On Thursday 2nd January, Emily and I left a cold and sunny Hampshire and began our journey northwards, eventually arriving the following day at our temporary accommodation at Aigas, close to Beauly in Inverness-shire.
Since then, we've been birding a fair bit, starting on Saturday 4th on the Black Isle, getting nice views of Hawfinches with four seen, plus at Udale Bay were approximately 270 Scaup. A week in Stirling for our induction training was fun, but probably best remembered for the drake Smew in Clyde, a species I haven't seen for many years, especially a drake! Also here were many Goosander. On Saturday 11th, I drove north in beyond freezing conditions to Helmsdale and checked many coastal sites heading south to Cromarty Firth, with highlights being a dozen Purple Sandpipers, a drake Green-winged Teal and White-tailed Eagle at Loch Fleet and another flock of Scaup in the firth, plus lots of Slavonian Grebes.
This past week we've been to many sites for work, but were lucky to find a nice adult Iceland Gull at Lossiemouth while eight Purple Sandpipers were in the harbour here. We also had a Hawfinch and Tawny Owl in our garden this week adding to the list of nice stuff seen so far.
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| Goosander |
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| Woodcock |
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| Purple Sandpiper, Turnstone and Sanderling |
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| Golden Plover |
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| Smew |
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| some interesting cloud formations up here |
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adult Iceland Gull - looking quite large here
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