Scottish Birding Holiday May / June 2016 Our holiday to Scotland was really to go to my brother’s for his 70th birthday. In 2014 when we went to Scotland birding at about the same time (perhaps 4 days earlier) we felt that we had done rather better but then we were guided by John Poyner;…
Scotland Holiday Day 13: Moffat Community Nature Reserve 10th June 2016 This was technically the last day of our holiday and it was all returning home now. We had decided to break the trip from Musselburgh to Manchester by staying at a pub in Penrith so as not to arrive on a Friday night in…
Scotland Holiday Day 12: Aberlady Bay 9th June 2016 With a bit of time to spare on our second day in the Musselburgh area, we decided to drive down the coast to Aberlady. We parked in the small car park near the boardwalk and walked the mile and a half each way out to the…
Scotland Holiday Day 11: Bass Rock 8th June 2016 After we left St Andrews, we drove to Musselburgh, our next family destination, but we were early enough that we decided to drive down to the Scottish Seabird Centre at North Berwick. Totally out of the blue Inoticed that there was a boat trip out to…
Scotland Holiday Day 10: Isle of May 7th June 2016 We had booked a trip out to the Isle of May with Anstruther Pleasure Cruises some time prior to our holiday. I had, been on a couple of RIBs out to the island before but this makes photography a bit tricky when out at sea….
Scotland Holiday Day 9: RSPB Fowlsheugh 6th June 2016 We left New Deer on the 6th and, as usual, we dropped in at RSPB Fowlsheugh which is a convenient stopping point once you have got south of Aberdeen. It was another fine day and this place never ceases to astonish. It surely must be one…
Scotland Holiday Day 8: Ythan Estuary at Newburgh 5th June 2016 Again this was a family day but, again, we got some birding in. My family, despite living just a few miles alay from Newburgh, had never been to this part of the estuary and on a blazingly hot day they were captivated by it….
Scotland Holiday Day 7: Loch of Strathbeg 4th June 2016 At this stage of our holiday we were more oriented to family than birding but, of course, we always manage to find a way to introduce a little bit so we dragged the family to Loch of Strathbeg. The whole place is being done up…
Scotland Holiday Day 6: Bullers of Buchan 3rd June 2016 We left Grantown rather regretting the missed birds, Crested Tit, Ptarmigan, Capercaillie, Black Grouse but we had got some nice birds and, indeed, a life tick so we couldn’t really complainn; especially since the weather had been so good almost all of the time. One…
Scotland Holiday Day 5: Anagach Forest, Loch Garten, Lochindorb and Nethy Bridge 2nd June 2016 I started off the day with a walk in Anagach Forest but didn’t get any Cresties. I did get a lot of pictures of Red Squirrels, some of which should be OK. I also got a couple of longer distance…
