A ten day trip to Scotland was the scene earlier this month, including days for driving there. Leaving home on Friday 14th March with an overnight stop in Moffat left my friend and I with a 200 mile drive on the Saturday to Grantown-on-Spey, staying at the Grant Arms Hotel.

We called in at Loch Garton RSPB on the way to check it out as that was to be our first port of call on Sunday morning for Crested Tit, a species I have never seen before. Not surprising really as the last time I was in Scotland was many years ago for a long weekend in Edinburgh - not the place to find Crested Tit.

Anyway, Sunday morning saw us on station, food at the ready, setting up photogenic perches. We were harassed by Coal Tits. They were everywhere and I couldn't resist just a few shots to add to the many I already have.                                                                                                                                            

Always the usual Chaffinches - they always appear to be the most numerous of our bird species, even if official counts say otherwise.

Surprisingly, there was just the odd Blue Tit and no Great Tits - an entirely different species mix than in East Anglia.

A Treecreeper made a brief appearance      

but for 3 hours, there was no sign of Crested Tit. We since learned that there is just the one pair around the car park at Loch Garton but we suddenly struck gold with a few visits to the feeders we had put out.

This was the mornings efforts - more to follow with Red Grouse from Lochindorb when I get round to processing them.

More images from Loch Garton car park in the Recent Additions section.