Loch of the Lowes

 We had a fabulous day yesterday at Loch of the Lowes, cold but bright. 

We seem to be blessed with Red Squirrel sightings at the moment, not that we are complaining!

All from the cosy warm the SWT visitor centre. 

From the visitor centre as well;

Obliging Nuthatch,

Female Mallard waiting for whatever falls from the bird feeders.

Great Spotted Woodpecker.

The loch was quiet though with lots of Goldeneye;

Wigeon

Plus plenty of Tufted Duck, a few Great Crested Grebe, Mallard and a very distant Goosander.

Some Greylag and Cormorant flew through and a solitary Canada Goose appeared from the Beaver channel briefly.

Apart from that we had a nice rainbow in the distance!

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!

Shetland - Continued!

 The wind is still blowing a gale, but Shetland is the windiest part of the UK, just don't remember it being this bad last time.

Another days saw us up the north west of the mainland a visit to Hillswick, where there were plenty of Red-breasted Merganser, performing reasonably close:

As well as Red-throated Divers:

Shame it wasn't sunny to bring out the colours, never mind! There's some great scenery up there too:

Eshaness.

We had a lunch stop at Heylor, where there were plenty of Mergansers;

Common and Arctic Terns

and Ringed Plover, Turnstone, All the Gulls, Guillemot, Black Guillemot, Skua and even the odd Puffin on the water.

Not far from Sandwick where we were staying, we came across Curlew, with some youngsters 😀

Next day we checked on 'our' Phalaropes again, but sadly they were not visible or had moved elsewhere. So we did some more exploring and found:

A pair of Whoopers with Cygnets at Clumlie Loch,

along with an Arctic Skua

and Snipe.

Whooper cygnets were a first for us.

Down at Grutness on the way toSumburgh Head we stopped at the pool..

Mallard with a single Duckling,

Arctic Tern,

Oystercatcher,

Arctic Terns,

Common Gull having a bath,

and a Dunlin.

I'll leave Sumburgh Head for another post, it will be a Puffin fest!

Somerset.... mainly Ham Wall RSPB

 So still catching up with stuff from June! We booked a week in Somerset in between visits to Birmingham. Ham Wall is one of our favourite reserves in the UK, mind you we do have lots of favourites 😂

Ham Wall:

Marsh Harrier

Dragonfly, not sure of species,

Growing up fast! A young Great Crested Grebe,

Great White Egret,

Broad-bodied Chaser,

Glastonbury Tor,

Dragonfly (species?),

At Westhay Moor, Great Crested Grebe, with chicks,

Dad bringing lunch home 

that was way too big! Eventually 'mom' had to eat it

Marsh Harrier back at Ham Wall,

Tufted Duck,

Little Grebe with two youngsters,

Merlin!

Black-tailed Skimmer (female),

Swans on one of the channels.

Black-tailed Skimmer (male),

Plenty of female Mallard, theres a few Gadwall in there too.

Grey Heron,

Mallard young at Chew Valley.

Gatekeeper Butterfly,

Common Blue Damselfly,

Broad-bodied Chaser,

Little Egret,

and a very distant blurred shot of a Bittern! We had quite a few Bittern sightings at Ham Wall but this is the only photo that is vaguely identifiable 😌