Today we spent the first half of the day being tourists ! we looked around all the shops and even got some Christmas shopping done. So we had relatively little time to look for wildlife however we did manage some.
We drove along the East coast of the island to the North, stopping in Lochranzer to watch the red deer in the fields by the road, and then on the beach by the 12 Apostles ( a set of houses built as part of the Highland Clearences ). The beach was busy with Ringed Plovers Skitting along its length, but it was only when we looked closely that we realised the large bird mixed in with them was actually a Grey Plover. This is not a rare bird but it’s a first for me . The Beach dunes were also busy with Hares, and apparently at dusk the Red Deer come down to visit, but we were not staying that late.
The drive back to our cottage at Kingscross took us passed the coast where we say the Harbour Seals balancing on rocks, today however they were nowhere to be seen, but in their place was a few Gannets flying high and then diving into the sea.
Back at home a quick trip to the beach to look for Otters was not successful but we did see the Highland Cattle at the farm on our walk back.
Considering this was a day not set to wildlife we didn’t do too bad !
