Scotland Again - Handa Island

We looked at the weather and Wednesday was suddenly looking better along the west coast so we phoned the ferry man Tuesday afternoon and decide to go to Handa Island, managed by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, what a brilliant day. We spent just short of 5 hours on the island and did the prescribed circular walk, stopping for coffees and lunch as we progressed.

When you arrive on the island after taking the 10 minute crossing on a RIB from Tarbet,

you are met by some of the wardens at the beach where they bring a gangplank for you to walk down onto the beach. They then take you up to the Visitor Centre,

where they give you a 5 minute talk about the island and of course asking you to keep to the paths so as not to disturb the breeding birds. It's best to make use of the facilities here as there is no where else to go on the island.

I suppose the star of the day for us on the island where the Great Skua, they weren't bothered by people at all, of course we kept to the paths and weren't tempted to stray to get better views or a better photo. I did take loads of Skua photos and it's difficult to pick what to put on the blog, but I will add them all to Flickr in due course, that can be accessed from the link on the menus of this blog site.
Anyway here are a few;

As we walked up from the vistor centre up to the Cliffs (about 1.5km) we flushed a pair of Snipe that were right next to the boardwalk, which was a nice sighting. At the Cliffs there is a small loch where the Skuas go to wash as can be seen above, but then you find the Fulmars,

I have a real soft spot for Fulmars, they seem to fly around the cliffs just for fun!

Of course wheres there's cliffs at this time of year there will be Razorbills,

and Guillemots.

Just behind these rocks we saw our one and only Puffin of the trip, it scurried down a burrow before I could take his photo and sadly didn't come out again. Never mind there's always the Farne Islands in June!

Once at the far side of the island we came acroos plenty of Skylarks, Meadow Pipits,  Wheatear and views!

We stopped for lunch overlooking a bay frequented by Otters, so we were told, but of course not today,

after which we carried on around the island heading back towards the visitor centre, seeing plenty more Skuas and a few other birds too

 and plenty of Rabbits,

 There were a number of Shag about, some overflying Divers,

Ringed Plover and Oystercatchers, then from the boat on our return to Tarbet a pair of Eider

I really loved our time on Handa, the weather was great, the walk was brilliant and the birdlife outstanding.

Scotland Again - Sutherland - Eagle Hunting

On Tuesday the winds were ferocious on the coast, so as the result of a conversation with a local birder we decided to go inland and look for Eagles. We were told that Golden Eagles are often seen around Ben Stack and Ben Arkle, plus there are a few lochs around there, so you never know what else might be about.

Thankfully once we had driven through Lexford Bridge and into the valley between the two mountains we were well sheltered from the wind, the sun even came out. As there was still a lot of snow on the hills the Deer were still down and this Stag showed nicely.

We parked up between the mountains, cracked open a flask for a coffee and waited, to no avail. We did see Stonechat, Wheatear and Meadow Pipit, but sadly no Eagles. 

As I said the sun did come out so we decided on a little walk, we had been walking about 15 minutes when the weather turned, well this is Scotland, we were met with rain, then sleet, then snow, but that didn't worry this Common Sandpiper.

Of course as soon as we got back to the car, the snow stopped and the sun came out again! 

After this we went exploring again and went via Lochinver around some more lochs and very remote places.... to be rewarded with a pair of Ring Ouzel, unfortunatley the roads were single track and there was no where to park, we did get some good views but of course just when you don't want it there are cars coming the other way and we were stopped in a dangerous place so we had to move, I did get a photo of the back of one of them, just for the record.

Just after this a Buzzard gave us a fly by and the Ring Ouzels disappeared!

A great day out with some brilliant scenery.

Scotland Again - Sutherland - Kinlochbervie, Kyle of Durness and Beyond

We have just returned from another Scottish trip. We stayed at Kinlochbervie and used it as a base to explore. We had two main goals for the trip, to get to Cape Wrath and visit Handa Island. Both of these trips were dependent on decent weather as if the wind is too strong neither boat would run.

Initially the weather forecast for the week was not looking great, with the better weather going to be on the Thursday and Friday, so the plan for Sunday to Wednesday was going to be to explore the nooks and crannies around the area.

On day one the Sunday, I didn't want to drive far after two long drives on the Friday and Saturday (we over nighted in Edinburgh on the way up, so that was a 6-7 hour journey on the Friday followed by a 5-6 hour journey on the Saturday) So we explored our peninsular around Kinlochbervie. It was a really good start despite some rough weather, seeing Black Guillemot in our harbour,

and Ringed Plover on the shoreline. We came across a pair of Whoopers on one of the small Lochs, too distant for a photo, plus at the time it was raining, so the light was poor. We also picked up as you would expect plenty of Wheatear, Meadow Pipit and Stonechat. Offshore Gannet, Great Black-backed Gull, Fulmar were seen. On a slipway we saw our first Common Sandpiper of the year. We didn't get out of the car much as the wind was fierce coming in off the Atlantic, nothing to stop it between us and Canada!

We popped down to Tarbet just for a look as Divers can be seen between the slipway and Handa Island, but not today! We did see our first Shag, Eider and Rock Pipit of the week though. The best sighting of the day though was on Loch na Thull, a single Red-throated Diver,

a distant shot in murky weather, but it had to be done. We were to get better views later in the week.

On day 2 we woke up to a white day, plenty of snow about, the mountains looked fantatstic,

this meant we saw plenty of Red Deer, as the came down to graze.

Almost forgot, before we set out on day 2 had a surprise in the garden of the house we were renting,

in the end we came across Redwing quite a few times on our travels. We first drove up to the Kyle of Durness, this was only 25 minutes from us, the tide was out so were pleased to see some waders on the estuary, the starts being Curlew and Whimbrel.

We drove on up to Durness and Balnakiel, where more Redwing were seen and some Pink-footed Geese having a rest before carrying on to Greenland.

We saw our only Turnstone of the week on the beach at Balnakiel and our first Redshank of the year.

From here we drove along the north coast for a while, where we saw a Great Northern Diver in Loch Eriboll.

Surprisingly this was our only sighting of a GND for the week.
We eventually headed south across moorland and mountains, passing remote lochs and some spectacular scenery on the way before looping around back to Durness, the best sighting on this leg apart from Buzzards were a pair of Black-throated Divers on Loch Hope. It was pouring of rain when we found them and pretty dull, but never mind,

That will do for now, seeing all three Divers in the first two days was amazing!

Peak District Wanderings

Now that Easter is done I can follow up the Coombes Valley post with a few bits and bobs from the subsequent couple of days that we spent in the Peak District with Buxton as our base.

Our first port of call was to have a walk around the Upper Derwent Valley, for me this was more an historical exercise rather than a birding one as as you may see from the odd post I am also a bit of an aviation nut and wanted to see where 617 Squadron did their practices before raiding the dams in Germany. Of course there may have been a few birds about too! First the historical bit,
The 617b Squadron Memorial

 A bit of info,

 The Derwent Reservoir Dam

We did get our first Chiffchaff of the year while walking around,

as well as more Willow Warblers, an obliging Wren,

a couple of Buzzards over the trees and loads of Chaffinch, but with all the people there wasn't much else about.

We then went for a drive and explored the countryside,

We ended up back near Buxton towards the end of the day, looking for somewhere to park up admire the view and perhaps see some birds, we ended up on one of the roads into the Goyt Valley, where we initially saw a couple of Curlew, before parking and watching our first 'English' Red Grouse.

The next day we checked out of the hotel and went back to the Goyt Valley for a walk around the reservoirs, we didn't see much on the first leg of the walk, just some Mallard, Canada Geese, a couple of Lesser Black-backed Gulls and distant female Goosander. Things perked up on the second leg walking through the woods, Treecreeper and Goldcrest being the stars,

Followed by a Coal Tit

Before heading home we ended up driving over the Moors near Goyt, where we had an excellent showing by a male and female Red Grouse, though the female was very camera shy.

We then took the scenic route home, seeing our first Wheatear of the year in one of the gorges. So a really lovely couple of days with kind but at the end cold weather. Lets hope our next trip is as kind as we are hoping to get to Cape Wrath up the north west tip of Scotland and also visit Handa Island, for both of which we need calm days!

RSPB Coombes Valley

We have just had a couple of days up in the Peak District staying in Buxton, but on the way up we thought we would give Coombes Valley a try, never having been before.

First impressions were good the volunteers were friendly and helpful, we had hoped that the resident Woodcock might already be active, but we were a bit to early in the year for that and the Pied Flycatchers and Redstarts that breed here hadn't arrived yet, never mind!

We set out with the aim to walk the whole reserve, not realising how steep the paths are in some places, but we made it round. The birds were pretty elusive, but the scenery was brilliant,

So very few bird photographs, but we did see;
Willow Warbler, Goldcrest, Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tit, Nuthatch, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay, Chaffinch, Pied and Grey Wagtail, Buzzard, Kestrel and our first Collared Dove of the year, plus all the usual suspects and two Canada Geese who had built a nest on the side of the pond in the middle of the woods!

A lovely but very tiring day, before our final 30 minute drive to our hotel in Buxton.

New Species for Our Garden

The other morning as went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea I had a real surprise, with a new visitor to our garden, not a rare species by any means, but considering our pond is only about 5 foot by 4 foot and a 2 foot deep, it will hold meager pickings for this Grey Heron:

It gave me time to dash upstairs and get my camera, before it spotted my movement in the kitchen and flew off, much to the relief of our resident frogs!

Afternoon Stroll at Haden Hill

I can't believe that it is over 2 months since we last went to Haden Hill and I did the last post about our walk. But with limited time we spent a couple of hours there on Wednesday afternoon in lovely sunshine. The walk got off to a very quiet start, last time on the first bit of the walk we had seen Goldcrest, Treecreeper and Nuthatch, but not this time. Of course there was plenty of spring singing going on, roughly translated as 'Look at me!' This coming mainly from Blue & Great Tits, Chaffinch and Robin, with Blackbird adding to the chorus.

Eventually when we moved away from the paths to the top of the reserve things got a bit busier, with our first 2017 sighting of Willow Warbler, although they wouldn't stay still long enough for a photo.

Goldfinch and a single Bullfinch put in an appearance, before I spotted a Nuthatch on a distant dead tree,

There were a couple of Starlings gathering nesting material, one took the opportunity to have a breather and pose for the camera.

A chap we spoke to told us he had seen a Kingfisher down at the pool but no sign of it when we looked, never mind. A nice couple of hours, with 23 species seen, not too shabby!