An early morning start Saturday, to be picked up by Alan Davies & Ruth Miller @birdwatchingtrips.co.uk then to pick up other members of the party on our way.
We arrived in Oban early ready to catch the 4pm ferry. We had a lovely lunch at The Poppies cafe.
On our way to Oban & in Oban we saw a tremendous number of birds 44 in total. Including Great northern diver, Red breasted Merganser, Eider, Goldeneye, Shag, Cormorant,Turnstone but we had fantastic views from the ferry port of the White -tailed Eagle, absolutely breathtaking.
We arrived at the Isle of Mull hotel to drop off our bags then headed out for a short walk before dinner. Wigeon, Mallard, Oystercatcher, Common seal, Roe deer the list goes on. Not bad for a day travelling.
Just before dinner we all met to catch up on the days travelling and birding. A lovely meal then an early night.
Sunday a reasonable start before breakfast, meeting at 7am to check out the White-tailed Eagles, it was a damp blustery start to the day, with a mixed bag for the day ahead, wind & rain!!
We soon saw the pair of Eagles gathering nesting materials & taking it back to the nest, so incredible.
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Time to head back to the warmth of the van as the heavens opened & back for a hearty Scottish breakfast.
After breakfast back out at 9am ready for the days birding.
Areas we visited today were, Fishnish, Salen, Loch Na Keal, where we had spectacular views of white tailed eagle, a real shame we had gales here, not able to phoneskope or digiscope. However I managed a short video of the Eagles over head and took a screen grab for a record shot.
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Scanning close to the shore, I thought I’d seen an otter, but then it dived, so wasn’t sure if it was otter or a seal, but up it popped & Alan spotted it a little further along, definitely otter, we watch it for quite a while, and coming closer to the shore, it dived, up it popped and it had caught a fish & we had amazing views through Alan & Ruth’s Leica APO 65mm telescope, hanging onto them so they weren’t blown away!!!
Time to stop off for lunch at the White tail distillery, a cheeky sample of the gin, very nice it was too and a lite lunch.
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Back on the road, the weather really did come in very harsh at times. We headed for Loch Scridan where we had nice views of Little grebe, with the weather closing in again it was back in the van and off to Glenmore here we saw the Golden Eagle and views of a Hen harrier, again back to the van, before been blown away. For the final location it was off to Grasspoint, it was blowing a right gale, no point in getting out here, the rain started to pound down again, although we managed nice views of red deer from the van though.
Seeing some 59 species today was incredible, a total of 9 White-tailed Eagles , 2 Golden Eagle, Hen Harrier, Sparrowhawk, absolutely incredible, we also had excellent views of Greenshank, Redshank, Great Northern Diver, Slavonian Grebe, Shag, Black Guillemot the list goes on.
All in all a fantastic day despite the ever changing blustery weather.
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