Having dipped on White-tailed Eagles when in Scotland back in January, and wanting to see Dotterel I booked another Heatherlea trip titled Eagles, Divers and Dotterel. This time I flew from Luton to Inverness then train and taxi to Nethy Bridge. After checking in I went to the river and had my fix of Dipper once more.
Our first full day of birding was on Sunday 10th where we visited Loch Garten for Crested Tit but as before none were seen but one was heard, the next site was Lochindorb were Red Grouse were seen but with it being hot the Loch was full of anglers and water sport enthusiasts and there was no sign of the Black Throated Divers. The best bird of the day ending up being Slavonion Grebe and Spotted Flycatcher.
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| Spotted Flycatcher |
Monday 11th after an early breakfast we set off for Mull seeing Black Guillemot on the crossing and both Golden and White-tailed Eagles
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| Golden Eagle |
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| White-tailed Eagle |
Tuesday 12th we had a full day on Mull getting better views of the Eagles and seeing several of the commoner sea bird species. The highlight for me was seeing a Sea Otter out of the water. Sadly no pics of him.
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| White-tailed Eagles |
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| White-tailed Eagle phone scoped |
Other birds of note seen were a flock of Twite, a family of Winchat,Red-throated Diver, Arctic Terns, a Whooper Swan and several Hooded Crows. We had to return to the hotel to collect our lunch before heading for the ferry back to the mainland.
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| Hotel at ? |
While having lunch at the ferry terminal we watched the Black Guillemots at their nesting site on the quay.
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| Black Guillemot. |
We returned back to Nethy Bridge via the scenic route arriving just in time for dinner.
Due to the weather forecast it was reluctantly decided by the guides that the 4 of us who wanted to go up Cairngorm would be Wednesday. Setting off in reasonable weather it gradually became colder the higher we went, and once at the funicular railway terminus waterproofs and gloves were needed
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| Accending Cairngorm |
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| Cairngorm summit |
At the summit apart from a couple of Ravens we were treated to a family of Snow buntings eating cake crumbs left by someone. Sadly no sign of Dotterel or Ptarmigan probably due to the high number of people using the mountain for recreation.
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| Male Snow Bunting. |
After coming down the mountain we had a hot drink, then went to see the Ring Ouzels that had nested near by but only managed to see a juvenile. In the evening went to Dorbach and surrounding area where we saw a Short-eared Owl
Thursday 14th we went back to Lochindorb to look for the Black-throated Divers seeing several Red Squirrels on our way we eventually saw the Divers all be it distant.
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| Black-throated Divers |
We then had a quick drive around the infamous estate not seeing Capercaillie and having lunch before heading off to Loch Insh to see the nesting Ospreys.
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Nesting Ospreys.
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Friday our last day, we headed for the coast - to Troup Head here we spent most of the day at the Gannet colony seeing Guillemot, Razorbill, Puffin, Kittiwake and the commoner Gulls
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| Troup Head |
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| Gannets |
Off shore we could see a couple of Minkie Whales and in the surrounding fields were Corn Buntings and Yellowhammers, on the way back to the hotel we stopped at Cullen Bay and eventually added Tree Sparrow to our list.
The hotel and food as usual was very good and enjoyable. The trip was a bit disappointing as last year no Dotterel were seen on Cairngorm and the previous week on the same trip none were seen yet we were still taken to Cairngorm to look for them and I see that next year they are still advertising the same trip to see Dotterel!
The journey back to Luton started at 6.15am with the taxi and finally arriving back in Luton at 3.30pm if there is a next time I'll probably drive.
