around Lochmaddy,
The view from the harbour,

 This Red-throated diver came in caught a fish and departed:

We explored a bit of the north coast again, coming across this Red-breasted Merganser and chicks:

While searching for Eagles we found another Short-eared Owl hunting and were lucky enough to see it pounce on an unsuspecting rodent. It sat for a while with it in its talons

 before heading off to eat away from our prying eyes (and camera!)

We finally headed off North Uist across the causeway to Berensay and the ferry terminal for Harris, but we were still a little early so we explored Berensay a little and found a nice spot where a wildlife tour group were watching something in the water, this turned out to be a an Otter, way to far for a photo, but the tour guide let us use his scope, which was rather nice of him. I reciprocated by finding this:

 and pointing it out to his group, a young White-tailed Eagle (Sea Eagle), brilliant!

So finally we caught the ferry and headed off to Harris. The crossing proved very interesting the best coming from an Arctic Skua chasing an Arctic Tern, this kept us enthralled for a good few minutes before the Tern managed to make its escape.

 The scenery wasn't bad either

 Large numbers of Gannets were about some coming fairly close to the Ferry

 while the main group were fishing some distance away.

 Lots of other fishing was going on too, with Arctic Terns about and groups of Shag on the water.

We arrived on Harris in the sunshine and once away from the Ferry Terminal were blown away by the scenery, North Uist and Benbecula had been brilliant, but Harris is spectacular, we were running out of superlatives! I just wish the photos did it justice.

So back to birds! Although we saw plenty on Harris decent photo opportunities were few, the best being another Red-throated Diver.

After 2 nights at Tarbert on Harris we drive north to Lewis for two nights near Stornoway, on the way up there was plenty of time to explore a bit and we found these two Whoopers Swans on one of the small lochs:

Again plenty of great scenery was seen although since we left Harris, Lewis seemed a tad dull by comparison. We started our full day on Lewis with a visit to the Butt of Lewis and a nice walk around the headland where there were plenty of Fulmars,

 Shag,

 Great coastline,

 Rabbit,

 Black Guillemot,

 Seals,

 Gannets,

 and Kittiwake.

We moved onto a nearby Nature Reserve with a hide at Loch Stiapabhat where Tina saw a Corncrake but I missed it, although as usual with Corncrake it called incessantly! The reserve was a lovely spot and plenty other birds were seen, but of course Coffee was had there too! Luckily for us we met a nice chap in the hide who tipped us off to a nearby Lesser Canada Goose that was spending time with a couple of Whoopers. I have to admit if he hadn't told us I wouldn't have know it wasn't a bog standard (Greater) Canada Goose.

From here we carried on to find a small RSPB reserve, Loch na Muilne. The weather was turning iffy when we got there and nearly didn't explore but we were so glad we did, we hadn't go far when we came across a number of Red-necked Phalarope hiding in the vegetation of the Loch. We couldn't get very close but we had great views through the scope and bins and I did manage a few distant snaps when they emerged:

There were also plenty of Redshank around:

So with the weather deteriorating we headed back to Stornoway, where we had seen our first real new species of the trip the day before in very bad light three Black-throated Divers, so we checked to see if they were still around and if a better photo opportunity presented itself, there were only two about this time, but the light was a bit better;

So that was Lewis, off to Skye next for four nights, but that's the end of the Outer Hebrides.

A full list of the birds seen on the Islands:

Arctic Skua  ("Stercorarius parasiticus")

Arctic Tern  ("Sterna paradisaea")

Bar-tailed Godwit  ("Limosa lapponica")

Black Guillemot  ("Cepphus grylle")

Blackbird  ("Turdus merula")

Black-headed Gull  ("Chroicocephalus ridibundus")

Black-throated Diver  ("Gavia arctica")

Buzzard  ("Buteo buteo")

Canada Goose (parvipes)  ("Branta canadensis parvipes")

Chaffinch  ("Fringilla coelebs")

Collared Dove  ("Streptopelia decaocto")

Common Gull  ("Larus canus")

Common Sandpiper  ("Actitis hypoleucos")

Cormorant  ("Phalacrocorax carbo")

Corncrake  ("Crex crex")

Curlew  ("Numenius arquata")

Dunlin  ("Calidris alpina")

Eider  ("Somateria mollissima")

Fulmar  ("Fulmarus glacialis")

Gannet  ("Morus bassanus")

Golden Eagle  ("Aquila chrysaetos")

Golden Plover  ("Pluvialis apricaria")

Great Black-backed Gull  ("Larus marinus")

Great Skua  ("Stercorarius skua")

Greenfinch  ("Chloris chloris")

Grey Heron  ("Ardea cinerea")

Greylag Goose  ("Anser anser")

Guillemot  ("Uria aalge")

Hen Harrier  ("Circus cyaneus")

Herring Gull  ("Larus argentatus")

Hooded Crow  ("Corvus cornix")

House Sparrow  ("Passer domesticus")

Kestrel  ("Falco tinnunculus")

Kittiwake  ("Rissa tridactyla")

Lapwing  ("Vanellus vanellus")

Lesser Black-backed Gull  ("Larus fuscus")

Little Grebe  ("Tachybaptus ruficollis")

Little Stint  ("Calidris minuta")

Mallard  ("Anas platyrhynchos")

Meadow Pipit  ("Anthus pratensis")

Mute Swan  ("Cygnus olor")

Oystercatcher  ("Haematopus ostralegus")

Pied Wagtail  ("Motacilla alba")

Puffin  ("Fratercula arctica")

Raven  ("Corvus corax")

Razorbill  ("Alca torda")

Red-breasted Merganser  ("Mergus serrator")

Red-necked Phalarope  ("Phalaropus lobatus")

Redshank  ("Tringa totanus")

Red-throated Diver  ("Gavia stellata")

Ringed Plover  ("Charadrius hiaticula")

Rock Dove / Feral Pigeon  ("Columba livia")

Rock Pipit  ("Anthus petrosus")

Sand Martin  ("Riparia riparia")

Sanderling  ("Calidris alba")

Shag  ("Phalacrocorax aristotelis")

Shelduck  ("Tadorna tadorna")

Short-eared Owl  ("Asio flammeus")

Skylark  ("Alauda arvensis")

Snipe  ("Gallinago gallinago")

Song Thrush  ("Turdus philomelos")

Starling  ("Sturnus vulgaris")

Stonechat  ("Saxicola torquatus")

Swallow  ("Hirundo rustica")

Teal  ("Anas crecca")

Tufted Duck  ("Aythya fuligula")

Turnstone  ("Arenaria interpres")

Wheatear  ("Oenanthe oenanthe")

White-tailed Eagle  ("Haliaeetus albicilla")

Whooper Swan  ("Cygnus cygnus")

Wigeon  ("Anas penelope")

Woodpigeon  ("Columba palumbus")

Wren  ("Troglodytes troglodytes")