Day 6

After getting back from seeing the Pine Marten and Badgers at about 1am, the obvious solution would be to have a nice, long lay in. Instead, we got up at 7am to go to Loch Garten for a guided tour. The weather seems to be getting better each day (it was t-shirt weather for most of the day today!!).

Highlights:

Crossbill

Crested Tit (heard only)

Common Frog

Juvenile Dipper

Juvenile Great-Spotted Woodpecker

Roe Deer

Goldeneye

Willow Warbler

Common Sandpiper

Red Squirrel

Total number of species of bird seen or heard after 6 and a half days: 77

Common Frog

Juvenile Great-Spotted Woodpecker

Roe Deer

Red Squirrel

Loch Garten

Loch Mallachie

Day 5

Glorious weather today! We visited Ballindalloch Castle in the morning, Loch Eileen in the afternoon and the Speyside Wildlife Hide in the evening. We got there at 20:30, waited for almost 2 hours before seeing at least 6 badgers, then, when we were 5 minutes from leaving we saw the Pine Marten at 23:40. It stayed feeding for 10 minutes - less than 2 metres from our hide! Well worth the wait!

Highlights:

Pine Marten

Badger

Red Deer

Wood Mouse

Field Vole

Red Squirrel

Grey Wagtail

Goldcrest

Common Sandpiper

Meadow Pipit

Common Tern

Total number of species of bird seen or heard after day 5: 73

Badger

 

Badger

Pine Marten

Film of a Pine Marten 

Film of two Red Deer

Common Tern

Red Squirrel












Loch Eileen

Field Vole

Day 4

The weather was a lot better today - no rain, no sun. We visited RSPB Loch Ruthven and Chanonry Point.

Highlights:
Slavonian Grebe
Red-Breasted Merganser
Red-Legged Partridge
Little Grebe
Red Kite
Willow Warbler
Dipper
Bottlenose Dolphin

Total number of species of bird seen or heard after day 4: 71

 Bottlenose Dolphin

Bottlenose Dolphin

  Film of two Bottlenose Dolphins

 Dipper at RSPB Fairy Glen

 Slavonian Grebe

 Juvenile Swallow

Siskin

Day 3

Despite heavy rain falling throughout the day we managed to visit Anagach Woods and Loch Garten.

Highlights:

Treecreeper

Coal Tit

Osprey

Wigeon

Red Squirrel

Total number of species of bird seen or heard after day 3: 63



Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

Ospreys at Loch Garten

Treecreeper

Treecreeper Video

Juvenile Siskin

Day 2

First few photos taken on the journey up, but the Meadow Pipit, Swallow and Dipper were all taken where we are staying (Tomnavoulin).

Highlights:

Curlew

Wheatear

Ring Ouzel

Meadow Pipit

Siskin

Dipper

Spotted Flycatcher

Hare

Total number of species of bird seen or heard after day 2: 57

Ring Ouzel

We stopped for lunch mid-way through our journey through Scotland and immediately found a Ring Ouzel. We had great views and were all delighted as it was a "lifer" (first ever viewing of the bird) for all of us. Very similar to a blackbird, just the large white patch on it's chest is different.

Ring Ouzel with it's lunch

The view we had whilst eating lunch













Wheatear

Not a great photo as it was quite distant but another great find as I had only seen the bird once before. There seemed to be a family flitting about.

 Swallow













Meadow Pipit

Juvenile Dipper

Day 1

We spent 6 hours on the Farne Islands and were very lucky to have great weather, despite the forecast predicting "Thundery Showers" throughout the week!

Highlights:

Puffin

Guillemot

Razorbill

Fulmar

Eider Duck

Gannet

Arctic Tern

Sandwich Tern

Rock Pipit

Ringed Plover

Bullfinch

Atlantic Grey Seal

Total number of species of bird seen or heard after day 1: 37

Puffin with a mouth-full of snad eels

Puffin

Juvenile Shag

Juvenile Kittiwake

Razorbill

Kittiwake

Puffin

Puffin

Adult and Juvenile Oystercatcher

Adult Guillemot with Juveniles

Arctic Tern

Puffin

Puffins

Puffins

Puffin

Puffin

Puffin

Juvenile Shags

Puffins

Adult and Juvenile Sandwich Terns

Arctic Tern with sand eel

Juvenile Puffin