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

Short-eared Owls

Back in November I had a good session with some Short-eared Owls. I did think that it would be an ongoing project through the winter, although the weather has put paid to that so far. Hopefully there will be some more opportunities before they move off to their breeding grounds.

 

My Scottish Trip - Birds on Posts

I have just returned from three weeks in Scotland. Two were spent on the very windy Outer Hebrides and the third was in Speyside. I will be posting a few images of the many species I photographed over the coming weeks, as I add them to my main site. To start off I thought I would show some of the birds perching on posts, this is a common sight on the Hebrides as there are plenty of posts and not many trees.

Corn Bunting

Oystercatcher

Redshank

Short-eared Owl

Snipe

Corn Bunting

Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipit

Redshank

Hen Harrier v Short-eared Owl

A trip out this morning in the lovely clear frosty weather let me witness a confrontation between a Hen Harrier and a Short-eared Owl. The owl had managed to catch a vole which the Harrier was trying to steal from it. It didn't succeed and eventually both went their seperate ways. The fighting shots are fairly well cropped so I just picked out some of the best from the sequence. I always considered the harrier to be much larger than the Owl, but these show that they are quite similar in size.