scotland holiday-day 9

A drizzly morning over the campsite as we packed up ready to leave. We bid a last farewell to the island before heading out to the ferry which awaited us in Brodick. We did not have to wait long because we decided to try and catch the earlier ferry and we just about managed it. I decided to go up onto the deck again to take some more photos of the wildlife that we saw on the way back. First we saw these black guillemots on the pier.

Then I spotted 2 more on a walkway which were running in their sadly amusing black guillemot way. I didn't manage to capture this on camera but it would have been lovely if I had.

And then, as we set off, A black guillemot began to fly alongside us so I took some photos of that one too. What a black guillemot filled morning. As we took off I spotted two more diver X's flying overhead. I took some photos but once again I cant make out any distinguishing features so the diver X will forever remain a mystery of the Arran island!

After that the journey quietened down a lot. There was a real lack of manx shearwaters but an increase in common guillemots which were sat in large groups cradling their young. It was nice to see but some shearwaters would have been nice. Then as we approched the end of our journey, the boat had to drive through a massive feeding flock of shearwaters allowing me to get some incredible shots of these mysterious seabirds as they ran along the water and took off, right in front of me!

After that it quietened down a bit but a cormorant was found swimming under the boat before the bow-wave swallowed it up!

---It is now 2014, and reading through some posts one afternoon I have encountered this post. I have no idea what 15 year old me was thinking but this is quite clearly a shag. Its a pity I did not notice this at the time, as its a species I do not see very often, living inland. Fortunately it was only a brief view so I did not miss much but in hindsight I would have grabbed some more photos---

The rest of the day was an uneventful drive to the rhins of galloway. luckily, by the time we got there, the sun was out! The campsite we were now going to is called New England Bay and is part of the caravan club group. No sooner had we pulled in did things start to look up as in the driveway of the campsite there were some sparrows having a dust bath.

after that, we set up and then went for a walk on the beach (this campsite too was next to the beach) and although I could hear some sandwhich terns I diddnt see any and for that matter I diddnt see anything of particular interest on the beach at all. Still, things should get better now the weather is good!