Lake District and Scotland (part two)

The following day we embarked on stage two of the journey to Aviemore (where we'd opted to base ourselves for the Scottish part of the journey). We stopped for lunch in Dalwhinnie, and as we left the car park I saw two or three largeish birds in the opposite field. We stopped, and got the bins out and identified them as golden plovers, which was a first for me. And then a lovely male in summper plumage put his head up, rendering the previous id efforts almost pointless!

We made it to our destination in good time and took in a tour of Tomatin distillery (unremarkable tour, pleasant enough whisky!) and headed up the Findhorn Valley in search of eagles and ouzels. Along with a vast herd of red deer and two hares (possibly one of each type), there was a small group of birders with scopes at the end of the track, so we got out and asked what they were watching, which turned out to be a nesting Peregrine. They let us have a look, whhich was kind, and then we walked on up the valley surrounded by house martins and noisy oystercatchers. No dippers on the river, no ring ouzels (I think we could hear them) and large brown birds of prey appeared above the hills on two occasions; the first was definitely a buzzard, in my opinion, but from the frustratingly brief look at the second I got, I'm really not sure about the second. Seemed bigger and brown beneath the wings. Still, didn't get a positive id on it so its down as a maybe!

After that, we headed to Aviemore, and were pleased to see lapwings in the field next to the b&b, and swifts overhead (in fact, I think virtually every town we visited or passed through had swifts!). Other than that, Aviemore is thoroughly unremarkable!

Thursday dawned, and we set off for Skye! Our route North provdied several buzzards and took us past the Black Isle north of Inverness, and a spectacular piece of poor navigation by me put us 15 miles in the wrong direction; however, the wrong turn did provide us with two red kites we wouldn't have otherwise seen, so I believe it was serendipity rather than poor map reading on my part! The very scenic route across to Kyle of Lochalsh provided us with a very good view of a soaring golden eagle overhead, and as we approached the bridge we got our first views of hooded crows, which I always like seeing as they're so different to the crows here!

The purpose of the trip to Skye was to hopefully see a sea eagle, but as we drew close it became apparent I hadn't really researched it very well. That notwithstanding, almost as soon as we got off the bridge, my attention was drawn to a bird with a simply massive wing span flying off into the distance. By the time we'd stopped and got the bins out,it was out of sight, and so it will have to go down as a maybe, but if it wasn't one, I'd love to know what it was! We stopped in Portree for lunch, and then headed out on the Staffin road to the Old Man of Storr. We climbed up to it (literally, since we took the wrong path at the top!) and were rewarded with two very confiding ravens. Wheatears and meadow pipits abound on Skye, and lots of things that I think were twites but can't quite be sure, but other than that we didn't do especially brilliantly for birds on Skye; we stopped at Duntulm castle at the top of the island and there were gulls and shags on an island just off the coast. I particularly enjoyed the fine views of the outer hebrides, seeing as this was my first visit to a hebride of any description! We continued our tour of the Trotternish peninsular all the way round to Uig, and then headed towards Penifiler in the hope to resume the eagle search. Couldn't find any access or anywhere to park the car, so gave up! We headed instead to the otter hide at Kylerhea. No otters, but lots of seals in the water were fun to watch, and a couple of herons fishing. Eventually, we headed back across the bridge for the long drive back to Aviemore.

Next day, we headed to RSPB Troup Head on the opposite side. This is a coastal cliff reserve and Scotland's only mainland Gannet colony. the drive there provided more buzzards, and as we got closer onto the very small roads we saw yellowhammers too. The reserve is great, we got astoundingly close to the gannets who didn't seem at all bothered and also great views of the razorbills and guillemots. The information boards said if we were lucky we might see a puffin, and we were doubly lucky because we saw two! I was chuffed to be able to pick them out from the cliff as they were a little way out to sea. We then headed to Banff for lunch and saw rock pipits on the harbour, and made our way back along the coast towards Elgin, stopping at Portsoy to look at the old harbours. Having seen Elgin cathedral we headed inland to Cawdor Castle, but we were approaching last admission so settled for an ice cream and a quick peek over the wall instead! We then followed the country roads inland to the Ardclach Bell Tower. The tower is nice and the walk back from it provided a blackcap, but the river below is much nicer, and having befriended a horse, we went down to see if we could find a dipper (they'd been frustrating me all trip thus far!) no luck initally, so we made our way a few hundred metres up the bank, and found ourselves staring directly across at a dipper. He (or she) didn't move from his spot the whole time we were there, but while we were watching him something else flew by... I initially thought it might be a baby dipper, but once I'd found it on the rocks I could see clearly it was a common sandpiper, another lifer! I was suprised to find this was the same River Findhorn as we'd visited two days earlier, although a lot further along! Back in the car, we continued our scenic touring, and got a great spotted woodpecker, and four curlews up on the heather moors. I'd not seen them anyway but muddy places before! We went to Tomintoil for our dinner, and they had swifts and house martins there too. The drive back provided me with the first red grouse I've ever seen not on a whiskey bottle, and so all in all it was a very good day!

(there's still a part three to come!)