An Eagle Watching Day

At the breakfast table we looked out onto House Sparrows, Chaffinches, and more importantly Siskin at the feeders. There was a mixture of adults, young birds and even younger ones being fed. These were joined by our first sighting of Collared Doves and Stock Doves. Add to that Goldfinches as well.

We are staying at Fascadial, a BnB in Salen which is also where the owner of Lady Jayne the name of the boat that will take us out for a closer look at the WT Eagles. Martin and Judith made us welcome and our room is spacious enough to make it very comfortable. We had heard all about his knowledge and his trips out into the loch. The weather again was good and the sea was calm. These Eagles are big and with an eight foot wingspan they are an awesome bird to see fly over the boat. And they did on more than once. We passed two perched ones on our way out and we had at least four different birds fly over and to see them swooping to take fish is some sight. Martin knew what he was doing and when one came in view he shut the engine down and we watched.

He received information that there was a pod of Bottle-nosed Dolphin and there were about eight of them. We enjoyed their company and they seemed to enjoy ours too. Swimming around and coming out of the water. Michelle managed a good shot of one partly out. So good to watch.

We are used to working on our birding days, but on this day it was made easy for us with Mull Charters and eco friendly too. We loved every minute of it.

Everything else did seem irrelevant after all that we had seen, but the usual sea birds were around
including Black Guillemots and Shags. Back at Loch na Keal the Whitethroat was still singing and we confirmed the sighting of around 200 Common Gulls. Here also we saw several Bar-Tailed Godwits and again Mergansers

We added to our list of birds when we saw both Meadow Pipits and Common Redstarts. It was really good to be 'grounded' with small moorland type birds including (again) Northern Wheatears. We saw four different Common Buzzards and the last one had a snake in its talons. We know that there are Adders here and so it could have been one of those has it arose from out of the bracken.

If we had thought that we had a good day then it kept on being good. We always stop when we see others watching. This led us out onto the rocks where we saw two otters - probably a mother and a juvenile. Only a viewing of a few minutes, but so good to see. They are superb animals.
A few miles on we saw a perched - on a crag - Golden Eagle. It was distant, but in the scope we could see the detail and observe Kestrels dive bombing it. On a hillside two Ravens flew.

Now for refreshment as we had not stopped since breakfast and a reflection on our two days on Mull. It is beautiful and it is user friendly. It is geared up for wildlife viewing and all this makes up for a great time. Tomorrow we visit Iona.