HIGHLANDS and the WEST COAST

SAT 9 MARCH – SAT 16 MARCH 2024

PRICES: from £1595pp

Early Birder Prices from £1395pp (subject to availability).

Contact us before booking!

No single supplement. Full details and a Trip Report are on our website. Please read FIELD NOTES on page 9.

An exciting spring holiday including an overnight visit to the rugged and remote West Highlands. As spring arrives, we celebrate the season with visits to all of the best birding and wildlife sites. This holiday takes in some of our most stunning and iconic scenery, all the while enjoying superb birding and general wildlife.

Local birding should produce Black Grouse popping and cooing at the lek, Crested Tit, Scottish Crossbill, Dipper, Buzzard and Goldeneye.

We head west, working remote sealochs, bays and beaches as we go. Rugged Wester Ross offers iconic scenery, and we have excellent chances of Otter. There could be good numbers of Great Northern, Black-throated and Red-throated Diver, plus Slavonian Grebe, Common Scoter and Red-breasted Merganser, and passage waders and gulls that often include Iceland and Glaucous.

Next day we target eagles, with Golden and White-tailed both likely. Mid-March is also good for passage Merlin, with early Wheatears if winds are favourable. We have another chance for Otters, whilst scanning for rarer seaduck or divers. This time of year can also be a good for White-billed Diver on the under-watched west coast and we will check Great Northern Divers carefully for their rarer cousins.

Our exclusive private estate woodlands offer chances of Capercaillie. Later we search for moorland specialities including Golden Eagle, Peregrine, Merlin and as spring develops, Wheatear. The day finishes with a moorland drive for Red Grouse. We seek Ptarmigan, Snow Bunting, Black-throated Diver, Red-throated Diver, Goldeneye and Peregrine, and birchwoods hold Lesser Redpoll and Siskin. Lingering Waxwing and Whooper Swan are sometimes present too.

Birds on the Moray Coast can include Osprey, Eider, Goosander, Merganser, Stonechat, Common and Velvet Scoter, Long-tailed Duck, Great Northern and Redthroated Diver, Glaucous Gull, Iceland Gull, Purple Sandpiper, Turnstone, Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot, Dunlin and Ringed Plover, many moulting into summer plumage.

Watch out also for Corn Bunting, Tree Sparrow, Yellowhammer and Grey Partridge. We often see Bottle-nosed Dolphin, and with auks, Gannet, gulls and more, this is a rewarding day!

Total species for the holiday approx. 110. Mammals may include Otter, Common and Grey Seals, Mountain and Brown Hare, Red Squirrel, Red and Roe Deer and perhaps Harbour Porpoise or Bottle-nosed Dolphin.

Six nights at Mountview Hotel. One night at a comfortable hotel on the west coast.

Combine with:

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

Highlands and the East Coast (p13), Highland Birding in March (p15).