A Tour of the Outer Hebrides Part1 - Barra, Eriskay, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist

Finally looked through all the photos so here is a quick tour of the Outer Hebrides starting with a five hour ferry from Oban to Barra. The weather wasn't great but what can you expect in Summer! The crossing was a bit squally and very murky at times, we did see our first Black Guillemots of the year along with some Guillemots and Gannets, but the highlight although in the murk were the Manx Shearwater:

We arrived on Barra about 6:30 in the evening so headed straight to our very nice hotel and settled in for the night. Next day we did a full round trip of the island including Vatersay, firstly spending some time at the 'Airport' to see on the only scheduled beach landing airline service in the world, I missed videoing the landing but here's the take off:

Barra itself is a lovely island very picturesque:

Plenty of birds about but didn't get close to that many,
Rock Pipit

 Greylag

 Kittiwake

 March of the Eiders!

and a fly by by a Great Skua

A total of 36 bird species seen on Barra, but  sadly no Otters or Cetaceans. The next morning saw us head for the ferry to Eriskay with a causeway to South Uist and on to Benbecula and North Uist and our next hotel at Lochmaddy. The crossing was less than an hour giving us some good sea bird sightings:

We stopped at the ferry terminal on Eriskay for a bit as allegedly it is a good place for Otters but not today! A Stonechat gave us some nice views in the drizzle though!

We took our time driving north through South Uist and Benbecula, we had a great time exploring on the way north stopping at any place that looked interesting for views and wildlife, the highlight coming when we stopped down a lane overlooking a loch populated main;y by Greylags. Tina had got out of the car to get some supplies from the boot, when she rushed back and said I can hear a Corncrake! We raced out and tracked it down in the adjacent field. There were two calling to one another and we had great views of one of them. Like an idiot though I had left the camera in the car! Plonker! I raced back to get it after watching for a while, but of course when I got back (90 seconds at most) the Corncrake had hidden itself and didn't come out again although we could hear it really well. C'est la vie! As the afternoon went on though the weather worsened and we concentrated on getting to our Hotel in Lochmaddy.

The next morning we set off for RSPB Balranald where Redshanks on posts entertained us on the drive in and a Snipe showed as we parked up, a good start. It's about a 3 mile walk around the reserve starting off through farmland where again we heard Corncrake calling but not showing even though we hung around for a while! Elusive little ..........!

Some other more obliging birds:
Meadow Pipit

Dunlin

Eider

Turnstone

Ringed Plover

Dunlin with Ringed Plover Flypast

Arctic Tern

Oystercatcher

Sanderling

Wheatear

Little Stint

After surviving a rain shower by hiding in the sand dunes we continued what was a brilliant walk, again looking for views of the Corncrake on the way back, but no luck, although we could hear them again! We then explored the area a fair bit finding:
Redshank on a post

 and Snipe on a post!

The weather improved considerably and we came across an Eagle watch point, with a somewhat surly Yorkshire Man 'guardian' who took offence when we didn't introduce ourselves straight away because we were too busy watching a pair of Golden Eagles!

A bit further on we had a Short-eared Owl encounter:

Followed by a Hen Harrier flying over the car, but disappearing over the trees before I could get the camera out! That was to be the story with all our Hen Harrier sightings.

So all in all a great time so far!

Cosford Airshow 2015

After a hectic June I have finally found some time to catch up with a the blog. I will start by going heavy metal and my yearly indulgence of adding some metal (and wooden!) birds to the post for this year. At the moment this may be our only airshow this year, although you never know!

So onto the airshow, a very cloudy and sometimes dark but mostly dry day made for a great day out, although this made photography somewhat more difficult. The star of the day and any airshow for that matter is the Vulcan so lets start with that and a poor video done with my DSLR and a heavy 500mm lens making tracking a bit tough, but that's what you get for leaving the video camera at home!

And some stills:

As this is really a wildlife blog I won't put to many pics on here just a few highlights, but you can find the rest by clicking: here

Some of the rest:!

Charlcote Park NT

Another visit to our favourite National Trust property on Thursday to take advantage of the Sun.

This was just a quick get away for a few hours and the opportunity fore a nice walk by the Avon. We didn't expect much birding and there wasn't although the Herons from the large Heronry were busy fishing and chasing one another always good to see some action, the Swans weren't that happy with them though:

There were plenty of Swallows skimming the grass and nesting at various locations all over the house. A couple of Buzzards were floating very high over the park land and a Great Spotted Woodpecker gave us some good views inspecting a hole in one of the trees (I wasn't quick enough with the camera though!)

The far side of the park was closed to protect the pregnant Deer, but on the house side of the park all the young stags were showing well:

A very pleasant afternoon, made even better when our brilliant daughter phoned us to say that she has 'passed' her Phd and is now a Doctor of Physical Mathematics!

A 'Tern' up for the books at Upton

On Sunday we took our good friends Keith & Liz to Upton for the afternoon, primarily to see the Avocets and their broods. I did look at the Birds Forum on the morning to see if anything else was happening and saw that a Black Tern had been seen at the Sailing Pool about 8:30 in the morning, I didn't hold up any hope of seeing it as we weren't planning to get there until 2ish, but to my and our surprise it was still there zooming around the pool picking up what it could. I tried some photos but trying to focus as it flew around was nigh on impossible, I did get a record shot though:

So a lifer for us and on our favourite reserve, bonus!

We carried on to the hide overlooking the flashes, where of course plenty was going on:
Lapwing with 3 chicks (the 3rd is just under the adult..)

 Little Ringed Plover

 Avocet

 Avocet young

 Lapwing chick

 Shelduck and ducklings

We then went over to the Moors Pools, again admiring the Black Tern, who was still cavorting around the Sailing Lake.
Mute Swan on approach!

Juvenile Long-tailed Tit

Vociferous Reed Bunting

Canada Goose

Sedge Warbler

Greenfinch

TTFN!