Tales From The Highlands

Day 2 - Gondolas & Greenshanks

  After yesterdays epic 12hr journey I decided to let Majella have a deserved lie in.Opening the curtains I saw that the Chaffinches were down taking advantage of the food I put out last night.A flock of Meadow Pipits danced around the field outside our window and a Buzzard soared over the hill top.
  Tug and Georgie popped over to say Hi  and I rewarded them with half a carrot each.
Georgie

  My mate Tug, we go back years :)

  The sun was out and I could see snow on the distant mountains so we headed over to the Nevis Range.Due to my obvious problems I can no longer hike up mountains so we cheated and got on the Gondola to take us up Aonach Mor.

 A quick walk along the trail to look at the view down to Fort William also gave us the opportunity to watch a couple of Skylarks.

  We then headed back down and home for lunch to recharge the batteries of both the cameras and myself.
  After lunch I walked around the farm photographing a few of the new additions.
Mother Hen and her new brood.

  The 2 new lambs on the farm.

  A couple of Chaffinches were still attending the bird table and the Meadow Pipit flock continued to forage in the field.
  I decided to check the tide times for Fort William and after reading that the low tide was at 5.55pm we decided to head back into town late afternoon to a place where we have watched Otters before.When we arrived the tide was already low enough to expose the central islands.Black-headed, Black-backed and Herring Gulls were numerous.A Grey Heron fished from from one of the islands and 20+ Goldeneye were dotted around the sea loch with a few of the males displaying by throwing their heads back and calling.As we waited for the elusive Otter a Greenshank flew over and landed on the far shore.Unfortunately the elusive Otter stayed elusive lol but hopefully we will get the chance to try again.
  Looking for Otters on Loch Linnhe.

  Back at the cabin I set up the moth trap and trail cam and then we settled in for a game of drunk Jenga :)

  Join us again to see what wildlife we manage to find tomorrow.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

Stuart