Some Piccys and Biccies - Wednesday 4th June

Ewan was on a private photography tour today with a family, and Ben was also helping with the tour. The weather was cold gusts, with constant showers throughout the day and spells of sunshine!

The tour started early in the morning at 7 o’clock and straight away we could see the advantages of an earlier tour as on the drive to south of the island, Ben spotted an Irish hare in the same field as yesterday and the guests managed to get some great photos of the hare as it stayed unbothered by our presence.

Then arriving at the first spot, the group was a grassland with a sea loch close by. On the sea loch there were some harbour seals sun bathing on the rocks behind and on the grassland a female hen harrier was quartering along a fence post. One of the guests then spotted a short eared owl hunting on the hill, this was fantastic to see their broad wings and gave prolonged views and the guests gathered some shots of both short eared owl and hen harrier. In addition to this, a male hen harrier also appeared on the same hillside and darted left before going behind a mound out of sight.

Continuing on the target species for today was otter so driving around the sea loch everyone was keeping their eyes peeled scanning the coast vigorously. And lo and behold, Ewan spotted an otter cleaning its fur just in the chestnut seaweed. The group stayed in the van using it as a hide, as the otter swam closer before jumping onto a big boulder beside the van showing perfectly and the guest could really get an idea of the size of these otters that can grow up to 1.3 metres in length.

After a wonderful otter sighting, the group went on a small peaceful walk to a quiet black beach, that is black because of volcanic eruptions hundreds of thousands of years and is small basalt segments. On the beach there were two shelducks, a huge hangout of shags that were having a feeding frenzy just off the beach with gannets and arctic terns also joining. Also, a bonus tree pipit doing their car alarm call and displaying on top of a nearby tree.

On the walk there and back from the beach, lots of plants and invertebrates were seen with a nice birch sawfly and beautiful green hairstreak , which the guests managed to gather some stunning pictures along this walk. In addition to this, yellow iris and milkwort were seen and a fan favourite the carnivorous plant, round leaved sundew.

Birch Sawfly

Round - leaved sundew

The guest showed brilliant knowledge of botany and invertebrates, with the Latin names, which was amazing to listen to and learn from!

After a lovely walk returning to the van before a big squall hit, the guests wanted to see a white tailed eagle. Driving to a nearby sea loch, the guest parked up and straight away had a magnificent male white tailed eagle sat at the top of the pine tree and was heard calling. The team waited patiently to try and see the eagle fly off as they are known as the huge barn door.

To wrap up a brilliant day, the tour was driving back to Tobermory and one of the guests spotted an adorable family of eiders, which made a crèche of 3 female adults and 4 juveniles and this was just a perfect way to wrap up a wonderful tour with a lovely family!