It's behind you!

Sunday was a day out with f-stop and PS and very pleasant it was too. With no real agenda for the day we headed off to see what would take our fancy. We ended up doing not a great deal of birds and lots of insects and plants instead. Large Red Damselfly is a common enough one to start off with and we found them in abundance. There is no hanging around for these beasts when it comes to reproducing so there were plenty of them egg laying in the pools of water. Rather than a photo of that I captured one that repeatedly landed in the same place.

The next thing to catch my eye was a Four-spotted Chaser that had settled.

It was very obliging and it soon became apparent why when we located the place where it had appeared from. It had just emerged from the nymph case.

F-stop found this wee moth fluttering over the path that was just begging to be photographed. I'm sure that every one knows that this one is Pyrastea purpuralis - it just couldn't be anything else!

We'd noticed quite a few Wild Strawberry plants in flower but a sheltered spot showed that it wasn't too early for them to bear fruit too.

There was the odd sighting of Golden-ringed Dragonfly as they charged over their territories but it was difficult to pin them down. PS and myself attempted to get some flight shots while f-stop had a lie down in a ditch (don't ask but he came out wet). The dragon that we were attempting to photograph suddenly disappeared and we guessed it had caught lunch. What a surprise to find two of them clinging to the same tree!

The best spot of the day was in the morning when we found a Spotted Flycatcher. It's the first one I've seen on Mull and the first in four years! It disappeared pretty sharpish so we hung around until it came back. Sitting at the top of a tree was never going to be a good option for a photo but to get this shot with a fly on the back of it's head had us all laughing - it's behind you!!

A couple of obliging Whinchat finished the day off quite nicely. The male birds are just stunning.

Monday I was back out with guests on another fine day but there was little chance of any photos. A quiet morning that was plagued with sea mist turned into a superb day after we'd got cracking views of a Golden Eagle. The photo doesn't do the bird justice but I missed the opportunity when the bird was closer - too busy gawping at it!

We had a nice view of an Otter asleep and then the same beast waking up and heading off fishing later on. The female WT Eagle was watched bringing prey into the nest and feeding the youngsters which was a real treat.