A Few More Images from Scotland

Below are some more images from my recent trip to Scotland:

Pale-bellied Brent Goose

Bar-tailed Godwit, Nairn

Purple Sandpiper, Burghead

Red Squirrel

A Cold Looking Findhorn Valley

Eurofighter, Lossiemouth 

Ptarmigans at Cairngorms National Park

I've just returned from a trip to Scotland. Early on in the trip the weather was perfect - cold and crisp underfoot. I managed to add a few more images of Ptarmigan at Cairngorms National Park. The perfect weather only lasted a couple of days, but even so I had a good time in one of my favourite places.

Male Ptarmigan

Female Ptarmigan

Male Ptarmigan

Male Ptarmigan

Cairngorms

Glaucous Gull Video

Due to the distance I am from the gulls at Shawell it is often easiest to video the gulls through my scope. Below is a short video of the juvenile Glaucous Gull that was at the A5 Lagoons yesterday morning.

Best watched in HD format. You may have to change the quality by clicking on settings.

New Camera

I have been biding my time waiting for the price of the Cannon 7D mk 2 to come down. Also I was undecided whether or not to change to a compact camera for digiscoping, but in the end I decided to stick with a DSLR as I can use this for both techniques.

I checked the prices and decided, as the mk 2 was now cheaper than I paid for my mk1 in 2010, it was time to purchase.

So what improvements have I experienced? Well the autofocus on birds in flight has improved massively. It grabs the focus instantly and allows me to track the birds in focus much better than the earlier model did. The image quality also appears to have improved. Video quality has also improved, as has the ability to focus using Live View when digiscoping.

This morning I went over to Braunstone Frith to try photographing gulls in flight. Despite the very dull conditions I still managed to get more images in sharp focus than I am used to.

Below are a couple of images from this morning:

Common Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

After putting the camera through it paces I headed off to Shawell to do the WeBS count. There wasn't that many gulls on the A5 Lagoons, but one of them was the juvenile Glaucous Gull that has been around since January.

Juvenile Glaucous Gull

Another regular also put in appearance. The second-winter Caspian Gull in the photo below has been visiting Shawell since November 2015.

Second-Winter Caspian Gull

Another Good Day at Shawell

I had a well deserved rest from work today, but there was no time to be idle, as it was off to Shawell for my gull fix. I missed last weekend as I was away working down south.

I started the day at the landfill site and the gulls new the script. The sun was in my eyes looking towards the landfill, so the gulls flew to the quarry and landed with the sun in their eyes rather than mine. I soon came across two Glaucous Gulls resting within a few metres of each other. One was the juvenile I saw a couple of times last month and the other was a new bird. I presume it's a fourth-winter due to the remains of the black tip to the beak being visible.

Juvenile Glaucous Gull

At lunchtime I made my way to the A5 Lagoons and several thousand gulls had beat me to it. As well as the 'white-wingers', I saw a couple of Caspian Gulls and read 27 colour-rings. Many of the colour-ringed gulls today were Black-headed Gulls. It is always pleasing to read the small colour-rings on Black-headed Gulls at a distance of about 150 metres. The two Glaucous Gulls appeared at the lagoons giving me a second opportunity to admire them. A birder arrived just before I had relocated the 'white-wingers', which was very lucky for him. Both of the Glaucous Gulls were probably females as they were quite small.

Fourth-winter Glaucous Gull

First-Winter Caspian Gull

First-Winter Caspian Gull