Got up quite early this morning at around 7.00 and so, with time to kill, I decided to go for a walk around the campsite. The campsite is mainly gorse and bracken heath type habitat so there should, fingers crossed, be some unusual neighbours. But the first bird I saw today was in fact a swallow allowing me to get some of the swallow shots I had wanted.
I entered a small picnic area behind the caravan-site where I found willow warbler, whitethroat and to my surprise sedge warbler too. It looks as though my hunch for this place being great was right!
Later we decided to go to the mull of galloway rspb nature reserve which is a great seabird colony. As soon as we arrived we decided to go to the cafe as it has a great view area over a section of the cliff that is legendary for peregrines. Sure enough a peregrine did whizz past but it was a lingering kestrel That I decided to take the photos off. It was flying really close and against the black background of the shade was really striking!
Sadly though there was a dead mipit on the walkway that had hit a window. it was sad to see but it really did allow you to take in how striking the birds are really. As I was looking at this, a wheatear landed on the roof of the cafe and whats more is that it was really bold allowing me to get some great shots that I have always wanted!
It took some time but eventually we re-located the peregrine, a striking bird, on a cliff face so I went off to try and get some photos of it. They are poor but they are only record shots so what does it matter.
After I had done watching the peregrine (it was being most boring and just sitting there) I enetred the reserve. Almost at once I found a six-spot burnet moth which is also a record shot. they were everywhere and really easy to photograph so I managed to get some really decent shots.
As I wandered aroudn the moors I managed to find this little beauty which I later identified as a roufous grasshopper which is a first for me!
All over the moors, mipits and linnets and even willow warblers were singing and foraging for food so there was really no need to go and have a look at the cliffs!
As I was watching this mipit above I spotted a dark shape fly past and I instantly knew That it was skua. less than four seconds after a porpoise swam across a section of flat calm water. I decided to go down to the foghorn to try and get closer to all this action to see if the skua would fly back. There was a notable lack of seabirds at this time of year, only the kittywakes still there and even they were in smaller numbers. As I was watching the kittywakes, the skua flew back, quite beyond my notice until a bird (a gannet, I seem to remeber) came under attack but I was too late to get any decent photos so below is all that I have. You can however easily tell that it is an arctic skua but eventually it flew off.
Even though I said that I would not take any more rock pipit photos this holiday I couldnt resist this one that was sitting below the foghorn.
eventually I left, primerally becuase some rowdy people had come and were sort of spoiling the beutiful silence. I decided to go back up to the top, to the moors where I saw a hare. I also found a common blue that was feeding on some daisy of some kind.
After that I went to the visitor center with my family. There They showed me some footage of a peregrine plucking a kittywake chick that it had killed. It was quite remarkable footage but best of all was the resolution, really clear. There however one of the wardens had told my dad to look out for yellowhammers on our campsite because of the ammount fo gorse. Well you can bet that the first thing I did when I got back was to go looking for yellowhammers. I managed to find one in the distance but I quickly realised that the only way I was going to get to see one was by wlaking around the margins of a wheat feild. I cant see any problem with walking around the edges but they were cutting the wheat in a feild across the road and so I was quite nervous. But it turned out to be worth the risk. I quickly found a young male yellowhammer sitting in a hawthorn tree in perfect photograph conditions.
Then as I was taking shots of this bird a stunning male sat on the fence futhur down. I took some shots from where I was and tried to get a bit closer,b ut man he was flighty and so I diddnt get anywhere near him. I have made this bird a objective of this holiday!
I also caught up with the birds that I had seen that morning, with the addition of whitethroat and linnet. The willow warblers were much easier to photograph and when I went down to the ebach the sandwhich tern decided to show his little black head! surprisingly it wasnt totally black which, if I am not mistaken, means that it is only a juvenile, possibly one of this years young.
As you can see this site was really rising to the challenge of bringing some great birds. In the evening we went to portpatrick but the balck guillemots here were not showing, possibly gone to bed but The sun was being beautiful in the sky allowing for these great shots.
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