My eldest daughter has been very good at generating excuses for some good birding trips over the years. As she is situated up in Durham this has given me some great opportunities for trips to Spurn, Northumberland and southern Scotland and my list of birds from these trips is rather impressive. Indeed it boasts things like Masked Shrike, White-winged Scoter, Black Scoter, Harlequin Duck, Blyth's Pipit, Citrine Wagtail, Pied Wheatear, Penduline Tit, Black-throated Thrush to name just some of the rarer birds. My younger daugher on the other hand hadn't really been pulling her weight in terms of providing me with decent bird trippage. As she'd been to Swansea as an undergraduate there hadn't been much on offer there apart from a few rare plants. Granted her Master's in Edinburgh had provided me with Eastern Black-eared Wheatear and Black Duck but she was still rather behind the offerings of the eldest. Now, however, she was due back up in Scotland this coming autumn to start another Masters course, this time at Aberdeen in Health Psychology. She had been thinking that it might be a good idea to go and have a look around this summer so she could have an idea about what to expect and as I quite fancied a trip up to Scotland myself I readily agreed. The basic plan was to spend a day travelling up, spend a day looking around Aberdeen, then spend some time in the Cairngorms area around Loch Garten before heading home via Durham where we had to drop off something for daughter 1. Naturally, June in Loch Garten offered up some interesting opportunities and I worked out that I should be able finally to get at least some of the northern orchid species on my list as well as trying to see some speciality nothern odonata. So, plenty enough for me to feel motivated for the trip.
We set off on Friday up the M6 towards Scotland. The M6 on a Friday is never a great day for travelling and there were periodic traffic stoppages though never anything too serious. We stopped off at our favourite service station at Tebay on the M6 just before Penrith. For those who are into such things, these services are ranked number two in the UK behind only Gloucester Services (which I've not yet been to). It was great to sit outside at a table eating an iced bun and drinking tea and listen to calling Curlew and Sisken - what's not to like!
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| The view from the picnic table at Tebay services isn't too shabby! |
We finally arrived at our overnight stopping location of Stirling in the early evening. After a nice meal we had a wander up to the castle on the hill where there were panoramic views over towards the distant hills.
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| Stirling Castle viewed from the church viewpoint |
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| Looking west towards the mountains such as Ben Lomand, Ben Vorlich etc |
The next morning we headed on the further two hours to Aberdeen. I've flown into the city airport in the past but had never actually been into the city at all so it was new for both of us. We passed a pleasant day wandering around the hosipital area where she will be doing her training and around the university campus. I hadn't appreciated just how old the university was but it was established in 1495 and had wonderful old buildings to match.
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| Aberdeen University was surprisingly old |
Towards late afternoon we were getting tired so we went to our guest house for the night to relax and order some takeaway. After that we decided to head out again to explore the beach that lies between the two rivers: the Dee to the south and the Don to the north. The beach turned out to be a lovely sandy affair with hardly any people around at this time of day. We soon spotted a pod of dolphins quite close in and spent our time tracking them as they made their way slowly north. My daughter took some video on my superzoom camera and I watched them in my scope. I also managed to see all four Tern species hunting actively along the shoreline. Apparently they nest on an island at the mouth of the river Don. Eventually it started to get dark so we headed back to our guesthouse and turned in for the night.
Some video taken by my daughter
The next day we headed off west on the two hour drive to the Loch Garten area. Fortunately, the weather forecast, which had looked a bit iffy a few days ago, was for reasonably sunny conditions with no rain which would mean that there should be no issues with the odonata side of our quests. Indeed this was where we started, with our first stop being the small pond on the approach road to Loch Garten from Boat of Garten.
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| The "Northern Damselfly pond" near Boat of Garten |
Most odonata enthusiasts will know this pond as the go-to place for my first target, Northern Damselfly. It didn't take too long to find either. Northern is know for skulking in amongst the vegetation at the edges of ponds so the boardwalk there is ideally place and there were several individuals on show most of the time. There were a few Common Blues about as well so one did have to be a bit careful but it was all fairly straight-forward. There were a few Large Red Damselflies also in amongst the sedge whilst across the water surface there were loads of Four-spotted Chasers.
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| Four-spotted Chasers were numerous |
The main diagnostic points for identifying Northern Damselfly from Common Blue is that the S2 mark is in the form of a spear head rather than the round club that Common Blue has. Also, the lower half of the eyes on Northern are green. When viewed side on, there are two small black stripes on the side of the thorax compared to the single stripe of Common Blue. Note that whilst Azure Blue also has two black stripes, this species is not found in this area.
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| Northern Damselflies in cop |
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| It was hard work getting the autofocus to lock on so I often had to resort to "over-zooming" right in so that the subject filled the frame, as above. You can see the spearhead black mark nicely on S2 here. |
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| In this side on photo you can see the two small black lines on the side of the thorax as well as the green lower half of the eyes |
Having quickly achieved my first target, it was time to move onto my next ones. These were a couple of northern orchids that should be in flower at the time, namely Coralroot Orchid and Lesser Twayblades. I'd been told that given how dry a spring it has been up in Scotland (it certainly was noticeably drier there than down south) that there weren't many orchids about this year. Fortunately I'd been given a secret location where both could be found (don't ask - I've been sworn to secrecy!). So it was back in the car and on to the woodland where they were known to be found. It was actually my daughter who first found both the Coralroot and the Lesser Twayblades. The former were dotted around in the more marshy places whereas the latter was only in one clump, marked by a stick. They looked rather thin in the dry conditions but at least I'd finally got to see them.
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| Above Coralroot and below Lesser Twayblades both taken with my iPhone so the quality is not great |
Having achieved all my targets already, we then discussed what to do for the afternoon. In the end we elected to have a picnic on the shores of Loch Morlich and then to walk along the trail around the loch. This was a walk that my daughter had done previously with her friends and which should take a couple of hours or so. Loch Morlich turned out to be the number one inland beach destination for Scotland with hoards of people all along the shoreline having picnics, paddling about and otherwise enjoying the hot sunny conditions. This was very much not my scene though as we continued along the trail we soon left the crowds behind us and it was quiet and peaceful. There was not much in the way of wildlife seen this afternoon apart from a Spotted Flycatcher feeding it's youngster and a calling Crested Tit in the canopy above us as we ate our picnic. It was also rather comical to watch a young family of Goosander hunting in the shallow river that flows out of the loch. The mother would see a fish and then forge through the shallow water in pursuit. As soon as she did this all the youngsters would immediately start doing the same though presumably without an actual fish in their sights. They caused quite a commotion!
The Goosander family learning to hunt
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| You can make out three young Spotted Flycatcher chicks in the nest |
After our walk we headed back to Boat of Garten where we'd booked into a guesthouse for the evening. We chilled there for a while, then headed into Grantown where the old chinese takeaway was still going. This we ate along the river shoreline. Whereas when I'd visited there in the past I had had the whole place to myself, this time there were half a dozen campervans all parked up along the river. A sign of the times I guess as more people have more leisure time to spend. There was a large patch of Lupins and I managed to find a Chimney Sweeper moth in the tall grass - actually a personal lifer of what is not that rare a species.
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| Chimney Sweeper moth skulking in the grass |
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| Nootka Lupins growing by the river bank - a wild Lupin species rather than a garden escape which can be found on shingle banks in Scotland |
After dinner we headed to Loch Garten RSPB car park where we parked up and just spent some time chilling by the loch shore watching the sun go down. A calling Cuckoo was the only wildlife of note. Then it was back to the guest house where we collapsed on our beds, tired out after a long day.
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| We encountered quite a few of this Chickweed Wintergreen in various forest locations during our visit to the Loch Garten area |
The next day we planned to head down to daughter 1 at Durham to stay the night there. However, the forecast torrential rain turned out not to be as bad as predicted so we decided to head over to the Uath Lochans nature reserve. This was a known hot spot for Northern Emeralds though in the windy and overcast conditions I wasn't holding my breath. The reserve turned out to be a lovely forest with four lochans to walk around on a simple, well-marked trail. There were no odonata over the water but it was very picturesque and we both greatly enjoyed our walk.
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| One of the four lochans - it was too cold and windy for any odonta to be on the wing |
Then it was back in the car for the long slog down to Durham. That evening we went for a walk around the local area which in the lovely evening sunlight looked really beautiful. Normally Durham has this somewhat melancholy air to it so it was quite a revelation to see it looking so good.
The final day was just a long slog back home to Oxford. The first part of the journey was through torrential rain that made driving conditions very tricky so it was hard work. However, by the time we got back to Oxford it was sunny, humid conditions again just as they had been when we had left. It had been a very nice, albeit rather tiring trip up to Scotland. Thanks to daughter 2's new course, I expect that this will be the first of many up there.
