Pigs

Wednesday was a pleasant day and another tour to do. We headed off in search of Hen Harrier and Mountain Hare and didn't connect with either initially but what we did get was two Golden Eagle sitting on the ridge in the distance. We hung around to see if they would get up in the air but it wasn't happening. A bit of a look around provided views of Common Buzzard, Northern Wheatear, Twite, Linnet, Common Snipe and, eventually, a Mountain Hare. Another location for Hen Harrier at the next stop and once again the birds didn't want to play but the Stonechat was very nice. It posed beautifully on a fence post and then flew on to the overhead wires just above the motor for a quick photo...

...and was then joined by a Common Whitethroat - nice!

While trying to find some Black Guillemots which some folk got a view of and others didn't we had a shower of rain that had us running for cover. We decided to head for lunch instead and got good views of a female Hen Harrier. There were a couple of distant Golden Eagle flying around and an Adder was seen while we ate lunch. It was nice to see the Autumn Gentian in flower again too.

After leaving our lunch spot I got my first sighting of these two black pigs. I've known that they were there but never caught sight of them and it was nice that, not being proper wildlife, the guests appreciated the sighting too.

There were a few Red-throated Diver on show as we viewed the Common Seals before we managed to pick up an Otter. We watched this one fishing at a distance before it started to head straight towards us. He came in at a fair rate of knots and eventually came out on the shore...

...before heading for bed - superb sighting though! The next stop was for the WT Eagle and we weren't disappointed with the female bird that was sitting in the distance. But we hung around for a wee while and managed to get more flight views of Golden Eagle before the male WT Eagle flew in with prey and delivered it too the youngster - an excellent sighting for the day. We'd already seen a few Red Deer through the day but this sighting of a stag with the velvet off the antlers was superb.

Thursday was another pleasant day and I was off fishing to catch my dinner. A cracking effort over a couple of hours produced these two 6lb Pollock - yum!

While out on the fishing trip there were a few birds on show with Gannets, Shag and Manx Shearwater seen but best of all were two Red Knot flying past us as we returned to land!