Sundays Big Trip

Sunday was going to be a Big Birding Trip.  I started from home in the dark to drive the two and a half hours to Mar Lodge Estate in Upper Deeside.  The weather was just as predicted by the Met Office.  It was still, there were very few clouds and there was snow on the ground.  Little wonder the photographer in me got distracted and had to stop for some scenic photos

Upper Deeside

Upper Deeside

But I arrived quite early.  The mountain climbers who had stopped overnight in their camper vans were only just getting their first cup of tea before tackling the snow capped peaks of the Cairngorms.  As a result I was first up the path the Glen Lui.  Only a little way along I got my first bird of the day and a tick for the year list.  A Black Grouse

Black Grouse - Glen Lui

My second bird, again another tick was heard first and then seen - at a distance- so no photo.  It was a Raven.

From then on for the next three hours not one single bird.  Lots of views, lots of hill walker to pass the time of day with.

These four were off the bag two Monroes (peaks over 3000 feet).  I had a chat with them about their walk and about the work that the National Trust for Scotland were doing to restore the natural Caledonian woodland habitat which will help the Black Grouse, Capercaillie (my first thought when I saw the Grouse was that it was a Capercaillie, mainly because if its size as it flew from the forest floor into the Scots Pine), and other iconic Scottish fauna and flora.

...but not one solitary single bird of any sort until I was nearly back at the car park when I heard and then saw a Coal Tit.

I left Mar Lodge Estate with three birds seen and two year ticks to go on to Glenshee.

Glenshee is home to a ski resort on the A93 between Braemar and Blairgowrie.  It is famed, not just for the skiing but for the Snowbuntings that frequent the car park, the Ptarmigan on the ski slopes and Mountain Hare.  I saw none of these unless you count the Hare road kill on the way back to Braemar.  I did see a covey, or is it a pack of Red Grouse.  Another tick for the year list.  Of course there were the views.

Perhaps one reason for the lack of wildlife was the large number of families enjoying the snow both on the slopes and in the car park.  I made a mental note to go back during the week and in school term time.

So there was nothing to it than to drive home.  Four birds and three to list (not counting the Carrion Crows, Rooks and Jackdaws I saw in the villages.

I drove back via the Glen Tanar Estate on the South side of the river Dee.It prides itself on its wildlife, open access and conservation work.  When I have been here in the past I have seen Green Woodpeckers, Jays and other birds that would add to the goal of 200 birds in 2017.  But like Mar Lodge and Glenshee the bird life was conspicuous by its absence.

And the views were not up to the standards of earlier in the day.










Total on list 108