Isle of Bute

 As I said in an earlier post, we had a trip to the Isle of Bute in September, it wasn't a birding holiday as such, more Prosecco and Ale!! But we had a great time. Here's a few scenic shots and there might be a a couple of birds as well.

View from the digs!

Farmyard Duck or as we like to call them Heinz 57!

Little Grebe in the sun.

A nice night!

Grey Seal.

Greylag Geese.

Curlew on the shingle.

St Ninian's Bay

That'll do!

RSPB Loch Leven (27/09/24)

 We spent a great few hours at Loch Leven the other week, the Pink Footed Geese were there in large numbers;

But the outstanding bird of the day for me was this one:

Spitfire T.9 based out of Biggin Hill, so what it was doing over Loch Leven is anyone's guess!

So keeping to this theme, here are a couple of gliders from the nearby club:

Back to the birds! Greenfich,

Kestrel, why when the appear do the always fly or hover between me and the sun!

Pink-footed Geese grazing,

with a few Greylag Geese for company.

In the woods behind the visitor centre there was lots of bird activity, but only manages a Blackbird and Robin for a decent photo.

Other birds seen where Whooper Swans (10), a Marsh Harrier, Buzzard, no winter ducks yet, the usual Tufted Duck and Mallard. In the woods, Long-tailed, Blue, Great and Coal Tit, a Spotted Flycatcher. I won't list them all!

But the star of the woods was this chap

It doesn't matter how often we see Red Squirrels, it's always a joy!

More From Orkney

 Here's more from Orkney...

The causeway at Birsay to the Brough of Birsay

and  believe it or not these were used for storing boats hauled up from the beach below.

Red Throated Divers at RSPB Birsay Moors

There were always plenty of Greylag Geese about

as well as Curlew.

Wherever we went there was always marvellous scenery. 

Oystercatcher with chick

Plenty of Orchards up at RSPB Cottascarth

as well as Wheatear

and calling Curlew.

From the hide at Cottascarth on the opposite hillside, there were a pair of Hen Harries nesting, we visited a few times and were lucky to see the male bringing food in and the female coming up out of the nest in the heather and catching his offerings as he flew over. They were probably keeping it low as the wind was ferocious at times.

This is the nearest the male came to us, so even with a 500mm lens and cropping the photo, he still shows up quite small!

Not too far from the RSPB sites was the Broch of Gurness, well worth a visit.

So not too many bird photos from Orkney, we saw loads but mostly rubbish photos due to distance and weather. We did see 71 different species of birds as well as Brown Hare and Rabbits.

So it was on to Kirkwall and the overnight ferry to Shetland.....................

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!