Mull in July

 Finally a few photos from a trip to Mull, we normally go much earlier in the year than this, but with all our galivanting abroad and family stuff, we had to push it back. The weather wasn't great either so there were very few photo opportunities.

Deer right outside our truly dreadful cottage.

One of the most abundant birds were the Common Sanpipers.

More Deer from the disgusting kitchen window.

Goosander,

Roe Deer,

Red Deer again,

Golden Eagle,

A Male Hen Harrier deciding he didn't want the Golden Eagle around.

Cows on Iona!

Meadow Pipit,

Some scenic shots from our favourite beach on Iona

Juvenile Robin,

The Abbey on Iona

Oh no another Red Deer.

Otter lunching in the rain at Dervaig.

Short-eared Owl in the rain.

And another Otter on Loch Spelve again in the murk and rain.

That's all folks!
 

Loch Mey, Caithness

 On our trip up to Caithness we paid two visits to the Loch of Mey. This has a great hide overlooking the loch. It's an 800m walk from the road to the hide through a couple of gates at the start and some rather aggressive looking (but not!) sheep.

The walk to the hide can be muddy and rough, so wear suitable footwear! On the walk there were plenty of Skylark:

and Meadow Pipit:

On and around the loch were, Lapwing;

Curlew;

Some Pink-footed Geese dropped in on their way to Greenland,

Plenty of Roe Deer,

Wigeon, Teal, Shoveler, Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull, Reed Bunting and a solitary Snipe:

There are also good views of Dunnet Head,

and Castle Mey,

Oh and some of the aforementioned Sheep!

Calke Abbey NT

On Thursday we arranged to meet our good friends Wendy & Tim at Calke Abbey National Trust in Derbyshire, which is about halfway between us. We had a great socially distanced few hours walking around the estate and having a good catch up.

Probably due to the catching up not much birding was done! With just 21 species being seen. We did add one to the year list for us though taking us to the dizzying heights of 121 so far.
So I'll start with a Butterfly, a Ringlet (at first I thought it was a Meadow Brown, but have just found a good Butterfly ID website, so have corrected this to a Ringlet)

 Juvenile Crow with parent,

 Mallard,

 Roe Deer,

 Chiffchaff,

 number 121, a female Mandarin Duck with three ducklings

 and a Red Admiral.

There weren't many photo opportunities as you can see, but today was all about having a nice time, in a lovely place with some good friends.