The two prime objectives were to photograph White-tailed Sea Eagles on Mull and Arctic and Great Skuas on Handa plus other target species in Scotland
Our professional guide was:
Marcus Conway
07957 123 274
marcus@ebirder.net
www.ebirder.net
He had an excellent knowledge of local sites and we were able to see all that we wanted to but sometimes the weather was not cooperating for taking photographs. Cameras not liking rain.
We arrived at Glasgow airport where we were picked up by Marcus, who drove us to Oban to catch the ferry to Craignure Mull. Before catching the ferry we photographed Black Guillemots in the harbour.
Having checked in to our accommodation we set off to try to see some Short-eared owls, we did see one but too far away to photograph.
The next morning in the drizzle and midge swarms we tried to photograph a Grasshopper Warbler in the field next to our accommodation this was not very successful but we got him the next day.
To see the Sea Eagles we went out with Martin on the’ Lady Jane’ and got some good shots of it diving to catch the fish. This was a fantastic experience and well worth the cost and our prime objective achieved. We also saw a pod of dolphins performing spectacular tricks out of the water and many different types of gulls in ‘hurrys’’(large flocks of gulls fishing for bait fish)
Marcus took us to see the local RSPB man who had some Spotted Flycatchers nesting in his garden.
On leaving Mull via Fishnish we drove to Kingussie in Cairngorms our next base.
We went for the day to Handa Island to photograph Arctic and Great Skuas, this was a great success with the few nesting Arctics being quite close to photograph.
During the remainder of our stay Marcus then took us to various sites he knew to see Whinchat, Wheatear, Bullfinch, Spotted Flycatcher, Twite, Common Sandpiper, Oystercatchers.
Around here we were again taken to various sites to photograph (we saw the following but not always able to photograph them) the following targets and non target species.
Arctic Skua
Black Guillemot
Black-headed Gull
Black-throated Diver
Bullfinch
Canada Goose
Coal Tit
Common Gull
Common Sandpiper
Crested Tit
Golden Eye
Great Black-backed Gull
Great Skua
Great Tit
Hooded Crow
Lapwing
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Mew Gull
Northern Wheatear
Oystercatcher
Pheasant
Red-breasted Merganser
Red Grouse
Redshank
Red-throated Diver
Siskin
Slavonian Grebe
Spotted Flycatcher
Twite
White-tailed Sea Eagle
Willow Warbler
Whinchat
Wood Warbler
Wren