Speyside, the Highlands, and the Moray coast

Last week, I was up at Nethy Bridge with a Heatherlea/Bird Watching Magazine readers' holiday. Despite appalling weather on the first day, we logged 90 bird species over the three days, plus the likes of Red Deer, Red Squirrel and Mountain Hare. Over the next couple of weeks I'll post a few pics from the trip. To start with, here's a truly extraordinary lek of Black Grouse - we counted 29. The males gather from autumn onwards to face off and generally mark out territory, ahead of the lekking proper starting in the spring (by which time the females are present to see what all the fuss is about).