A long drive up to Nairn in Scotland our base for 2 weeks birding and possibly a castle or two. It's a fair old way and we were on the way before six, pretty impressed with that to be fair, drove through the rain until Birmingham where it brightened up. Despite the rain we managed 7 Red Kites up the M40, 2 Lapwing display over the M6 and at Shap we had a glimpse of a Hen Harrier hunting the moors, sadly no pics, bit difficult at "70" MPH😲😂 ! We stopped for lunch at Annandale Water Motorway Services, a very nice picnic provided by Margie, it was six quid for two cups of Tea not paying their prices for a sandwich😱😱😂 bad enough being robbed blind at the petrol pumps! They have nothing Gluten Free anyway!!! Was very pleasant sitting by the lake listen to several Willow Warblers, while Swallows hawked the lake and a noisy Little Grebe fished the far bank! I made a friend, a tame Rook, that I may have given a small bit of a Gluten Free Ham Roll to!! A large Brown Rat running across the car park was also of interest!!!
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| Scotland!! Hurrah!!! |
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| Annandale Water |
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| My friendly Rook |
We headed on, the A9 was it's usual scenic drive, the average Speed Cameras are a welcome addition as it means there are far less morons trying to overtake, we saw a couple of Grouse, dead on the side of the road,😢 along with a about 20 Pheasants on one short stretch!! We were on course to arrive at 4 PM when we got distracted, when I discovered our route took us past Lochindorb, scoured the Loch for Black-throated Divers without success, though did manage a couple of Wigeon a Common Sandpiper, couple of Redshank, Mallards, two Red Grouse, live ones this time! My first Wheatear of the trip and a load of Common Gulls!!! So we were a bit late!😂
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| Still Snow on the mountains |
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| Lochindorb |
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| Sheep looking magnificent in front of Lochindorb |
All pictures taken on phones as the cameras were buried under piles of coats and suitcases and I couldn't be arsed to unpack everything😂!!! Hopefully the quality will improve as the days go by!!!
Finally we watched Ipswich play seeing if they could take advantage of Leeds bottling it!!!! Sadly they did!!😢
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