Saturday 20th January I took an Easyjet flight Gatwick to Inverness for a week of Scottish Winter Birding with Heatherlea. Landing around 2.00 pm I walked to the new Inverness airport train station and got a train to Inverness, changing trains and another to Aviemore arriving at 4.30pm and promptly collected and taken to The Mountview Hotel my stay for the week.
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| Coming in to land at Inverness |
Settling into the hotel I had been given a room in the attic, however as with the Mountview there are squeaky floorboards It was me making the noise and no one above!
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| My room |
As usual the food was good and the local beers always go down well, I had a good nights sleep.
Sunday 21st Breakfast at 7am and a full Scottish breakfast of course we set off at 8 with our guide Mike Coleman (who lives locally). Our first stop was at Grantown Woods.
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| Grantown Woods |
With snow laying left from last weeks blizzards we walked the woods in total silence until after 20 minutes suddenly a female Capercaillie crashed out of a pine tree above our heads, that was the first bird of the trip and for me was bird of the trip. Further into the woods we saw a male Crossbill and then moved onto some other sites seeing more Scottish specialities
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| Golden Eagle |
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| White-tailed Eagle |
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| White-tailed Eagle |
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| Crested Tit |
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| Crested Tit |
Up at Cairngorm car park with a storm warning we could hardly get out the mini bus, but with the window down being in the front seat I was able to get a couple of shots of the Snow Buntings in the car park.
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| Snow Bunting |
From Cairngorm we went to Aviemore to find the reported Waxwings but with no luck we moved on to Insh Marshes but by now the rain had set in but we managed to get a glimpse of 2 Whooper Swans that were merely blobs in the distance.
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Whooper Swans at dusk in the rain.
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A good nights sleep and we start again.
Monday 22nd. with an uncertain forecast we first headed to the Black Grouse Lek just south of Tomintoul, as usual they didn't disappoint with 11 males displaying in the distance.
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| Black Grouse very poorly digiscoped |
Heading back towards Grantown we twitched the Great Grey Shrike that had been seen several days before - was sitting on the top of the birch trees but flew. Also seen was a stoat in ermine my first ever
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| Great Grey Shrike territory |
From there we headed back to Aviemore for another go to find the Waxwings, eventually we did and got up close to a flock of a dozen birds.
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| Waxwing |
Later that morning saw us heading north to Dingwall to twitch the Snow Goose, feeding in a field of a thousand geese predominantly Pink footed Geese,also Greylags, a couple of real Barnacle Geese and a lone Greenland White-froted Goose
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| Geese! |
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| Snow goose with Greylags and Pink-footed |
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| Snow Goose with Pink-footed and Greylags |
A trip around the Black Isle we picked up Grey Partridge, some rafts of Scaup, Tree Sparrows , several species of wader some Long-tailed Ducks, Red -throated Diver and Red-breasted Mergansers.
Another brilliant day!
Tuesday 23rd January, With a grim fore cast today we headed for the Moray Coast hoping to be in the lee of the wind, at Burghead Harbour as the rain set in we saw close up Long-tailed Duck and Eider in really bad light.
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| Eiders |
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| Long-tailed Duck (male) |
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| Long-tailed Ducks (M&F) |
Around the corner from the harbour a look on the sea found a couple of Purple Sandpipers
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| Purple Sandpiper |
Also several Common Scoter unfortunately no Velvet Scoter
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| Common Scoter |
Wednesday 24th, once again avoiding the wind and rain we headed off to Aberdeenshire and arriving at Fraserburgh a look around the harbour couldn't find any rare gulls so next stop was at Cairnbulg harbour where Red-breasted Merganser and Long-tailed Duck were seen. The weather had brightened but still a stiff breeze.
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| Merganser and Long-tailed Duck |
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| Cairnbulg Harbour |
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| Red-breasted Merganser |
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| Long-tailed Duck |
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| Looking for Gulls |
From here we went Loch of Strathbeg where we saw vast numbers of Whooper Swans, but couldn't find the Smew that had been reported. Our last stop of the day was at Peterhead Harbour to look for the reported Iceland Gull. Amazingly Mike spotted it as we drove around the harbour. Then while out of the mini bus we saw another. However after a look at the photos later it appears the first bird we saw was in fact a Glaucous Gull.
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| Glaucous Gull |
A long journey back to the hotel, but once again an enjoyable day.
Thursday 25th. we headed off to the west coast seeing several Red Kites over the Black Isle but but other birds were thin on the ground as we crossed the mountains. We did see several wild Mountain Goats.
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| Wild Mountain Goat |
Eventually reaching Lock Broombeg we saw 2 Black Guillemot and a distant White-tailed Eagle
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| Black Guillemot |
Moving round Gruinard Bay we picked up Black-throated Diver and 2 Slavonion Grebes.
The scenery here was absolutely stunning, and so quiet.
At the village of Aultbea we found an excellent example of a Hooded Crow and for me almost bird of the trip a real Rock Dove, another Red-breasted Merganser was near by
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| Hooded Crow |
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| Red-breasted Merganser |
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| Real Rock Dove |
We ended up in Mellon Udrigle for lunch, a deserted beach with a couple of houses, Long-tailed Ducks and Common Scoter on the sea.
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| Mellon Udrigle |
From here we slowly made our way back to Nethy Bridge, making a detour to Nairn so I could get my tick of Pale-bellied Brent Geese arriving back at the hotel just in time for dinner.
Friday 26th, Today was the only chance of the week to visit Glenshee but with overnight snow the roads were not easy. We stopped for another look at the Black Grouse Lek , encountering no end of road side Red Grouse.
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Chaffinches
We also found a small flock of Crossbills
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Back at the hotel we enjoyed our last evening meal together with everyone saying their bird of the trip - I had several but the best moment was the Capper crashing out of the trees on the first day.
Saturday morning after breakfast I took a walk down to the river but it was still in full flow and I couldn't find any Dipper. Mike collected me at 10.30 and dropped me off at Aviemore. With trains and the flight on time I arrived back home at 6.00 pm.
