A Short Visit to the Cairngorms - Part 2 of 2 Everywhere Else!

 So for the other day we visited RSPB Loch Garten, Findhorn Valley & RSPB Loch Ruthven.

We started at Loch Garten as it was so close to our digs, we usually visit in the winter and weren't used to so many people being there. Our real objective was to see the Crested Tits, so with so many people there we decided our chances were slim, so we took a scenic drive up to Findhorn Valley instead and planned to pop into Garten on our way back in the late afternoon.

On the way we stopped a few minutes for a coffee in a lay by next to the River Dulnain. We were pleasantly surprised to see some Goosander and a Grey Wagtail:

As we approached the way in to the valley off the A9, a raptor flew off to our left, so we stopped to check it out, in Eagle country you have to check everything!

Through the bins and in murky light it was difficult to identify, but with the wonders of modern technology, I brightened the photo up and pulled it in, it was quite a way away and it turned out to be a strange tailed Red Kite.

Down in the valley it was very quiet, although we did manage to see a pair of Dippers, our first for the year, we pulled over on the single track road, to try and get a good view, but a local in a hurry forced us to move, don't want to upset the locals, and we lost sight of them. Apart from that we saw Pheasant, 

more Grey Wagtail, Swallows and as we turned of to cross the moors over to Ruthven some Red-legged Partridge.

We had hoped to see some Grouse or Wheatear up on the high moors, but we didn't see a thing!

We eventually dropped down off the moors and made or way to Loch Ruthven, where we saw a first for us, this time in the shape of a butterfly, there were a few Scotch Argus about, but only this rather raggedy one stopped still long enough for a photo:

The star of the show at Loch Ruthven if you are lucky are Slavonian Grebe, and that is the first thing we saw as we walked from the car park towards the hide. There was at least one pair with two grebelets, (I don't know if that's a real word!) Of course they never came close, preferring the far side of the loch, so it was a good job we had the scope. I did take some photos, but again it was very dull day, so I apologise for the very poor quality.

The only other birds on the Loch were a pair of Little Grebe and some Mallard, however as a bonus an Osprey paid a visit a couple of times, but only flew around a couple of minutes each time.

From Ruthven we headed back and as I said earlier dropped into Loch Garten, it was now very quiet, only a couple of camper vans in the car park and nobody up by the visitor centre (now closed for the day) We made a cup of tea and decided to wait for something to turn up, however after a few minutes we were besieged by Midges. We stuck it out for about 15 minutes, but with our midge nets safely in the loft back home, we fled! So no Cresties, just a Chaffinch, Woodpigeon and a Great Tit for our efforts.

Next day saw us drive home via the Lecht and a visit to some old friends, with whom we have become reacquainted, who now live in Kirkmichael. We stopped in the Lecht Ski Centre car park for a short while in case there was anything about, but again being August there was nothing, apart from some Swallows, however as we drove away from the Lecht Tina spotted a couple of raptors to the left, so we pulled over to check them out, but it was just a couple of Tourist Eagles (Buzzards! 😂 ) But just as I was about to drive off I spotted another to the right over a ridge. This time we struck gold! Or more precisely a Golden Eagle. Result! Too far for a photo though.

From there we had a lovely afternoon at our friends and even saw a Red Squirrel from their garden. So all in all a lovely couple of days.

Up Inverness Way

 So a long time since the last post! We had planned a week in Grantown on Spey, with 'covid secure' guided trips out for mid August, but due to some issues we had to sadly cancel, we did manage to sort things and find an outrageously expensive flat just outside Inverness for later the end of August. Due to the demand we just couldn't find anything else!

Having said that we had a great time exploring some new and some old places. I won't go into a day by day account, but we did manage to bring our 2020 total for birds up to 143 for the UK, still way short of our normal totals, but that's down to missing spring really in lock down.

So here are a few highlights:

Slavonian Grebes, Loch Ruthven,

Knot, Chanonry Point,

Canada Geese, Gulls & a Redshank at Udale Bay, The Black Isle,

Ringed Plover at Chanonry Point

Turnstones, Chanonry Point,

Herring Gull, North Kessick,

Osprey, Beauly Firth,

Curlew, Beauly Firth,

Wren, Balblair Wood, Loch Fleet

Seals, Loch Fleet,

Falls of Shinn

Salmon, Falls of Shinn,

Osprey, Spey Bay,

Brent Goose, Spey Bay,

Redshank & Bar-tailed Godwit, Nairn

and Goosander, Leith -Edinburgh

Common Terns, Longniddry, East Lothian

Sandwich Tern, Longniddry, East Lothian

So a really great trip, ending up in Edinburgh to celebrate our daughters birthday, so all worked out well in the end! Over 70 species of birds seen, sadly no Eagles or Crossbills, but with the aid of our new scope, managed to get a Red-throated Diver in the sea by Burghead, plus fantastic views of the Osprey in the Beauly Firth. In fact we had 8 separate Osprey sightings, which was awesome (admittedly that includes 3 flying together at Spey Bay)

Wester Ross - April 2016

This is part two of our Scottish 'tour' following on from Mull. After leaving the ferry at Oban, we headed north along the west coast of Scotland to our new home for a week at Aultbea overlooking Loch Ewe. The drive was great as we got further north the scenery just got better and better. We quickly fell in love with this part of Scotland.
As you can see the weather turned a tad cooler for our second week!

After a lot of driving the previous day, we decided to keep things simple on our first full day and decided to spend some time locally. Firstly we dropped down into the 'town' and drove around the edge of Loch Ewe just 2 minutes from our 'shack'.

We were rewarded with a Slavonian Grebe a little offshore, for the record:

This first of many visits to our also provided us with Great Northern Diver and Merganser. So a good start to the day. Our next stop was Laide Wood just a couple of miles up the road and the chance for us to stretch our legs a bit. The weather was good and we risked setting out without waterproofs and we got away with it! From the car park we dropped down onto a track that disappeared into the woods, we had only been walking a few minutes when we spotted a Goldcrest flitting in the young pine trees:

This was quickly followed by a Treecreeper. An excellent start to our walk. We walked on a short way and found a bench beautifully located by a stream, so it would have been rude not to stop for a coffee and wait to see what presented itself. We didn't have to wait long for a number of Lesser Redpoll to appear:

They kept us company while we had our coffee and were ready to carry on. We then had another surprise a Wood Warbler, what made it even better was that this was our first. Photographing it did prove difficult though.

We carried on exploring various trails and finding two small lochs one with a hide. We sat for a bit but apart from a Grey Heron nothing else was seen. For those of you who are Lord of the Rings fans, we did find an Ent!

The rest of our walk although lovely proved uneventful from a birding point of view, that is until we were almost back to the car, that is when a White-tailed Eagle swung into view:

One of the things we planned this week was to head further north and get the foot ferry over to Cape Wrath. When we got in I phoned the ferry and checked for the following day, all looked good, so up early the next morning to zoom north for about two and a half hours only to find that the wind had got up, the ferryman came down to check but decided not to go, that's life.
So we went for plan B and headed for Tarbet to see if we could get across to Handa Island and the sea bird colonies, alas this was cancelled too!

So plan C was brought into play, we meandered back the way we had come making some detours on the way. We did have a coffee at Tarbet looking across to Handa and were pleases to fine Red-throated Diver, Black Guillemot, Eider, Common Sandpiper, Rock Pipit, Shag and Fulmar.

We could now enjoy the scenery on the drive back and even found a great place for a very late lunch at Lochinver. The journey back did provide us with mixed weather, sunshine, sleet, snow and blizzards as you can see by this sheltering Buzzard, that Tina spotted:

Day 3 saw us exploring around Loch Ewe and finding out its WWII history, it was used as a start point for the Arctic Conveys to Russia, evidenced by the many old gun emplacements scattered around the shore and this memorial:

I should say at this point that we had given up on Cape Wrath and Handa Island for the holiday as strong winds were forecast the rest of the week, so very little chance of any ferries running. Next time and there will be a next time.

On with day 3, we completed the Diver trilogy today and added Black-throated Diver to the other two. Mergansers were to be seen in most places,

 and Greenshank popped up now and again.

 The Loch Ewe tour also added Merlin, Turnstone, Redshank and Ringed Plover to our Wester Ross list. Back at the shack we had Song Thrush and Robin coming up to our patio doors as well as Lesser Redpoll in our garden too.

We turned Day 4 into a National Trust day exploring the Gardens at the SNT Inverewe property at Poolewe on the southern shore of Loch Ewe, There's certainly a lot of Eweing going on!

The gardens were magnificent, we saw Bullfinch and Blackcap in the trees, this was a nice addition to our fortnight. I will digress from birding for a bit as the gardens are worthy of a few photos:

OK enough foliage! There is a hide in the estate that is accessible without paying to go into the property, so we went for lunch there. As the tide was out there wasn't a great deal to add, although we did see; Oystercatcher, Merganser, Redshank, Heron, Ringed Plover, Great Northern Diver and Common Sandpiper, so not bad really for a lunch stop.

Next day we went south and Loch Torridon, en route on a roadside Loch we found three Black-throated Divers, brilliant! We also had a look at Loch Maree, but this was uninhabited apart for a Goosander and some Mallard.

We drove along Loch Torridon all the way to Diabaig, this was a fantastic drive over mountains and moorland, absolutley brilliant, we stopped at the top to admire this view:

when two Snow Buntings surprised us, they had gone again before I could swap lenses. Never mind.
Taking our time we meandered back and stopped at the forestry visitor centre and walked from there down to a hide. We hadn't gone far when we spotted no less than 4 Ring Ouzels in a tree line, good views through the bins but sadly to far for the camera.

In the hide we had (familiar story) a late lunch, seeing our first Golden Plover of the trip in an adjacent field plus a few other bits and bobs but the weather wasn't looking great so we decided to head 'home'

So that was our first visit to Wester Ross and mighty good it was too! There will be a small third instalment to follow concerning a brief stop we made on the way to Edinburgh from here.

Wester Ross Birds:

Black Guillemot  ("Cepphus grylle")

Blackbird  ("Turdus merula")

Blackcap  ("Sylvia atricapilla")

Black-headed Gull  ("Chroicocephalus ridibundus")

Black-throated Diver  ("Gavia arctica")

Blue Tit  ("Cyanistes caeruleus")

Bullfinch  ("Pyrrhula pyrrhula")

Buzzard  ("Buteo buteo")

Chaffinch  ("Fringilla coelebs")

Coal Tit  ("Periparus ater")

Collared Dove  ("Streptopelia decaocto")

Common Gull  ("Larus canus")

Common Sandpiper  ("Actitis hypoleucos")

Cormorant  ("Phalacrocorax carbo")

Curlew  ("Numenius arquata")

Dunnock  ("Prunella modularis")

Gannet  ("Morus bassanus")

Goldcrest  ("Regulus regulus")

Golden Plover  ("Pluvialis apricaria")

Goldfinch  ("Carduelis carduelis")

Goosander  ("Mergus merganser")

Great Black-backed Gull  ("Larus marinus")

Great Northern Diver  ("Gavia immer")

Great Tit  ("Parus major")

Greenfinch  ("Chloris chloris")

Greenshank  ("Tringa nebularia")

Grey Heron  ("Ardea cinerea")

Greylag Goose  ("Anser anser")

Herring Gull  ("Larus argentatus")

Hooded Crow  ("Corvus cornix")

House Sparrow  ("Passer domesticus")

Kestrel  ("Falco tinnunculus")

Lapwing  ("Vanellus vanellus")

Lesser Black-backed Gull  ("Larus fuscus")

Lesser Redpoll  ("Carduelis cabaret")

Little Grebe  ("Tachybaptus ruficollis")

Mallard  ("Anas platyrhynchos")

Meadow Pipit  ("Anthus pratensis")

Oystercatcher  ("Haematopus ostralegus")

Pied Wagtail  ("Motacilla alba")

Raven  ("Corvus corax")

Red-breasted Merganser  ("Mergus serrator")

Redshank  ("Tringa totanus")

Ring Ouzel  ("Turdus torquatus")

Ringed Plover  ("Charadrius hiaticula")

Robin  ("Erithacus rubecula")

Rock Dove / Feral Pigeon  ("Columba livia")

Slavonian Grebe  ("Podiceps auritus")

Snow Bunting  ("Plectrophenax nivalis")

Song Thrush  ("Turdus philomelos")

Sparrowhawk  ("Accipiter nisus")

Starling  ("Sturnus vulgaris")

Treecreeper  ("Certhia familiaris")

Turnstone  ("Arenaria interpres")

Wheatear  ("Oenanthe oenanthe")

White-tailed Eagle  ("Haliaeetus albicilla")

Willow Warbler  ("Phylloscopus trochilus")

Wood Warbler  ("Phylloscopus sibilatrix")

Wren  ("Troglodytes troglodytes")

Orkney

A simple title for this post, but a great week was had on a very cold and windy Orkney. We stayed in a fabulous barn conversion not from St Margarets Hope on South Ronaldsay only 10 minutes from the ferry.

We toured the whole of Mainland Orkney, South Ronaldsay and the small islands in between, with a day out on Hoy as well. I won't go into all the places we visited, there were too many! But from a birding point of view it was a great success not to mention the absolutely stunning scenery.

We managed a total of 61 species with some great highlights and a new species for us as well, a Glaucous Gull:

We had great sightings of Hen Harrier too, with one flying past the lounge window of our Barn on a couple of occasions, but we got the closest though from the RSPB hide at the Loons:

We did see a male as well but we were driving at the time and he quickly moved out of range of the camera. One of our target species was Long-tailed Duck, these are Tina's absolute favourite and we saw them regularly especially from the Churchill Barriers, but not close enough for good photos, but for the record:

We had hoped to see all three Divers, but no matter how we searched we only found the Great Northern:

The only down side that we found on Orkney was getting close to the birds and two of the RSPB sites being closed, anyway what else did we see.....
St Mary's Harbour on the mainland was a favourite spot as me passed through it most mornings and evenings, in addition to the above Diver, it gave us;
Goldeneye:

Turnstone:

Ringed Plover:

Redshank:

Slavonian Grebe:

At the Geo Slipway at Deerness we added Purple Sandpiper:

and a Rock Pipit in the snow:

Whooper Swans were on a number of the Lochs:

and flocks of Lapwing were to be found most places:

Curlew were abundant as well:

Every where that we went on the Lochs and Coast were Wigeon, as much as I love Wigeon, it got to the point that we would stop and look and go, "oh, its just Wigeon again!"

Later in the week after the gale force winds had subsided we started seeing a fair number of Black Guillemot about:

On the Thursday we went over to Hoy for the day, this I recommend to anyone visiting Orkney, it is easy to get around and it is stunning. We didn't walk to the Old Man as we wanted to explore the island and doing the walk wouldn't have left us enough time, so that's planned in for our next visit in 2016 or 17!

A couple of real highlights on Hoy were a flotilla of circa 200 Long-tailed Ducks, viewed from the road down in a bay, but there was no way down to get close for a photo. We then saw our only Buzzard of the trip followed by some Winter Coated Mountain Hare:

We also came across a gaggle of Barnacle Geese which was brilliant:

Finally on the last day we came across another Glaucous Gull:

So a brilliant trip, we are already looking forward to going back some time

TTFN.