First time I went on my own here. Almost never made it due to a closed road and being stuck behind two slow moving vehicles from farms. Arrived with 10 minutes to spare.
They have started accepting credit cards at the booth in Anstruther and rushing to get there on time was wasted on students , one by one, using their CC's. Couldn't one have paid for all and everyone give the one person money to pay back?
Boat was late leaving but still got our three hours on the island so no matter....

Was really looking forward to Spring this year as last year I went on an early weeks holiday and had started a job as well so missed out on a lot of days birding. So I was hoping to start off this with concentrating more getting about more. January started off well then February was just a lost month weather wise.
March was a bit quiet as March tends to be so with April now I was thinking ok, the migrants are coming and things will look up. But the weather is just being nasty again.
...

March 14th 2011:

Set off in the hope of seeing a Smew and the sun coming out.

The Smew was there with a juvenile Smew so knocked it off seeing two.
Pity my camera lens can't take good pics when they are at the centre of the loch or the other side of it for that matter.
I set off on one trail only for the Drake Smew to be on the other side. This was after treking through mud and freezing cold water and falling down 3 times. They really need to do something...

Went to Aberdeenshire using my brothers house as my base to set off into the unknown and some places I was familiar with.

I can't remember half the places I went to as some of the names were in gaelic only so I didn't really have a clue.
Drove round heading for a certain place and something would catch my eye as a place of interest and so I would deviate from my origional plans.
Not to be reccommended when the roads are still snowed in especially around the smaller...

I went to Killearn hoping to se the White Tailed Eagle that was spotted.
Using the closest post code I set off. I ended up on a country road still thick with ice that led to a farm house. There was another small road but was closed off.
About turned and drove around looking for a suitable place to park.

I could see the river but finding a parking place wasn't so easy. If you don't know the area, you just don't know where to go or where the best place to go at the river....