Better late than never!

Here's a quick whip round Saturdays tour. The weather was fine, the guests were great - we had a good laugh and saw some good stuff. What more could you want?! We got off to a slow start as we got stuck behind a herd of cows but it wasn't too long before we had a few Red Deer hinds in our sights with a stag in close proximity. After we got some brief views of a Golden Eagle and negotiated the cows again we scanned the loch for Otters but it was all looking a bit blank. A good vantage point soon produced the goods in the distance so we drove a bit closer. We got tremendous views of the Otter fishing and it soon headed for shore only to turn around at the last minute - why? Another Otter joined the first and they put on a fine display. It was a good hour before we moved on from them - excellent. The Swallows that featured in the last post finally fledged on Saturday morning and they all look fit and healthy.

We picked up Goosander, Common Seal and Common Crossbill before we hit a shower of rain that produced a stunning rainbow over the loch. The photos don't do it justice but you can see rainbow...

...and as it faded it lost it's middle.

Back to the wildlife...Golden Eagle was next on the list with stunning views of a bird perched up and just as we were about to leave it took flight and flew towards us!

The day was shaping up quite nicely but there was a distinct lack of WT Eagle. Another Golden Eagle was spotted on a distant hill top as we viewed Mountain Hare, Skylarks and Linnets paraded around us as we enjoyed an afternoon cuppa and we moved on just after we watched a fly past by a male Hen Harrier. We were nearing the end of the day when we finally picked up a WT Eagle or maybe it was the other way round! We'd stopped to scan around and seeing nothing I was just going to move on when the shout went up. This is what we saw...

...AWESOME!! The bird had a full crop (you can see the bulge) and was heading for home. We watched her cross the loch and I had the spidey senses tingling so a quick look over the shoulder and this was cruising the ridge!!

A Golden Eagle with a full crop - these bird had obviously been feeding on the same food source. What a way to finish though!