Highland Wildlife & Birdwatch Safaris

June 2016 started off unseasonably cool in this area, with north winds dominating, but it gradually warmed up, with the more usual mix of milder, sunny and showery days later on in the month. Thankfully however, there were enough decent days for it turn out to be yet another excellent month for wildlife sightings, and with around 20 hours of usable daylight and all of our summer visiting bird species on territory, bird day-lists are at their highest in the year now, with full-day (10-12 hour) multi-habitat safaris regularly producing over 60 species, whilst mammal day-lists ranged between 5 and 9 species depending on the variety of habitats visited, with early starts proving to be most productive.
Just about every bird species seems to have youngsters now, though I fear the cold weather early in the month may well have adversely affected brood survival rates for some vulnerable species such as Capercaillie and Dotterel.
The combination of sun and rain helped to maintain the lush, green appearance of the spectacular highland scenery, with the wild flowers approaching their colourful best now, and a few more butterfly species were noted on the sunnier days, though I have to say, in smaller numbers than I would usually expect.

The view from Cairngorm Mountain summit

To give you an idea of what you may realistically hope to see if you are planning a future June visit, I hope the following more detailed information, illustrated with photos taken by myself or my safari clients will help........

Local speciality and upland bird species seen regularly this month included:
Osprey, Crested Tit, Red Grouse, Ring Ouzel, Slavonian Grebe, Red-Throated Diver, Black-Throated Diver, Goldeneye, Dipper, and  Scottish Crossbill, with just a few views of Golden Eagle and Merlin,...whilst a couple of trips high up into the Cairngorms,  produced the classic 'mountain-top' species, Ptarmigan, Dotterel and Snow Bunting.......it should be noted though, that we (not unusually) failed to see Black Grouse and Capercaillie at all this month....

Mammals seen regularly locally during the month included: Red Squirrel, Rabbit, Brown Hare, Mountain Hare,  Roe Deer, Red Deer, Reindeer, Mountain Goat, Bank Vole, the local upland speciality Black Water Vole,  and a couple of  brief sightings of Stoat.....

Osprey

Osprey is probably the 'star bird' of the mid-summer months up here  - with my safari parties being fortunate enough to see them plunge-diving spectacularly to catch a fish, or delivering a fish to the nest on several occasions, and from the third week of the month we got to see the rapidly growing youngsters in the nests for the first time...

Crested Tit by safari client Jan Shields

Crested Tit (finally!!!) became a little easier to see, as the newly-fledged youngsters learned to forage for food with their parents, often alerting us to their presence in the Caledonian pine forests with their chuckling trills....

Male Scottish Crossbill by safari client Wayne Biddlecombe

The same could be said of Crossbills, usually one of the more tricky species to see well, were actually enjoyed by myself and my safari clients on a good number of occasions, with us even getting to see the adults feeding the streaky youngsters with pine seeds....

Cute Red Grouse chick by safari client Jan Shields

Red Grouse were not too difficult to find on suitable areas of heather moorland, and if you could spot the heads of the adults above the heather, and looked carefully, you then usually got to see their large families of very cute, fast-growing youngsters too...

Male Ring Ouzel by safari client Jan Shields

Ring Ouzels often showed well in upland habitats near their nesting and feeding areas early in the month but became noticeably more elusive as the month progressed as they and their recently-fledged young began to roam further afield....

Slavonian Grebe by Bob Smith

Slavonian Grebes, in their beautiful summer plumage, were seen and enjoyed regularly by my safari parties on their favoured quiet lochans, and happily, late in the month, we were able to confirm much-needed breeding success for this increasingly scarce species, when we saw a female with two cute 'humbug' striped chicks taking a ride on her back...

Black-Throated Diver

Both Red-Throated Divers and Black-Throated Divers in their dapper summer plumage, were seen regularly on suitable secluded local lochs,  though we generally had our best views on calmer days, with little or no ripple on the water, and early and late in the day, when human disturbance was it it's lowest....

Dipper by safari client Wayne Biddlecombe

Dippers are probably at their least territorial during mid-summer, seemingly covering a much longer stretch of river than usual,  which can make them more difficult to see than you might imagine.....but my favourite tactic of 'staking-out' a likely stretch of river from a bridge vantage point paid off on a number of occasions, with us even seeing family groups a couple of times....

Golden Eagle

Golden Eagle is usually a tricky bird to see in the summer months, as they have so many hours of daylight in which to hunt, but regular visits to suitable upland habitat provided us with some pretty decent (If often distant) views this month, with us even getting to see one adult bird perch briefly on a large rock on the 5th...

Male Ptarmigan by safari client Margaret Holland

June is probably the best month to have a chance of seeing all 3 of our mountain top bird species, and although suitable days weather-wise were few and far between, a couple of walks up and around Cairngorm summit on the 18th and 19th - using my Cairngorm Mountain Birdwatching Guide qualification to allow us to use the funicular railway and then exit the (usually) closed system,  gave us decent views of Ptarmigan (with a cute chick), Dotterel and Snow Bunting (also with young) ....

Female Dotterel

Puffin on Handa Island

June is also probably the best month in which to visit a coastal seabird colony, so taking advantage of a favourable weather forecast, the 9th saw us take a very scenic drive up to the north-west coast to the wonderfully remote and beautiful  Handa Island. Even the short ferry crossing from Tarbet gave us super close-up views of Seals, and Black Guillemot , and once on the island, after our welcome talk by the SWT wardens, we went on to see Red-Throated Divers,  Snipe, Red Grouse, Wheatears, Skylarks, and Arctic and Great Skuas galore nesting on the moors. Once at the impressively high cliffs and coastal stacks, we were treated to the unique sights, sounds (and smells!) of good numbers of  Gannets, Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Razorbills, Guillemots (including the 'bridled' variety), and yes, everybody's favourite - Puffins!

Male Pied Flycatcher

Other good birds of note seen locally this month included Cuckoo, Golden Plover, Redstart, Spotted Flycatcher, Pied Flycatcher and Wood Warbler, all of which can now be tricky to see in large parts of the UK....

Onto mammals now.....

Red Squirrel by safari client Wayne Biddlecombe

Our local Red Squirrels, a species sadly absent from much of the UK now, are always popular with my safari clients, and visits to my favourite Caledonian forest sites gave us lots of good sightings, often with decent photographic opportunities....

Red Deer hind by safari client Wayne Biddlecombe

Red Deer too are not common in much of the UK, but we are fortunate to have good numbers here in Highland Scotland, and we had many good sightings again this month....

Feral mountain Goat by safari client Jan Shields

The same could also be said of our feral Mountain Goats, which many of my safari clients saw for the first time whilst out on safari with me...

Mountain Hare too are largely restricted to remote upland areas, and although we had a few decent views this month, they were generally a bit tricky to see....

It was the same story with our local speciality Black water Voles too, with a couple of brief glimpses being all we could manage....

Brown Hare by safari client Jan Shields

Brown Hares however, were seen a little more frequently, and occasionally at surprisingly close range, for this normally quite wary species....

And now onto Fish!!!

Amazing leaping Atlantic Salmon photo by safari client Margaret Holland

The recent rainfall and corresponding rise in water levels finally allowed the Atlantic Salmon to make their way further up our local rivers, and visits to popular falls and 'leaps' gave us some good views of these amazing creatures attempting to fight the powerful flows and often steep ascents, and return upstream to their birthplace breeding grounds to reproduce...a highly recommended wildlife experience....

A scenic Sutherland view - en route to Handa Island

So, it would appear that June 2016 was yet another great month for wildlife-watching in the Cairngorms National park. If you can accept that you are unlikely to see Capercaillie or Black Grouse, then June is an excellent time to visit if you are happy to see a wide selection of birds and mammals, and also fancy a mountain-top adventure, or a trip to a seabird colony with (usually) fairly good weather,  and all in virtually 24 hour daylight.....