Mull: the bigger they are, the harder they are to photograph

So it seems with Golden Eagles. While thier White-tailed cousins can sometimes be tempted to fish off the back of boats, short of pinning a dead dear to a hillside and bivouacking overnight, you have to be lucky to get close to a Goldie. We enjoyed excellent scope views most days on Mull but these were the best pictures I could manage.

The upper one was taken in Glen More, 'Eagle Central', where a distant bird over the top of Ben More went into a huge stoop, dropping from over 3,000 feet almost to sea level in what seemed like seconds. The lower picture was taken as we headed home on our last night near Dervaig. It was first seen - and identified - by 8-year old George. I initially dismissed it as a Buzzard at first but on taking a second look realised he was right. That's my boy.

Mull, 2nd April: best road in Britain?

My vote goes to the single track road which passes under the Gribun Rocks on the shores of Loch na Keal before snaking south over a high pass to Loch Scridain. From the lower road you can see Divers and Slavonian Grebes just offshore, Wheatears and Rock Pipits below you, Eagles and Peregrines above you.

Great Northern Diver

Great Northern Diver

If you ignore the slim chance of obliteration by falling rocks from the precipitous cliffs, or the slightly higher chance of plummeting through a crash barrier while gawping at the wildlife or the landscape, it is just about as perfect as it gets. Today we were treated to a close fly-past by a ringtail Hen Harrier as we drove over the high road.

Hen Harrier

Hen Harrier

Rock Pipit

Male Wheatear

Male Wheatear



The breath-taking landscape around Loch na Keal

Whisky Dippers - Tobermory, 31st March

When I first persuaded the family to take a holiday on Mull back in 2005 it was an easy sell. My eldest son was into Balamory at the time so a five minute spin around Tobermory seeing the places he recognised from the telly, followed by hours and hours of driving round looking for eagles, seemed an eminently fair way to keep everyone happy. These days, now the children are older, and their mother even wiser to my scams, Balamory has lost some of its appeal for them. But this Easter they succumbed to my pester power and we went back.

Some of the residents have apparently got a bit peeved with visiting children taking pleasure in their garishly painted houses, the fun-loving brats. The owners of Spencer's house have even painted it from its distinctive orange to a kind of diarrhoea brown, so we did a drive-by shooting with the camera just to annoy them.

The gaily painted houses of 'Balamory', their embittered occupants resenting every snotty nose and sticky fingerprint pressed against windows by the innocents who have yet to discover the joy of Nintendo.

Not that there aren't other reasons to visit Tobermory, of course. Such as dining at the excellent Cafe Fish, where we ate Squat Lobster which had been plucked from the sea only two hours earlier. I had also read that Dippers frequent the stream flowing past the famous distillery into the harbour so checked it out this morning - cracking views of a bird collecting nesting material. Getting a Dipper in good light is rarely easy as they prefer shaded streams - this one was out in the open, but unfortunately the sun wasn't! A Red-breasted Merganser was the other bird of note in the harbour.

Stilt Lake

I missed the Black-winged Stilt which spent a few hours last spring at Radipole Lake by three minutes, and managed to not hear about another one at the same location on Wednesday until it was too late, so it had started to feel like a potential bogey bird for my Dorset list. Fortunately it stuck around and I managed to catch up with it at Abbotsbury Swannery later in the week though the views of the bird - which is thought to be the same one phtographed by James Packer at Chew Valley Lake - were distant.

After stepping in one too many piles of Portland's special brand of footpath jam this morning, I decided to leave the island and head to the Swannery for another look. Although this involved shelling out £10.50 for the entry fee, the accommodating staff provided access to a hide not normally open to the public, which afforded much better views of the Stilt than were possible from the road. It skirted the edge of a wet meadow to the right of the hide and while it never came close, some passable photos were still possible. Quite bold in the face of provocation from Coots and a Great-blacked Back Gull, after a long preen it hopped about comically on one stilt for a bit, but looked much more elegant when using both.

Portland Peregrine

I could hear a Peregrine calling on Portland this morning but was surprised to find it just below me when I approached the cliff edge, and even more surprised when it didn't immediately fly off. After a minute or so it turned and dropped like a stone towards the sea.

Early morning on Portland

A selection of migrants and resident birds from Portland this morning:

Linnet - male

Redstart - male

Redstart - female

Stonechat - female

Stonechat - male

Skylark

Wheatear - male

Garden tick!

A tell-tale call  - a bit Eider Duck, a bit 'oo-er missus' - alerted me to the presence of a pair of Med Gulls over the house today - living in Wareham, with a breeding population in Poole Harbour, this species was always going to be a garden tick one day, but these were the first I had since in the year since we moved here.



This evening I walked around nearby Swineham Gravel pits - many more warblers singing since my last visit, including a dozen Chiffchaffs, three Blackcaps, two Reeds and a single Willow.

Mistle Thrush, Swineham

Sand Martin, Swineham

Drake Teal, Swineham