Scotland July 2021

With foreign holidays to much hassle to go on, I decided to have a week’s birding holiday in Scotland with my mates, John & Janet. We booked with Heatherlea on their ‘Welcome back to Scottish Birding’ trip. 

Saturday 10 July saw us meeting up at Kings Cross for the midday train up to Aviemore. It’s long seven and a half hour journey but it’s nice and relaxing and we kept a ‘train list’ although it only reached 23 species. We arrived in Aviemore at half seven where we were picked up and driven the short distance to our base at the Mountview Hotel in Nethy Bridge. Dinner was served shortly after arrival and we discussed plans for the coming week. There was another Heatherlea birding trip running the same week and some of the days we would be going out together. 

Sunday 11 July Both tours spent the day together birding locally around Abernethy Forest. We walked the Loch Mallachie Trail at Loch Garten. It was a bit damp but we did manage reasonable views of a couple of Crested Tits which were moving through the woods in a post-breeding mixed flock along with some Spot Flys and Treecreepers. 

Treecreeper

A lone female Goldeneye was on the adjacent loch. We next drove around a private estate looking for, but not seeing, Capercaillie. We lunched at the top where we found a pair of Scottish Crossbills. They had a more curved lower mandible and ‘lighter’ flight calls than Common Crossbill.

Moorland

Scottish Crossbill

Later in the afternoon we drove around Lochindorb, seeing Red Grouse in the moors and a solitary, distant Black-throated Diver. 

Red Grouse

Monday 12 July 

While the other lot headed over to Mull, we too went over to the West Coast, seeing Red Kites and Hooded Crows along the way. We stopped at Gruinard Bay to look for divers and saw two close immature Common Loons straightaway, then later three Red-throats a bit further out. 

Gruinard Bay

There was a flock of Arctic Terns on the island which all went up when a marauding Bonxie flew over them. In the bay we also saw Black Guillemot and a flock of nine Red-breasted Mergansers. Further out were Gannet and Shag and then we saw some distant cetaceans. 

Through the scope we could see they were Bottle-nosed Dolphins and they were soon joined by a few Common Dolphins. Both pods were very active so may have been feeding. After they disappeared we also saw a couple of Harbour Porpoise, showing well in the millpond sea. 

On the way back we stopped by a busy road to look at an Osprey nest on top of a pylon that contained both adults and three well-grown young. 

Osprey nest

Tuesday 13 July 

We spent the day closer to base, visiting some local moorland in the morning where there was a drumming Snipe and a close Brown Hare. 

Brown Hare

We had distant scope views of at least five Black Grouse then took a walk where we were rewarded with prolonged views of two Golden Eagles and a few Northern Marsh Orchids.

Northern Marsh Orchid

In the afternoon we went to the Findhorn Valley, but it was unusually quiet, perhaps because the heatwave had started. The only raptors were Red Kite and Common Buzzard so some of us turned our attention to the abundant Lepidoptera in the grass, getting good views of several Dark Green Fritillaries, Common Blue butterflies and Bordered White moths amongst others.

Common Blue butterfly

Bordered White

Dark Green Fritillary

Wednesday 14 July 

We headed over to the East Coast today, picking up an Osprey over Banff and a few Corn Buntings singing in some fields. 

Corn Bunting

We visited the seabird colony at Troup Head RSPB, a place I’d not even heard of before. Kittiwakes were a constant aural background and thousands of Gannets and auks whizzed by the cliffs. Guillemots and Razorbills were easily seen on the ledges but Puffins were much harder to find; a few flew past but I managed to find a pair standing just outside their burrow. 

Razorbills

Kittiwakes, Razorbill & Guillemots

Among a large flock of Gannets on the sea we located the large shape of a whale. We expected it to be a Minke but the large blows and enormous size with the falcate fin showing well after the blow meant it was actually a Fin Whale. Although I’ve seen plenty of Fins in Biscay before, this was the first one I’d seen in the UK. 

Gannets

We moved on to Spey Bay, stopping to find some Tree Sparrows in a small woodland where lots of nestboxes had been put up for them. 

Tree Sparrow

At the bay there was a large flock of 200 moulting Goosander, some Little Terns, a female Eider with a half-grown youngster and another Osprey. It was a busy tourist spot, some of whom had come to see the local pod of Bottle-nosed Dolphins that swam into view after a while. 

Thursday 15 July 

The two groups merged and split today with three people doing the trek up Cairn Gorm to look for Dotterel. More people would probably have gone by using the Funicular Railway but it was shut all summer for major repairs so the rest took two vans over to the coast on the Black Isle. 

We headed off from the car park at 9.15 for the long walk up to the plateau. We went fairly slowly and arrived at 11.00. The only birds seen long the way were a few Meadow Pipits and Wheatears. We could hear a distant Snow Bunting and our guide found it in the scope on an outcrop. 

Cairn Gorm

We spread out and crisscrossed the plateau looking for Dotterel but failed to find any. On the last area we walked we did locate three close Ptarmigan. They didn’t seem bothered by us and we spent a long time watching and photographing them before heading back down the track. 

Ptarmigan

It was a really hot afternoon and once we made it down to the car park we just sat at a picnic table and rested for a while. As we arrived back at Nethy Bridge early we made a short detour to look for some rare flowers and saw Creeping Lady's Tresses and Twinflower, although one of the examples of the latter I found had three flowers making it a Tripleflower! 

Creeping Lady's Tresses

Twinflower

Friday 16 July 

While the other group went off to the East Coast we stayed local in an attempt to clean up on a few missing species. We found a few common birds around Boat of Garten but couldn’t locate the breeding pair of Slavonian Grebes on another loch so made the decision to head up to Loch Ruthven where we had good views of one. 

The sunny weather had brought out a lot of dragonflies and damselflies but I could only locate the common species rather than any of the localised ones. 

Four-spotted Chaser

We had another drive around the estate but the Capercaillies remained out of view. Next we visited Old Spey bridge where had distant views of a Dipper and we finished up at Dorback. 

Dipper

It had been great week’s birding holiday and it was really great to get away for a break. 

Saturday 17 July 

I had my customary pre-breakfast walk around the village, this was the best one of the trip with Scottish Crossbill and Osprey both seen. After an early breakfast we got a lift down to Aviemore station for the 8.32 train back to London. The train list just beat the outward journey by one species, the added bonus being a Merlin.