A couple of outstanding away days

Mrs. Willowbog and myself have just enjoyed two really great days up in Scotland . The trip deserves a couple of posts and I will start with the visit that we made to Loch Leven close to Kinross in Perthshire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our new set of wheels make driving a real pleasure now ! Here the Shogun is in the car park of the RSPB Vane Farm reserve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Visitors Centre at Loch Leven. After many years of not getting round to it we joined the RSPB as a couple on this visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a view from one of the hides set up to look out on the loch and accompanying wetland area in the foreground .

 

 

 

 

 

 

The close proximity of the hides to the pools meant a reasonable photo could be got of this Grey heron with my ordinary camera and its ordinary telephoto lens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of this Oystercatcher, of which there were many.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This little island of shingle was right in front of another hide and although this picture does not show them, there were a pair of Little Ringed Plovers nesting, or trying to nest, amongst the Blackheaded Gulls who were giving the plovers a bit of a hard time to say the least !!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The loch stretched away to the town of Kinross in the distance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A footpath led a winding way up the hill behind the Visitors Centre and it revealed some good views of the loch as we climber higher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And higher,

 

 

 

 

 

 

And higher !

 

 

 

 

 

 

And out on to the hill-top !

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before making our descent, Jean thought that it had done us a power of good to get up there and down , there was no blood left in my brain to allow me to think anything !! Regular readers will recall that just the other day I had the, now rare, experience of adding a new bird species to my personal life list when a Chough flew over Willowbog Farm, but amazingly I was able to add another ‘ lifer ‘ at Loch Leven as we saw the Glossy Ibis that has been there a few weeks now. Another fairly scarce species we saw was a Long Tailed Duck but this was a species I had seen at least once before in my birdwatching youth ! Our most enjoyable day concluded with a performance by Glasgow blues/rock band, The Nimmo Brothers, at a venue in Kinross in the evening. A great day !!  Day two in a following post.