Friday 6th June - The Wild West!

Ewan and Ben were on an Ardnamurchan tour today, with 2 private guests. They took the ferry from Tobermory to Kilchoan, on the ferry there were a couple of guillemots, gannets and shags fly bys.

Sound of mull

After crossing the sound of Mull, the tour began with a quick scan in a nearby looking for otters but no success. Common sandpipers, wheaters and oystercatchers were a great supporting act though.

Ardnamurchan is known for its incredible landscapes, and it did not disappoint, the scenery was spectacular at every point also Ardnamurchan has some untouched temperature rainforest of deciduous trees, that had many stunning song birds calling from deep in the forests !

The guests really wanted to see otters, so we looked in multiple bays, but they were just being elusive in the morning.

Driving through Ardnamurchan, red deers were a regular sight throughout the day the team saw nearly a hundred and some very close encounters seeing the velvet clearly on the stags antlers !

The next stop on the tour was the lighthouse, getting the scope to scan far into the sea proved very worthwhile, with the guests seeing large pods of common dolphins splashing and Manx shearwaters cutting across the water. Ben had a minke whale in the scope before it unfortunately went for a big dive before the guests could see. This was such an unbelievable experience and a beautiful place to have lunch as a nice café and gift shop as-well next to the lighthouse!

The tour then went for a quick wonder down to the foghorn station, where more dolphins were spotted, a whimbrel was heard and a group of twite were on the rocks below !

After a wonderful time at the lighthouse, the team went to a picturesque white sandy beach. At the beach there were ringed plovers and moon jellyfish everywhere and some great marine wildlife in the rock pools.

The beach and sandy dunes in the warm weather was perfect! Sand martens and skylarks were constantly calling in the background.

Lastly to finish off a remarkable day you could have guessed it right it happened ! Returning to a bay from earlier, a big dog otter appeared and gave great views constantly chewing on prey and even sprainted and ran back up to his holt. What a way to wrap up such an enjoyable day.