A Week in Wester Ross

 We've had a quiet start to the birding year, we've had so much on! However we managed to get away for a week and booked a cottage in Aultbea overlooking the sea.

Most of the birding was pretty distant, with very little coming near the shore apart from a pair of Red breasted Mergansers.

Around Aultbea we did find quite a few birds though, but getting some decent photos proved difficult, although this Common Gull posed nicely

as did a few Lapwing.

We visited Poolewe a few times and made use of the hide at the National Trust Inverewe estate, although the windows don't open fully and they were filthy!

Anyway, we did manage a few sightings, over our visits; Grey Heron,

Cormorant,

Buzzard,

and Curlew.

We were delighted to see an Otter as dusk set in, again not close, but for the record:

We did a lot of mooching about exploring various roads, this wasn't in a Glen but definitely a Monarch:

I'll wrap this up now with a few more photos while we were out and about:

Godwits,

Ringed Plover

and snow on the Mountains after Storm Eowyn.

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!

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!!