Scotland Trip Day 3 : Mountain, Valley and Coast : 28th May 2014 For our second day of guided birding John decided that we would do some birding around the forest near Loch Garten and then see what the weather was going to be like later in the morning with a view to a possible…
Scotland Trip Day 2 : Grantown on Spey Environs : 27th May 2014 We met for breakfast and the decision based on the weather was that we would spend our first day in the area that surrounds Grantown-on-Spey, an area that includes forest, rivers, glens and grouse moors. We loaded up the minibus and headed…
Scotland Trip Day 1 : Loch Garten : 26th May 2014 We left Loch of the Lowes and headed off for Grantown on Spey. As we drove up there we saw a Hooded Crow and lots of House Martins – seemingly at every house we came across, suddenly there were Martins. There were also plenty…
Scotland Trip Day 1 : Loch of the Lowes : 26th May 2014 We started our holiday to Scotland by driving up to Kippen, north of Stirling, where we stayed overnight. The next day we drove from Kippen to the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s reserve at Loch of the Lowes near Dunkeld arriving there around 11.30…
Keyhaven : 1st May 2014 Our last day in the New Forest was given over to a visit to the coast to get some birds we had not seen yet. Our first port of call was Keyhaven where we checked out the times of the ferry to Hurst Castle which is at the end of…
Bolderwood, Fritham and Beaulieu Road Station: 30th April 2014 We started early (for us) again this morning and were on our way by 8am. We drove up to Bolderwood and parked in the car park there before taking the path down to the cottage, crossing over the road and taking one of the paths that…
Beaulieu Road Station / Shatterford : 29th April 2014 For our first full day in the New Forest we decided on two main sites. The first was the walk from Beaulieu Road Station down past Bishop’s Dyke and then into the woods At Woodfidley, turning right an walking through the woods as far as Denny…
Blashford Lakes : 28th April 2014 We left Montacute on the morning of the 28th and did the drive through Sherborne, Sixpenny Handley and Cranborne, stopping for breakfast at Fordinbridge. From there we drove south to the Blashford Lakes complex. Finding where to go was complicated by the fact that the reserve has been asked…
RSPB Ham Wall and NE Shapwick Heath : 27th April 2014 Another unpromising day weather-wise but we did not let this put us off. We decided to go back to RSPB Ham Wall and NE Shapwick Heath but this time we started at the far end of the Shapwick Heath reserve, first dropping into the…
RSPB Radipole Lake : 26th April 2014 The weather forecast was none too promising but by the time I got to Radipole the rain had stopped and apart from the wind the weather was quite good and eventually sunny. I started off down the path where my first sighting was a Cetti’s Warbler that jumped…
