Thursday 29th May

Jacks tour today was a private tour, about wildlife but also the beautiful landmarks around the isle of Mull.

They drove along the Ross of mull and took a short ferry to the historic and holy island of Iona. The tour visited the Iona Abby, which is described as the birthplace of Christianity in Scotland as St Columba and 12 companions, came here from Ireland in AD 563. The monastery, they founded, was one of the most important and influential in the British Isles.

On Iona, it was sedge warbler galore and fortunately, the tour heard a couple of corncrakes, doing their iconic crex crex call !

Returning to Mull, Jack managed to spot a distant golden eagle soaring above the glen, and then it was on to the second landmark of the trip, Duart castle.

Duart castle is located at south-west mull and is famous as the ancestral home of the clan Maclean and its rich history dating back to the 14th century. Wildlife wise, there were some large gannets streaming past on the sound of Mull.

Lunch in the Iona Abbey

Klay ran a mull nature explorer today, it was tricky conditions to start the day off, really strong winds and heavy rain but a white tailed eagle to start off the day, perched in a tree raised the spirits. In addition to this, a dog otter appeared hunting in the sea loch much to the delight of the guests, who saw their first white tailed eagle and otter, this was a joy to see !

The group then settled down for some lunch and a large variety of birds and mammals was spotted raven, buzzards, lapwing, redshank, red deer and another otter distantly.

Then two white tailed eagles flew back onto the nest, giving the guests some great passing views, and one was carrying a stick back to the nest !

After this, the tour went on to another sea loch, where a mum and cub otter were rolling around and playing on the shoreline and the elation of the group was fantastic and even with the challenging conditions all day everyone had such high spirits and in total the tour ended the day, seeing 4 otters in total!