Friday, November 07, 2014

Penultimate Day!

Our penultimate day in Scotland and on Friday Dee and I were heading off into the Highlands and a visit to Fort William. Over breakfast at the cottage before departing a large fall of thrushes hit the lawn during a heavy downpour, with around thirty or so Redwing, Song Thrush and Fieldfare.

Fall of Thrushes including Fieldfare!
A stop off on route at Ardmucknish Bay yielded Red-throated Diver and possibly the same Great-northern Diver here a few days earlier. As fate would have it a couple of Snow Geese had been reported at Cuil Bay Loch Linnhe, just a few miles off road from our route to Fort William and so a slight detour was called for.

Red-throated Diver Ardmucknish Bay
On arrival at Cuil the ever present Rock Pipits, Red-breasted Mergansers, Eider, Goldeneye and Shag were in evidence and a Peregrine made a brief appearance, but the search was on for a Snow Goose, apparently in among a flock of Canada Geese.

Snow Goose (blue morph)
There were a few large groups of Canada's in the surrounding fields but at this stage no evidence of Snow Geese. After a half hour or so we finally managed the above photographed bird in with several Canada's feeding, a blue morph version. Snow Goose appears as a wild bird in Scotland annually, those seen in summer are escapes. A small population moves between the islands of Coll and Mull in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. There are also scattered birds elsewhere so whether this bird was feral or wild, it was still a great bird to come across.