Happily ever after.

Most of this week has been wet so I've stayed dry by not going out! An early highlight was a close encounter with a male Hen Harrier flying beside the motor in the pouring rain on Monday. Thursday was a good run out but in very murky conditions as you will see from the photos. I started the day with a Glaucous Gull on the beach.

I had my first singing Skylark of the year while getting my best views of the, normally, very flighty Barnacle Geese.

The WT Eagles were sitting side by side on the nest and two Golden Eagle put in an appearance near the end of the day.

A Mountain Hare was close enough for a photo but the light was failing - you can't win!

Friday was a lot better - quite a few showers but there was sunshine inbetween. I'll start with a common bird that you probably wouldn't look at twice but you should - just look at the colours on this Mallard.

It was no surprise that the handsome chap had a pretty lady in tow...

...and I'm sure they will live 'happily ever after'!

I caught up with a Raven that was posturing and giving a quiet low pitched, call while spreading it's tail and blowing up it's neck feathers - awesome.

It was nice to get the Lapwing in a bit of decent light too.

A quick bit of lunch while it was raining and I was off again in the sunshine. A Common Buzzard flew past but it was heading into the sun.

The sunshine will always bring the Adders out. This is the one that came out of hibernation first...

...and these two were fresh out.

Check out the head pattern on the top one of the two snakes - a distinct heart shape that will make it easy to ID if I see it again. The rain was coming back in again when I found this Golden Eagle - it did the sensible thing and flew off away from the wet stuff.