North Uist, Outer Hebrides trip. May 2025 (part 2)

 Our first full day on the islands, we decided to not get up too early after all the travelling of the previous day. From the cottage I saw several pairs of Red-throated Divers calling and flying around.

Red-throated Diver

 

There were plenty of Rock Doves about. The ones here are apparently as pure "Rock Dove" as you can get. 

Rock Dove

 Next breakfast, then off out for a drive round. A Kestrel hovering at the side of the road was the next subject.

Kestrel

 

 

One thing we noticed straight away, was the abundance of Short-eared Owls. They seemed to be everywhere, and in areas that I hadn't seen them in the past.

Short-eared Owl

 It was nice to see a Whooper Swan while we were driving around. The orange colouring on it's head due to the iron in the water, where it has been feeding.

Whooper Swan

 

The rest of the day was spent wandering around at RSPB Balranald. It was a recce really, to see what was about and to think about particular photo sessions that I could do there. I did notice that the wader numbers seemed to be lower than usual. The next few images were from the afternoon's wanderings.

Ringed Plover

Common Gull

White Wagtail

Skylark

North Uist, Outer Hebrides Trip May 2025 (part 1)

I have just returned from two weeks staying on North Uist, Outer Hebrides with my wife Kerry. Having been there quite a few times now I knew what I could expect in the way of birds and wildlife, and I wasn't disappointed. One thing we didn't expect was two weeks of sunshine.

This post is about the ferry journey from Uig, Skye to Lochmaddy, North Uist. It takes an hour and three quarters and always worth being on the deck to look out for seabirds and cetaceans. It was fairly quiet on this occasion. The highlights being a pod of Common Dolphins, several Great Northern Divers and a pair of White-tailed Eagles greeting us on the distant hill as we reached Lochmaddy. 

Common Gull

                     

Common Dolphin

                                                                                                                                                       

Common Dolphin

                                                              

Razorbills and Guillemots

                                                               

White-tailed Eagles

 

Chaffinches

 A few images of Chaffinches taken recently. Eighty four added to my main website:

https://www.stevenround-birdphotography.co.uk/

Kittiwakes

Last summer I spent a week in Scotland photographing seabirds. Puffins, Guillemots and Razorbills were the main subjects and I will be posting images of those species soon, but first I have processed the Kittiwake images and have added 44 new ones of them to my website. Here are a few of them.

https://stevenround-birdphotography.co.uk

Rollers in Bulgaria

A few of the Roller images that I have recently added to my website. These were taken in Bulgaria a few years ago. Lovely birds that are full of character.

Hawfinches

It has been sometime since I updated my blog, for various reason. I have still been very busy taking photographs though which has added to the ever increasing backlog of images. I'll start posting here regularly again as I try and catch up a little.

This post is of the Hawfinches I photographed back in 2018 when I visited Bulgaria. I only really looked at them properly this week and was pleasantly suprised at how many good images I had. Consequently I have added 78 of them to my website. Here's a few of them.

More here - stevenround-birdphotography.co.uk/hawfinch

 

Pied Flycatchers

 I have just added 20 shots of these to my website. These were taken last year and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will have a good number of new ones to add, along with Redstart and Wood Warbler. It has been quite a few years since I did these woodland species properly, so fingers crossed.

Redwing

It's always nice to photograph the winter Thrushes we get in the UK. Both Redwings and Fieldfares are lovely birds. Here's a few shots from last week of the Redwings.

 

 

Snow Bunting

We have had a few Snow Buntings in the coast locally for the last month or two. A group of five at one location and a single bird at another. I decided to go and have a look at the lone bird as it would be in better light. I arrived and could immediately see it perched on top of the rocks in some lovely late afternoon light. A few shots and 15 minutes later it flew high into the sky and disappeared into the distance. It has returned in the days since so I think it probably goes elsewhere to roost.

It has been some time since I photographed one of these lovely approachable birds. I'll maybe go and check out the group of five before winter is over.

More Garden Birds

 As the light improves and with a good deal of sunshine I have been making the most of it with more photography in the garden, here's a few more from the last couple of days.

Blackcap (female)

Common Buzzard

Goldfinch

Goldfinch

Greenfinch (male)

Nuthatch

Nuthatch