Our annual trip to the Scottish Highlands commenced on 25th April 2013, returning on 29th April 2013. Usual stuff and usual fantastic B&B accomodation. The weather throughout the trip went from atrocious, to spring like, with some warm, albeit brief, interludes of sunshine. Funnily we managed to dodge the bad weather and never got wet but did get extremely cold on one or two occassions, especially at the early morning "Caper Watch" at Loch Garten. As it is illegal to roam the forest areas in the highlands during 1st April through to 31st May, the organised RSPB "Capercaille Watch" at Loch Garten is really the only way of seeing these magnificent birds without any undue disturbance to their Leks. There now seems to be only around 1100 birds left in Scotland and I wonder how long it will be before this fantastic bird disappears from Britain.
We effectively got all of our target species, apart from Scottish Crossbill, which were rather non-existent. In fact we were lucky to see a single male Parrot Crossbill.
A complete white-out, 40 mile an hour wind and horizontal blizzard, greeted us at top of Cairngorm. So did two stunning male Ptarmigan and a flock of 12 Snow Buntings in the main car park, so it was a worthwhile visit. There is still huge quantities of snow on Cairngorm tops, goodness knows what the Dotterel will think when they arrive. I suspect the Snowy Owl is still on Ben Macdui.
A fine male Capercaille performed for us on the Sunday morning "Caper Watch" with only about 7 people, including us, in the hide, perfect and a Crested Tit was frequently visiting the feeders, as were numerous Siskin, Coal Tit and Chaffinch. Also a couple of Red Squirrel.
Our usual loop route of Loch Maree, Gareloch and Gruinart Bay produced a variety of birds including White-tailed Eagle and many Great Northern Diver and Black Guillemot. The weather in the Findhorn Valley this year was simply atrocious but we battled on and eventually were rewarded with a fine Golden Eagle, a singing Ring Ouzel and several Wheatear, a single Peregrine and Merlin. Black-throated Diver and Osprey were seen at our usual place along with Red Grouse and many Common Sandpiper.
All in all a good few days in one of my favourite parts of Britain but the weather prevented any Moth Trapping this year.The Year List hit 161 at the end of the trip.
Male Parrot Crossbill – Loch Malachie – one of the first good birds of the trip – Tony Davison©
Above 5 imges – Male Chaffinch – Loch Garten – Tony Davison© – Many males but only smaller numbers of females
Male Siskin – Loch Garten – Tony Davison©
Above 3 images – Coal Tit – Loch Garten – Tony Davison© – Plenty around the feeding stations.
Above 3 images – Crested Tit – Loch Garten – Tony Davison©
Osprey – Highland – Tony Davison©
Above 3 images – Red Grouse – Highland – Tony Davison©
Avove 3 images – Snow Bunting – Cairngorm Car Park – Tony Davison©
Above 3 images – Loch Maree – Tony Davison©
Second Coast, Wester Ross – Tony Davison©
Lovely shots as normal. Like the Red Grouse pics.