Scotland
September 2006
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Findhorn in September
05/09/2006 - Arrived in Inverness on a EasyJet flight from with my photography friend John Devries in typical Scottish weather, raining and foggy. We picked up the hire car, heading for Elgin to pick up supplies and then on to Dufftown to stay at my sisters house for eight days.
Black Darter
06/09/2006 - We headed off towards Lochnidorb with a lovely sunny start, on route we stopped to photograph some Highland cattle in the backlit sunshine. Lochindorb turned out disappointing, the loch was empty and there was a lot of distrubance from grouse shooting on the moors, so we decided to go straight to the Findhorn Valley. Halfway along the valley we stopped for lunch, whilst eating we saw black darter, scotch argus and dor beetle.
Mountain Pansy in Findhorn Valley
We continued to the end of the valley with no sighting of golden eagle and only distance views of red deer. Heading back along the track we found emerald damselfly and mountain pansy. With lack of birds and mammals and the weather closing in, we decided to concentrate on fungi along the Farr road. Just as well, there were hundreds of fungi along the side of the conifer forest. We also had our first sighting of red squirrel and more red grouse over the moors. The weather was now closing in with rain, so we decided to call it a day.
John photographing Fungi
07/09/2006 - Set off in sunny weather towards Inverness on route to Glen Affric, stopping on the side of Loch Ness to see a lone piper, nice for the american tourists and to photograph Urquhart Castle. We carried on to Glen Affric with the weather turning to rain again as we entered the first car park. Back to fungi again in between showers, we also took some shots of the River Affric and a few landscape shots. Working our way to the end of the valley, the weather started to brighten again.
Glen Affric River
Stopping for lunch in the car park, we managed to photograph chaffinches and siskins, with the weather changing again we headed out of the valley. Not having much luck with birds and mammals, we came across an old croft and had a bit of fun trying to take some arty images. Then back to Urquhart Castle for a closer look and then working our way through Drumnadrochit.
Andy photographing Limousin Bull.
Photographic subjects were low again. we decided to photograph more highland cows and a pair of Limousin bulls. Back to Drumnadrochit for an evening meal, and to look at some Loch Ness souvenirs and then on to the main event of the evening. Driving back towards Glen Affric, then up to Beauly to the Aigas Centre for a pine marten watch. The home and grounds belong to Sir and Lady John Lister-Kaye, who run the centre for Highland nature and history. Arriving a little early, we went to look at the europeon beaver project, unfortunately they decided not to show.
Pine Marten at Aigas Centre
Sir John picked up two other ladies as well as us for the evening, driving around the estate explaining about badgers and pine martens. We shortly arrived at the hide and entered quietly, preparing for a long wait. The hide was fitted with carpet to keep the noise down, drinks were supplied, but not being able to go to the toilet stopped me from drinking. The first mammal we saw was a wood mouse, after roughly two hours we finally saw a male pine martin. Feeling happy with ourselves, we arrived back in Dufftown around 1am.
Abernethy Forest at Speyside
08/09/2006 - Another sunny start today so headed towards Speyside, stopping at the Cromdale Hills to try to photograph red grouse, unfortunately they turned out to be distant. Moving onto Abernethy, we stopped at the Loch Garten centre and lake hopping to see red squirrel. We found some by the lake, but could not photograph them, to many people. We then headed towards Kingussie Wildlife Park, a centre for scottish native species, this not being our day turned out to be mainly a waste of time. The weather was still sunny, which made the centre popular that day, also alot of the animals were in cages with small mesh, not much good for photography. We left the centre and headed towards Ruthven Barracks. John had had a headache, which had developed into a migraine, so we decided to call it a day. We also had to cancel our evening at Speyside Wildlife Centre, but fortunately were able to rebooked at the end of the week.
Red Squirrel at Abernethy Forest
09/09/2006 - Our luck held, we had another sunny day, heading back towards Abernethy. Driving through Tomnavoulin we found a farm with Highland cattle of different colours, so we stopped to take some photographs. These are right next to the road, so they are quite easy to work. After this we carried onto Loch Garten, parking in the centre car park, we soon heard crested tit. This was one of our target birds, we followed them around the car park with not much luck. We then decided to go up to the Loch Garten centre, after seeing red squirrels scampering towards it. One tip, wait until there are no people watching, or you will have them following you.
The centre web-cams the red squirrels over winter, so there is a feeder full of peanuts most of the time. We put monkey nuts at the bottom of the tree, sat still and within thirty minutes the squirrels were coming to the ground. At last we were getting some proper wildlife photography, proberly one of the best afternoons, I have ever had since I started photography. Unfornately we were getting shadows due to the afternoon sun, and decided to back the next morning.
Coal Tit at Abernethy Forest
10/09/2006 - On route to Abernethy we came across red grouse on the B970 in some moorland, these performed well and sat on the fence post, my best shots yet. Arriving back at Loch Garten we sneaked up to the centre, and spent the whole day there with the red squirrels. The midges were still biting well, which made the job a bit more difficult. We also managed to get close shots of coal tit, quite exciting as I was now down 200mm on the 400mm zoom.
11/09/2006 - Another day spent with red squirrels and coal tits. So far this was the nearest we had seen a capercaille.
Capercaille at Loch Garten
12/09/2006 - Today we decided to visit the coast north of Dufftown, visiting Findhorn Bay and a few other bays in the area. This turned out to be disappointing because the tide was out, so we headed back towards the Spey Valley. Just before Grantown as we drove through a pine forest, I spotted a big blackbird three quarters of the way up a pine tree. We stopped the car, seeing our first male capercaille. We managed to get a record shot before the male flew off with three females disappearing through the wood. Once again we headed towards the Spey Valley, stopping at Nethy Bridge to look for Dipper. We did see Dipper, but they were hard work and we only got some record shots.
Capercaille near Grantown.
Our next item on the agenda was an evening with Speyside Wildlife, after stopping at Aviemore for an evening meal. Leaving Aviemore we headed to Rothiemurchus for an evening of mammal watching. Arriving at the meeting place, we parked and meet the other people we were sharing the hide with and our guide Alan Cairns. Alan gave us an informative talk about what we might see, and told us this was the last chance for a pee for a couple of hours. So be warned dont drink to many fluids. We entered the hide and within twenty mniutes there were several badgers around the hide. Unfortunately a fox turned up spoiled the evening, though it was nice to see the fox closely, pine martins dislike them and won't come near the hide. We had to end our evening in the hide early at 10.30pm and head for home. I can highly recommend both hides we visited and both were very well organized.
Badger at Speyside Wildlife
13/09/2009 - Returned house keys and had a social morning with my sister, before going to Inverness and returning home. Although September is a mid period between summer and autumn, I feel the trip was well worth it.
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Andy Vidler Wildlife Photography
