Loch Garten Osprey Centre, Loch Mallachie, Tulloch Moor

Loch Garten Osprey Centre

What's there to say?  Not much apart from this is the place to come if you want to see nesting Osprey almost with the naked eye!  The visitor centre has plenty of fixed high quality scopes (probably Vortex) for you to get up nice and close.  The camera surveillance is the best I've seen of any Osprey project and there are 10+ live screens around the centre.  The nesting area is rather an ugly affair and is essentially an Iron pole with a nest on top and surveillance camera looming over.  This was installed as someone apparently tried to fell the tree the Osprey originally nested in!  Madness!

Loch Mallachie and Woodland Trail

Cuckoo (heard)
Willow Warbler
Chaffinch
Greenfinch
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Crested Tit (lifer)
Coal Tit
Wren
Goldeneye
Redstart
Treecreeper
Common Sandpiper
Pied Wagtail

Tulloch Moor

Whinchat

Buzzard 

Meadow Pipit

Tufted Duck!

Warbler ID with Ribble Bird Tours

Early start at Marton Mere with our new bins polished and ears pinned back listening for warblers.  We can confidently identify Cetti's, Sedge, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff but are (were) at a loss as to any other warbler calls, hence the day out with RBT.   Species to note at Marton Mere:

Lesser Whitethroat

Sedge Warbler

Garganey

Whitethroat

Blackcap

Greenfinch

Wren

Cetti's Warbler

Reed Warbler

Grasshopper Warbler

Whinchat (Lawson Road Wetlands)

Common Sandpiper

Species to note at Eagland Hill - Pilling:

Whimbrel

Curlew

Red-legged Partridge

Corn Bunting

Black-tailed Godwit (Conder Pool)

On the way home we stopped off at the fields on Mythop road and saw an unringed Barnacle Goose of unknown origin.

Thank you to Ribble Bird Tours for yet another cracking day out!  3 Lifers and 5 year ticks!