Old Favourites

 Monday May 5

It's almost a mile to the main road from our cottage, carrot fields on one side, rough railway embankment on the other with patches of deciduous trees. With the ubiquitous patches of butter yellow gorse of course.This morning's journey was very slow owing to the number of birds we heard and saw. Sedge Warbler, Whitethroat, Yellowhammer, Stonechat, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Linnet.

Where were we going? It had to be.... Lochindorb, A twenty three mile drive through stunning Highland woods and moors on a fast but very winding road. Behind a tanker for much of the way too.  All in warm sunshine with virtually no wind. 

The approach road takes one through a colony of Common Gulls, nesting amongst the clumps of rough grasses - or perched on any handy post.

 

Lochindorb (from the Scottish Gaelic: Loch nan Doirb meaning "loch of the minnows") is a freshwater loch north of Grantown on Spey in the Highland council area of Scotland. In the loch there is an island, which is now thought to have been artificially created, and on that island are the ruins of Lochindorb Castle, a former stronghold of the Clan Comyn. King Edward I of England stayed in the castle during his 1303 campaign against the Scots. 

These days, it's popular with fishermen and birders. The main attraction for us is the pair of Black-throated Divers which have  nested here  for some years. That and the Red Grouse, Cuckoos, Osprey and Red-throated Divers we have often seen here in the past.

Whilst we were parked looking for the divers, Pam called a Red Kite on the opposite heather clad hillside. I couldn't see it - but I did find a large raptor being mobbed by a corvid. Eventually we discovered that we were describing two different birds. Pam saw 'my' bird and agreed that it was a Golden Eagle. It's size was accentuated by the dwarfing of the corvid mobbing it.

 Pam suggested Station Road, Carrbridge as our lunch spot. A road which  ends beside a small river and a large meadow surrounded by hills leading to mountains.

We parked on a grassy mound surrounded by low Juniper bushes and gorse. looking down to the rough pasture and across to the mountain river. Five Golden Plover dotted and dashed their way through the tussocks, none of them in full breeding plumage, all of them with partially black fronts. Non breeders I should think, young birds. 

 

A Curlew's bubbling song broke the silence, the bird itself appeared performing its full display flight in front of us. Magic.

I needed to use the bathroom, we drove home and then straight out again to Findhorn Bay just a few miles east. A flat calm sea with gently rolling waves, the only birds gulls.

On to Burghead, a short distance west. The same again, apart from a few Guillemots and a Gannet. 

The moth trap is out tonight, let's hope there ill be a few moths to look at in the mornng.