A day in pictures

Tuesday I was off to Oban to get the motor put through it's test with the council (it passed). A pretty uneventful day really but I did have a look for the Ring-billed Gull. Despite standing around watching the gulls come in and go out for 3 hours there was no sign. A few Common Gulls in with the Herring Gulls made the heart leap but I couldn't string any of them into a RBG. I did get a very obliging Bullfinch though.

Wednesday started off looking like this....

...but the next time I looked you couldn't see for the blizzard!! It soon cleared off and I was determined to get out after my enforced captivity. I picked up PS and set about finding things. A Buzzard for starters...

....and then a whole list of birds after that. Rock Dove aplenty, 5 Meadow Pipit, 1 Wigeon, 30 Teal, 100 Golden Plover - here's half the flock....

....and a couple in the field.

As you can see one of these birds is starting to come into Summer plumage. A couple of Mountain Hare entertained us for 10 minutes or so. The first one came to a halt....

....with the second one not far behind. They started to move off and do some running like this...

...and then stopped to pose nicely.

We picked up 1 Grey Plover and 1 Bar-tailed Godwit just as 30 Barnacle Geese flew in.

A flock of 20 Fieldfare were perched up nicely until I tried to get a shot and this Hoodie decided it would be great fun to chase them around!!

Greylag Goose....

...and Tufted Duck....

....were on the list early in the day along with a Little Grebe. We managed to get the Starlings in the sunlight...

...and a Kestrel when the sun was hiding.

After all that excitement things seemed to slow down a bit but a Sparrowhawk brightened things up and a Golden Eagle sitting on a hill top was a bonus. A few Stonechats, a Black Guillemot and a few Common Seals later and it was lunchtime.

No, it wasn't Lamb for lunch but it is the first one I've seen this year. You can't go anywhere around here without seeing Grey Heron but they are always worth a look and even more so when they have a fish to play with....

...and then it was gone.

We drove past the Otters so we could pick them up in better light on the way back. Red Deer would have to do to fill the gap.

He doesn't look too happy about having his feed disturbed! Back to the Otters then...they were easy to find again as there was a parking issue where they were! We moved on and waited again. They appeared to be moving in our direction but when they didn't appear, and everyone else had cleared off, we found them curled up on the smallest of rocks.

Jostling for position as the tide comes in is always an option.

Great fun to watch though. We'd had our fun for the day so we headed for home. A Raven wasn't sure if it wanted to leave it's perch or not as we approached him...

...and a Golden Eagle looked menacing staring down at us at our last stop of the day.

Let's see if this works - if it does there will be more!!