Scotland .......Part 3

If you are going to the highlands of Scotland at any time of the year to photograph wildlife then there is one species of bird that everyone wants to photograph and I must say it is my favourite.....it is of course the Crested Tit, the 'PUNK' of the bird world with its black and white crest.

I have two places that I visit to get a chance of photographing this bird one is at the Osprey centre at Loch Garten and the other is a nice quiet place that I stumbled across a few years ago.

It can get very frustrating trying to get the shot you are after as these birds are never still and you tend to take more shots of its close cousin the Coal tit!!

The latest RSPB reports regarding the status of the Crested Tit in Scotland is very encouraging as it shows an increase in it's population.

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Scotland ..........Part 2

You cannot go up the Cairngorms and not photograph the Snow Buntings....or can you!!! This year I saw several smallish flocks both on the way up and down when photographing the Ptarmigan, but as always I pinned my hopes next to the picnic tables in the top car park.

And as ever I through out a little seed and did not have to wait long before one Snow Bunting turned up, yes that's right one.....

After spending most of the time on the 'hill' I had not left long for the Buntings and was a little disappointed to only have this single bird come down. But never the less I had a good time watching it forage around for the spilt seed.

Perhaps with the weather as it was (glorious sunshine)! the other birds were further up the mountain probably being fed around the restaurant area, who knows but still it is always nice to see them no matter how many.

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Scotland Trip.......Part 1

I have just returned from a week long holiday in the Highlands of Scotland along with my wife Anne, this was Anne's first 'Winter' trip to Scotland and we were both really looking forward to it.

What we were not expecting was the glorious weather that greeted us on our arrival and for the following day, not a cloud in the sky and wall to wall sunshine!!

This made me change my plans and so with an early start on Sunday we headed up to the Cairngorms ski centre and headed out into the corries looking for Ptarmigan. In recent trips I had not been very lucky with what can be an elusive bird, I say elusive but I suppose everything can be that if you do not manage to get a photograph of your target species that you are after! Now today I cannot blame the weather it was just a case of getting into position scanning the area through binoculars and listening for the call of this beautiful bird.

We both could hear the birds and after picking out a few Mountain Hare we saw our first Ptarmigan, a group of 5 birds which were being watched by a group of people that must have been the envy of any photographer as these people were not photographers but must have had this group of birds within feet of them!

Soon afterwards Anne saw something move "over there its white and moving" was all I had to go on!!!! Anyway after getting my breath and asking Anne to point me in the direction off I went and found a cracking male bird, who was very confiding but did not hang around for long.

This was my first view of the Ptarmigan

Then once he had settled he stayed for a few minutes 

At one point I managed to get the other side of him and photographed him against the blue sky.

And then like me it was time to move, for me it was downwards for this guy he went on upwards hopefully to find a mate! 

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