Isle of Mull - Day 5

Target Bird - Crossbill

On the Wednesday, it was something that we always do when we come up to Mull, and that is have a guided tour with Bryan Rains - Wild About Mull. This is a fantastic day out, were Bryan takes you around the south of the island looking at Mull's birds and wildlife. There fantastic!

Before we even got on the tour, we had an Otter swim past our hotel, which was fantastic. This was our first Otter for Mull this year.

Bryan picked us up, and then the other guests. We got the Sea Eagle on the nest, then we got another Otter.

We then got another White-tailed Eagle, which soared right over us.

We then got to the Golden Eagles nest, and we were treated to both birds sitting on the top of the hill. Here's 1!

At Carsaig, we picked up a Wood Warbler.

We then moved to the stores, to get lunch, picking up a pair of Hen Harrier on the way. We got to the stores, and we picked up at least one Crosssbill to go onto the year list, where it was chipping away in the trees. We'd already seen Razorbill, Cuckoo, G-N Diver, Common Tern, Stonechat and Whinchat and Eider..... the list gets longer and longer! 

We got to Fidden, where we got Whimbrel, Linnet and Mountain Hare. The, I plunged onto a Tree Sparrow in a stony area. Not great photo's, but still Awesome!!

Here's the Whimbrel and Linnet.

Happy Birding!

Isle of Mull - Day 4

Every year we have come to the Isle of Mull, we have always gone on Bryan's Wild About Mull tour, (see link http://begbits.blogspot.com) and his tours have never failed us with a good day of birdwatching, and once again, it didn't this time. 7 of us went on his tour, and while collecting the rest of the visitors, Siskin, Buzzard and the regular White-tailed Eagle chicks were all visible. We started actually waiting for one of the adult Eagles to come into the nest with some food for their young, and after an hour of waiting, we were rewarded. Another good bird at a regular stopping point were Golden Eagle, showing well in the mountainside hills. All of the commoner species were available, like Stonechat, Wheatear, Hooded Crows and Wader species. Being close to Pennyghael - where we stayed - were regular points to view the Short-eared Owls, with also the occasional Hen Harrier. 

Plenty of "Hoodies" were sitting on rocks and posts.

Also, Short-eared Owls were on the hunt during the morning

Getting towards lunch time, we headed to Beak. With all the great sightings we'd seen, it was time to view a reptile which is not easy to locate in some parts of the UK, the Adder. Bryan and I had our sandwiches, and he knows where their bathing areas are amongst the heather, and I had a rough idea where they were from the previous years, so we went looking. Only steping into the heather about 10 meters, already a couple of Adders were slithering out from under my shoes, incredible. After everyone finished eating, we grouped everyone up to show them, and with some luck everyone saw them, but not as close as they may have liked to of been. Well, walking out of the heather, you couldn't get much closer than this.....

This is actually a younger Adder, but if you look closely to the bottom left, you may be able to see that it is eating a newt, fantastic.

Going back to some of the birds at Beak, about 3 Hen Harriers were flying about, a Golden Eagle, and a couple of Cuckoos. Driving out of Beak, this caught the corner of Bryans eye..... 

An adult Adder

Another incredible day, only one thing left to find for this week is an Otter!