So last day, we final managed to get up early whoop!! The view from the window made me wish I'd done it before!!
I will miss the view from the sofa, our Sparrows and Starlings at home are great but not really in the same league!
A final crossing of the floating bridge and we are on the road at 5.44am!! We saw approximately 100 Red Deer between Badachro and Inverness which shows the advantage of an early start!! A brief stop at Tesco Inverness for petrol and to buy some breakfast and eleven hours later we were home😏 although we did stop a couple of times for petrol and rest. As it poured down with rain for pretty much the whole trip from just south of Glasgow to just south of London bird sightings were a bit thin on the ground but did get a couple of Red Kites on the M40.
A cracking trip all round, and from a birding point of view, pretty successful with a 113 species seen highlights got to be the Eagles, the Divers and the Golden Plovers, bird of the holiday for me was the Ullapool Iceland Gull, I'm a fan of Gulls in general and White Wingers in particular and this beauty was right up there with the cleanest one I've seen!!
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| The Iceland Gull |
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| Star Bird |
Wheatears, Meadow Pipits and Willow Warblers were everywhere during the trip and Willow Warblers along with Oystercatchers delivered the sound track to our efforts!
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| Wheatear |
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| Willow Warbler |
Special mention for Hooded Crow, you know your in Scotland proper when you see ya first Hoody!! I love em!!
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| Hoody!!! |
Although Eagles are always good, a few minutes that will live long in the memory!!
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| Golden Eagle |
Visits to the coast are always good in Scotland and this trip was no exception with Gannets, Great Northern Divers and Shags the stand outs ( think I've done well to control the Shag jokes on the blog this trip😂)
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| Great Northern Diver |
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| Gannet |
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| Shag |
The full list below in the order I remembered them!!
- Parakeet
- House Sparrow
- Starling
- Woodpigeon
- Collared Dove
- Feral Pigeon
- Carrion Crow
- Rook
- Jackdaw
- Raven
- Hooded Crow
- Jay
- Golden Eagle
- White-tailed Eagle
- Red Kite
- Common Buzzard
- Sparrowhawk
- Kestrel
- Herring Gull
- Great-black Backed Gull
- Lesser-black Backed Gull
- Common Gull
- Black-headed Gull
- Kittiwake
- Arctic Tern
- Common Tern
- Gannet
- Cormorant
- Shag
- Razorbill
- Guillemot
- Black Guillemot
- Great Northern Diver
- Black-throated Diver
- Red-throated Diver
- Great Crested Grebe
- Little Grebe
- Mallard
- Red-breasted Merganser
- Wigeon
- Mute Swan
- Greylag Goose
- Canada Goose
- Barnacle Goose
- Pink-footed Goose
- Shelduck
- Dunlin
- Oystercatcher
- Turnstone
- Greenshank
- Common Sandpiper
- Dipper
- Pied Wagtail
- Grey Wagtail
- Meadow Pipit
- Tree Pipit
- Rock Pipit
- Linnet
- Twite
- Chaffinch
- Siskin
- Lesser Redpoll
- Greenfinch
- Bullfinch
- Blue Tit
- Coal Tit
- Great Tit
- Long-tailed Tit
- Willow Warbler
- Wheatear
- Golden Plover
- Whimbrel
- Curlew
- Skylark
- Chiffchaff
- Blackcap
- Nuthatch
- Blackbird
- Song Thrush
- Mistle Thrush
- Iceland Gull
- Heron
- Redshank
- Ringed Plover
- Rock Dove
- Cuckoo
- Stonechat
- Robin
- Dunnock
- Ring Ouzel
- Pheasant
- Tufted Duck
- Goldeneye
- Tree Sparrow
- Wood Warbler
- Pied Flycatcher
- Magpie
- Goldcrest
- Goldfinch
- Eider
- Reed Bunting
- Wren
- Stock Dove
- Lapwing
- Merlin
- Great Spotted Woodpecker
- Fulmar
- Great Skua
- Housemartin
- Sandmartin
- Swallow
- Snipe
- Teal
The accommodation was all round pretty good The Farmers Inn in Clarencefield near Dumfries had very comfortable rooms and the Breakfast and the food in the Pub in General was excellent and the Proprietors were very pleasant and nice.
The Cabin, on Dry Island was unique, the scenery around it was spectacular, the Cabin itself was, as advertised on the small size, especially the Bathroom, however the bed was comfy, the shower was good and facilities in the kitchen excellent, so pretty perfect for our needs, the outside Hot Tub was awesome and I was pretty anti it beforehand, but so relaxing!! Think the best thing though was the view from the sofa!!
Got to be said though the walk to the car was challenging as Margie's video at the link demonstrates!!
Excuse her heavy breathing unless you like that sort of thing!!😮 You maybe able to hear a Willow Warbler at the start and a Cuckoo at the end!
I think we will definitely be heading back to Dumfries and Galloway, we hardly scratched the surface of the habitat available and from talking to people it seems it's probably a better winter place, so hopefully get up there again soon.
Although I'm glad we went up to the West Coast, from a birding point of view, I think The Hebrides are a better bet with pretty much everything you get on the west coast, easier and more abundant and of course things like Corncrake and Phalaropes on top, we did some amazing drives, the scenery was incredible, the Gorse deserves a mention the intense yellow brightening up every trip, but I couldn't stop thinking, if this was the Hebrides there would be Hen Harrier and Short-eared Owls all over and of course the Eagles are much more concentrated on Uist where we had daily sightings of both Species on our last visit a couple of years ago!!
That said of course if we had got up earlier and put more effort in we might have had more luck, but after the year we've all had it was the best we could do and I think we did all right!!
Many thanks
To the First Minister for opening the border 2 days before we set off
To the Weather for not being to bad
and as always to Margie for putting up with me!! Though I may have broken her as she didn't mention going to a Castle once!!!!!!!
Will finish with some of the awesome Scottish scenery below!!!
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