Scotland 2019 part 3: the joy of small things

I remember a family holiday back in the 70's, probably 1976 when mum, dad and I spent a week in Speyside. I was already into birding so it was a treat to see so many new birds. One of the highlights was going to the refurbished visitor centre at Loch Garten to see the amazing sight of nesting ospreys! In those days this was the only publicised pair and attracted lots of people to see them through a rather dodgy telescope and no live VT feeds! Since then the ospreys have flourished with well known nests in England and Wales as well as many in Scotland. We have visited Loch Garten many times since to see the female EJ and others in the much improved visitor centre.
Going in late September of course is way too late to see ospreys, they are already on their way back to Africa to their wintering grounds. As well as being a beautiful area to walk around, there is a very well stocked and frequented feeding station near the hide. This is well known not only by the visiting people but also by the wildlife creating a magnetic attraction throughout the year. We visited three times over the week taking a selection of peanuts, biscuits and seeds to help attract in the hungry hordes.

Most of the visitors were coal tits and chaffinches. The coal tits in particular were so tame that they literally eat out of your hand. Even as we were watching the feeding station they were hopping about around our feet trying to break into our bag of food.

The "most wanted" tag though goes to the local speciality, the crested tit. This is the only area in the UK where you can find these handsome birds. It is perfectly possible to spend hours walking the forest in search of them so it makes it a lot easier when they come here.

Whilst we were there we only saw one bird, or at least one bird at a time. They/ it were very quick as well, mostly flying straight in, grabbing some food and flying off again before returning 15 minutes later. The challenge was to catch one in a more photogenic pose and they did sometimes perch up first before dropping onto the bird table.

Really challenging to capture them as they are really fast and the light was always pretty naff so I struggled with high ISO and low shutter speeds. Pretty pleased with what I got in the end.
The last speciality was the even cuter local speciality, the red squirrel. We had a good run of squirrel sightings this holiday but the best one, and the only decent photographic opportunity, came near Loch Garten. Although we saw up to 3 at the hide feeder site they were mainly elusive or on a very non-photogenic tube feeder. We did know of a "secret" site in the woods though which we had previously used as a feeding site. We tried this and did get success with one squirrel coming in to have a feed.

Yes, it is perched on a fence post eating peanuts but it still oozes charm!