Scotland in spring

I've taken a break from posting for 10 days or so because I was up in Scotland co-leading a readers' holiday, preceded by a couple of days of family history research around Portsoy (where my great-grandmother on my dad's dad's side grew up).

I had some success with the latter – I've found three leads which should take me a fair time to follow up. And as always up around Strathspey, the Cairngorms, the Moray coast and the Black Isle, the birding was excellent. 

Golden and White-tailed Eagles were great to see, as always, as were lekking Black Grouse, lots of Snow Buntings, Slavonian Grebes in their glorious breeding plumage, and Black-throated Divers in their finery.

But the highlights were two White-billed Divers, off Burghead and Roseisle. It's a new species for me, and it's really pretty hard to see in the UK. Small numbers winter off the coast (mainly off Scotland), and in recent years it's emerged that many of them gather in the Moray Firth, mainly off Portsoy and Cullen, as they start to head back north.