Saturday 13 July 2013

Hot.

The temperatures were up around the 26°C mark for this tour and it never dropped below 20°C  - it would be a tough day but would it be any good? With the guests on board we headed off in search of Otters but the sea was a bit of a dead zone! We did see a male Hen Harrier, plenty of Common Seals and a stunning sunbathing Grey Heron.
We saw the young WT Eagle on the nest but there was no sign of the adults and the same result at the Golden Eagle nest. Things were going to have to pick up a bit! Our next stop was another search for Otters but this time we were successful. We found three of the furry beasts just settling down for a kip so we had lunch and waited. We were still having lunch when they moved off but I had a plan. We changed location and settled down onto the rocks while the Otters fished off shore.
It wasn't long before a couple of them came out of the sea to dry off - there are two there, honest!
It was a superb encounter but as soon as they were out of sight we backed off and left them too it. Almost forgot to mention the WT Eagle that flew over too! The Common Seal colony was fairly busy and very noisy. Our next location really came up with the goods as we found three Adders...
...a Golden Eagle...
...plenty of plants to look at and a few butterflies, dragons and damsels too. Black-tailed Skimmer, Golden Ringed Dragonfly and Large Red Damselfly...
...Meadow Brown, Common Blue and Pearl-bordered Fritillary.
We managed a few more common species of birds on the last two stops plus Mountain Hare and this strangely postured Pied Wagtail. It turned out that the wagtail had a damaged leg but it was still feeding well.

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