 |
| Puffins have arrived |
Catching up on my blog after a week long trip on the Isle of Mull and a recent cold snap back home. It's been a long time since I spent a good few days on this beautiful island in the Inner Hebrides. I lived on the island over 25 years ago, how time flies! Since 1998 we've had Ballamory, an ever increasing tourist market and a sharp increase of interest in Mull's amazing wildlife. The main reason for my visit!
 |
| Wonderful Lunga |
 |
| Pairing up |
16-23 APRIL
With a week of high pressure centred over the West coast it was a great time to get away. Mull is a wonderful destination for anyone into wildlife. The puffins have just arrived back on land after their long spell out at sea. These beautiful and remarkable wee birds spend 8 months out in the ocean and only return to land to breed. From mid April to around early August is the only period you can see them, unless you're in a
boat!
The Puffins don't nest on Mull itself but out in the Treshnish Isles which is a one hour boat journey from Mull. I booked onto the excellent
Turus Mara who run trips out throughout the Spring and Summer.
The wee isle of Lunga in the Treshnish Isles is where the main colony of puffins settle in for the summer.
Here's just a few of the many thousand's of images I took over a 2 day period of these amazing wee birds.
 |
| Nest building |
The Treshnish Isles are also home to a hoast of other wonderful sea birds who come to land to breed during the summer months.
Shag, Razorbills & Kittiwakes are also busy pairing up and nesting.
 |
| Shag portrait |
 |
| Shag |
 |
| Razorbill |
 |
| Razorbill |
On the Taru Mara boat back to Mull we spotted 4 Bottlenose Dolphins playing beside us. Wonderful. Unfortunately I didn't capture any full breaching on the camera (which they did several times!).
 |
| Bottlenose Dolphins |
On another day I took a day out in another boat trip to see (hopefully) the White Tailed Sea Eagles which Mull is famed for. We weren't disappointed! Two separate pairs were out catching some fish.
 |
| White Tailed Sea Eagle |
 |
| With fish! |
A few more Puffins, can't get enough Puffins!
 |
| Taking off |
Mull is now incredibly busy and getting any accommodation last minute is nigh on impossible. Shame on some hotels and holiday rentals, what was still available they were (hoping) to get £280 per night! Ridiculous. £290 a 1 bedroom flat in Tobermory, no thanks. The big hotel complex at Craignure were offering 6 nights for £2,400! I settled for a lovely apartment in Oban that worked out £90 per night and I took the ferry over to Mull every day, apart from one night were I wild camped on a beautiful evening. At my 'priceless' camp spot I had fabulous views over Loch Na Keal to Ben More (Mull's only Munro). That view was worth more than £280 with a load of noisy late night pub goers in Tobermory's high street!
 |
| The Oban - Craignure ferry and Lismore lighthouse, 10 crossings! |
 |
| Priceless accomodation with 5 star views |
 |
| Ben More at the golden hour |
 |
| and a priceless sunset |
Back home to the Cairngorms, just after the weather started to break down. It nudged the high teens centigrade on Mull and much of the west coast last week. Back in the east and the temperature's dropped again with snow on the tops and even down to 600m for a couple of days.
 |
| Northern corries of Braeriach |
 |
| Cairn Gorm in full winter garb |
A good covering of snow in the Northern Cairngorms today. Snow lying to about 600m, which was around the freezing level. It won't be disappearing anytime soon with low temperatures next couple of days.
Great day with the mountain hares. Some wonderful contrasting colours amongst the 6 different hares I photographed today. A couple almost into Spring pelage, Mo Charaid is just a wonderful colour right now. He was looking supreme in the odd bright spell.
I
had 4 layers on, including the big waterproof down.
 |
| Fresh snow for the hares |
 |
| Mo Charaid taking shelter on the southern side of the hill |
Nice late afternoon jaunt up to Cairn Gorm today. Lovely and deserted.
Despite slightly warmer temperatures than the last couple of days, there are still good amounts of snow above 900m. Snowing at 800m.
Having snow in late April is, of course, quite normal up here. If you want Spring best look elsewhere.
 |
| Poor vis on Cairn Gorm |
 |
| Rime iced weather station |
 |
| Still winter |
SATURDAY 29th & SUNDAY 30th APRIL
A dull, cloudy weekend. Perfect conditions for a couple of dreary hill days near Corrour. Cloud down to 600m on both days so not much in the way of views. Highlights were Curlews and Snipe outside the tent last night and remarkably we saw no one on both of the hill days.
The grub at Corrour cafe far superior food, service and friendliness than many 5 star Highland Hotels. Proper thick toasties, proper fat chips & of course great cake
Oh
yeah, and Carn Dearg & Sgurr Gaibhre
Beinn na Lap.
 |
| Views better at the Loch |
 |
| Much of the two hill days wa like this above 600m |
 |
| A Munro, they both looked the same today, apart from one had a big cairn |
 |
| The fabulous West Highland Line railway |
 |
| Fat toasties & fat chips |
Don't forget the cake!
 |
| Coffee and cake to finish |
 |
| Leave no trace, have a dump here - far better for the environment :) |
No comments:
Post a Comment