Tuesday 15 March 2016

Scotland Trip.......Part 1

I have just returned from a week long holiday in the Highlands of Scotland along with my wife Anne, this was Anne's first 'Winter' trip to Scotland and we were both really looking forward to it.

What we were not expecting was the glorious weather that greeted us on our arrival and for the following day, not a cloud in the sky and wall to wall sunshine!!

This made me change my plans and so with an early start on Sunday we headed up to the Cairngorms ski centre and headed out into the corries looking for Ptarmigan. In recent trips I had not been very lucky with what can be an elusive bird, I say elusive but I suppose everything can be that if you do not manage to get a photograph of your target species that you are after! Now today I cannot blame the weather it was just a case of getting into position scanning the area through binoculars and listening for the call of this beautiful bird.

We both could hear the birds and after picking out a few Mountain Hare we saw our first Ptarmigan, a group of 5 birds which were being watched by a group of people that must have been the envy of any photographer as these people were not photographers but must have had this group of birds within feet of them!

Soon afterwards Anne saw something move "over there its white and moving" was all I had to go on!!!! Anyway after getting my breath and asking Anne to point me in the direction off I went and found a cracking male bird, who was very confiding but did not hang around for long.


This was my first view of the Ptarmigan


Then once he had settled he stayed for a few minutes 







At one point I managed to get the other side of him and photographed him against the blue sky.


And then like me it was time to move, for me it was downwards for this guy he went on upwards hopefully to find a mate! 


 Thanks for looking

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