Another eagle fest.

Wednesday was a showery day and I was busy with other things so not a great deal to report apart from a cracking male Crossbill singing from the top of the conifers at the shop.

Thursday I was back on the road again with the weather not looking too grand to start with but it does look atmospheric.

I picked up the first of the guests and as we drove along to pick up the other guests I got a quick glimpse of a juv WT Eagle sitting on the rocks beside the loch. We couldn't stop as there was traffic so that was a bit of a miss! With the other guests on board we headed off to look for Mountain Hare. We picked up some smart looking Wheatears and Linnets before we heard a Corncrake calling from the long vegetation. A few Raven and a cracking view of a Buzzard were well worth seeing as were the five Dunlin in the stream before we picked up a Mountain Hare. Our next stop got us our first Golden Eagle of the day as one was sitting on top of a hill. Not bad views through the scope but I was sure we would get another before the day was out. As we negotiated the ferry traffic that was coming the other way we were flagged down by one of the Bowmans buses - 'We've just been looking at a Sea Eagle sitting on the rocks'. Two hours after I'd spotted the bird it was still in the same place! We had a quick look for Otters before we raced off to see if we could get a look. I told everyone to keep their eyes open over the loch as the bird would most likely leave before we got there. I hauled in to check the right area and couldn't see anything so moving down the road might help. Just as I pulled out the cry went up 'IS THAT IT?' A quick reverse and we watched the monster bird being mobbed by a Great Black-backed Gull as it flew towards us...

...and then he was on his way - top quality!!

This put us on an early lunch but it didn't matter. As we parked up for lunch I'd caught sight of a Golden Eagle in flight but it had disappeared by the time we got out of the motor. It reappeared briefly and then landed on the top of the ridge next to some impressive looking Red Deer stags. As I scanned around I picked up another Golden Eagle sitting on the top! We set the scopes up, one on each bird, and went to look for the Adders. A brief glimpse was had so we had lunch and returned for another view later with much better results. Both the eagles flew off eventually but they both went away from us! Some of the small birds performed well as we watched a Stonechat have a bath while several Whinchat buzzed about and a couple of Willow Warbler chased each other around - it's all good stuff. We arrived at the WT Eagle site just in time to see the adult bird take flight and as that bird disappeared our fourth Golden Eagle put in an appearance - excellent. Superb views of the bird, in flight this time, made up for the ones we'd just seen doing nothing. Our last stop of the day produced the Otter that we'd searched hard for. A great performance from the Otter to finish the day in style.