Another Yank!

Wednesday was a day off with family who were up visiting. A quick run out in the afternoon gave us views of the WT Eagles and also a couple of Otters (no such thing as a day off!).Thursday was back into the breech and with the guests on board we headed off in the unfavourable conditions. We managed to get Mountain Hare, Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Lapwing and a lone Brent Goose among the Greylags...

...then struggled for a while. An Adder was a welcome addition to the list...

...as was the brief view of Golden Eagle that we had. A couple of Red-throated Diver were close to shore as we searched for Otters.

The WT eagles were on show and an Otter was seen not too far away. Cuckoo, Crossbill and Hen Harrier finally gave themselves up as did another Golden Eagle.
Friday we had more rain but it did have a pleasant start. While waiting for the guests to arrive I took a couple of snaps of the 'pet' Grey Heron. 

With the rain due to come in fast and hard I made an early decision to get both types of eagle as soon as possible. First on the list was the WT Eagle which gave a superb display flying from one tree to another and back again while the chicks looked on - maybe their first lesson;-) We headed to a Golden Eagle nest that I hadn't checked since Mondays poor weather and, unfortunately, it didn't look good. We didn't give it too long as the rain was starting to fall so I will go back and check it again. We dashed back to the lochside to search for Otters and connected with a mum and cub immediately. After enjoying good views of the two Otters we came across a closer one on it's own and I had a chance to get a couple of photos. This first one was using some digital zoom...

...and this one with just the full optical zoom.

The photos aren't meant to be a comparison but the digi zoom one doesn't look too bad considering the poor light at the time. We had a stroke of luck at our next stop when we picked up a Golden Eagle sitting on the ridge as the rain began to fall in earnest. The temperature was dropping and the wind was picking up but we struck lucky again as we located an Adder too. A bit of a dash for Mountain Hare while the visibility was still there proved to be extremely fortunate as the first thing we picked up was a Buff-breasted Sandpiper!!

We did get the Mountain Hare and good numbers of Dunlin and Ringed Plover while watching the Buff-breasted Sand. It might not be the best of weather at the moment but two Yanks in a week is not to be sniffed at!