Birding in the north of Scotland August 2014 (Part 1)

Hi folks, this is my first attempt at this type of presentation of my photos so please bear with me if it all goes wrong.!! If you're reading this then hopefully all is well, and if you want to see the photos in 'full size' you can just click on them. I've found that pressing and holding Ctrl whilst clicking on the + or - buttons on the keyboard will increase or decrease the size of the page which should allow you to see the photos a bit larger if you wanted to do this without having to 'open' the photos. It's worth a try. Anyway, we spent a week up on the north coast of Scotland, in Sutherland, so I thought I'd share a few of the photos I took when we were up there. To begin with, this instalment will cover the first two days there. The first three photos were taken on day 1, on our journey north. I had been led to read a fictitious story from a link on the RSPB forums. This story was about an Osprey that had been hatched in the area of the Kyle of Sutherland, so with this in mind, I took a a few shots of the area as we came down over Struie Hill, this first one being a panoramic view from a parking area overlooking part of the Kyle.

As the story had been a work of fiction, I wasn't expecting to see any Ospreys in the area, but to my surprise, just before we got to Bonar Bridge, I managed to grab a few shots of this Osprey, who just happened to fly over as we were passing. To begin with, when I first seen the bird, I thought it was actually a Gull, until it shook itself in mid air (as Ospreys often do to rid themselves of excess water.)

I've had to brighten the photos a bit due to the bird being silhouetted against the sky, but I'm still quite happy with the shots.

 It made my day seeing this, as I hadn't thought there was any chance of me seeing an Osprey here.

 The area where we were going to is dominated by views of Ben Loyal, this next shot of part of the mountain was taken somewhere between Altnahara and Tongue.

 This is a closer view of one of the crags.

 Once we had arrived at the wee cottage where we were staying, this Common Buzzard was seen hunting in the distance over the hill at the rear of the cottage.

 The bird moved a bit closer in its search for prey.

This shot is as close as it came, but the photo has still been cropped, and brightened up a bit.

Moving onto the second day now, the cottage overlooked this cracking bay area.

 We took a wee trip down to the local harbour on our first full day up here, the first things we saw were a few Oystercatchers, this being one of them.

 Deciding to have a walk along the coast, we passed this Rock Pipit who seemed to be taking it easy on the shoreline rocks.

 A bit of a preening session took place.

 With a few wing stretches to finish with.

 There was a decent swell out in the bay, although it was still relatively calm and really warm on shore.

 I'll add a few shots of the sea breaking over the rocks.

A few isolated cottages can be seen on the far shore, near Bettyhill.

On the way back, another Rock Pipit was seen, he insisted on having his photo taken...

... twice.

 There were more Oystercatchers in the harbour area.

Flying this way....

And that way.

A few more shots....

We then moved on over to Tongue where we decided to take a walk up the hill to an old ruin called Castle Varrich. It's only a very small building, and on the way up we spotted this rather pretty Speckled Wood Butterfly

Once we were up at the top, we had a good view over towards Tongue, and out over the Kyle. This shot is looking east towards Tongue from the inside of the ruin.

 A view to the north

 And a panoramic shot of the same view.

 Followed by a panoramic view towards the south. Ben Loyal can bee seen in the distance, peeking over the hill in the middle of the shot, with Ben Hope further to the right in the distance.

On the way back down the hill we saw lots of butterflies, including this gorgeous Small Tortoiseshell.

 And this Dark Green Fritillary.

 A male Common Darter was also among the things to be seen. Thanks to the folks on the RSPB forums for the ID's on the Fritillary and the Dragonfly.

 

 Another Speckled Wood Butterfly, with a view of the underside of the wing.

Back down over the river and on our way back uphill towards the Ben Loyal Hotel, (photography in the sunshine is thirsty work), we spotted a few Greylag Geese passing by, this being one of them.

 And another shot as it passed over, and out of sight. I'm thinking it's possibly a young bird or going through a moult due to the colouring, but I'm open to correction about this.

 To the right of the path, this was the view that was to be had, with Ben Loyal looking splendid in the distance.

 Suitably refreshed, we moved on down the wee road which runs around the shoreline of the Kyle of Tongue, where this closer view of Ben Loyal was captured.

 A distinctive call was heard from above as we rounded the bottom of the Kyle and I was delighted to see these Ravens as they flew above the hill.

 A wee bit further round again revealed this Grey Heron fishing in the brackish water.

 Unhappy at having its photo taken from the road, it decided to move off to somewhere more peaceful.

 Once again the distinct sound of a Raven was heard and another bird came into view.

 The Raven was still against the sky in the rough direction of the sun, hence the dark images of the bird.

It did pass over me at quite a close distance however, allowing me to get these shots with the light passing through the wing and tail feathers.

 A slightly different angle...notice the distinct 'wedge shaped' tail.

 And back to the 'shot from below'.

 The Raven also got somewhat bored with all the photography, and soon made it's retreat back towards the hillside...

...Where it joined in with the blissful pastime of a bit of synchronised flying with its accomplices.!! 

 

 This next wee bird is, I believe, a juvenile Stonechat, but once again I'll be more than happy to be corrected about this. I'd never seen a Stonechat before this one, and it seemed to open the flood gates for us, and for the rest of the week up here, we saw Stonechats everywhere we went.

 A different bird but still, I think, a Juvenile Stonechat.

 Another Stonechat in the grass beside the road, although I'm unsure as to the age or gender of this one.

With time moving on, and the rumbling of my stomach, the journey back to the cottage found a few Rabbits along the way, this particularly cute one insisting on posing for a photo. 

 We were stopped along the road at one point by a few 'free range' cattle lying on the road; This turned out to be a blessing as shortly afterwards, this beautiful male Stonechat decided to pose on top of the Ferns for us at the side of the road.

 Oh oh, I've got a feeling that he's maybe spotted us.!!

 Although a passing fly did capture his attention.

And one final shot of him to end this particular episode.

 I have to say that I was delighted by the amount of different things we'd come across in the first two days, so I was looking forward to seeing what else would turn up in the coming week. Some of these things will be covered in the next instalment. I hope you've enjoyed taking a trip through this area with me.

Paul