The Juvenile Birder

Hiking in the Highlands! We set off at 2:00am in the morning and arrived at a secret site up in the Highlands of Scotland at around 9:00am. Our only target was Ptarmigan. I had dipped this last year, after a hard and long climb up a mountain, in the snow! We were feeling strangely optimistic about this adventure, as lots of the snow had melted, meaning that the Ptarmigan should hopefully stand out. Enroute to the site, I spotted loads of Red Grouse . As soon as we arrived in the car park, the first bird we saw was a Red Grouse  feeding in the grass only a few metres away. After scanning the boulder scree on the mountain from the car park, I couldn't initially spot anything that stood out as Ptarmigan. I then started scanning the few patches of snow. Suddenly, two white specs caught my eye as one of them moved. They were Ptarmigan ! I was ecstatic, and immediately got a digiscoped image of them. The pair were showing well, however they were extremely distant. They were a lifer for m...

Highlights of the Highlands! We set off from home at 12am with the intention of arriving to the Capercaillie site at first light. We parked up at 6.50am and started walking along the tracks. We scanned the trees and heather looking for them. We then went on a track that a male had been previously seen on. We turned a corner and saw a big shape in the trees. At first, we thought it was some litter, but when we looked through our binoculars, we saw that it was a male Capercaillie ! It sat in the tree for a bit, before flying off. We were shocked at how well the bird showed and managed to get a record shot of it! We then walked further ahead when another male Capercaillie (probably the same one from earlier) flew straight past us deep in the forest. We then continued walking and got good views of  Roe Deer  but didn't see any more of the target elusive birds. We then travelled to a site, known for Scottish Crossbills, seeing some Red Squirrels for the first time along the way. W...