HIGHLAND WILDLIFE in high summer

SAT 22 JULY – SAT 29 JULY 2023

SAT 20 JULY – SAT 27 JULY 2024

PRICES: £1595pp

Early Birder Prices from £1445pp (subject to availability). Contact us before booking!

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

A high summer natural history tour of the Highlands, where changes in the season mean a whole host of different wildlife, especially flora and insects. This tour celebrates all we encounter during our short and exciting Highland summer.

The holiday is slow paced, working sites well, looking at birds, mammals, invertebrates and flowers, all in stunning scenery. We start each day with a moth trap, with good chances of hawkmoths and tiger-moths among many others. Local birding includes Crested Tit, Scottish Crossbill, Red Grouse, Black Grouse, Blackthroated Diver, Short-eared Owl, Ring Ouzel and Golden Eagle. Flowers include Field Gentian, Bog Asphodel and many varieties of heather. Butterflies include the first emerging Scotch Argus, Large Heath, Dark Green Fritillary, Mountain Ringlet and Northern Brown Argus with several dragonflies on the wing. Troup Head is fascinating from the water, with towering cliffs covered in thousands of noisy and smelly Gannets! Many auks will have fledged, but we should see groups of Razorbill, Guillemot and perhaps a few lone Puffin and Black Guillemot, with chances of Great and Arctic Skua, terns and perhaps even a Manx Shearwater, Minke Whale, Basking Shark, Bottle-nosed Dolphin or Harbour Porpoise.

In Perthshire, we look for Whinchat, Hen Harrier and Golden-ringed Dragonfly. At Kelteney Burn we look for orchids still in flower, and at Fortingall visit one of the oldest (if not the oldest) tree in the British Isles, the Fortingall Yew.

In the Cairngorms, we look for Red-throated Diver, Slavonian Grebe, Ptarmigan, Black Mountain Moth and alpine flowers, which may include Frog Orchid, Dwarf Cornel, Alpine Saw-wort, Starry Saxifrage, Roseroot, Trailing Azalea, Moss Campion and Least Willows. Later we search for Long-eared, Daubenton’s and two species of Pipistrelle Bats, and may see Badger. On the Black Isle hundreds of wading birds include Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot, Dunlin and Curlew, and perhaps Greenshank, Ruff, Curlew Sandpiper or Little Stint. There will be excellent chances of Osprey fishing, and rural backroads hold Red Kite, Yellowhammer, Linnet and Tree Sparrow. Other delights include Atlantic Salmon, Mountain and Brown Hare, Roe and Red Deer and Red Squirrel. Flowers include Grass of Parnassus amongst others.

Seven nights at Mountview Hotel.

Please also see ‘HIGHLAND WILDLIFE in early summer’ on page 21. Timed just three weeks earlier, this tour features a marked change in seasonal wildlife.

Combine with:

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

Highlands & Wester Ross (p22), Highlands & Outer Hebrides (p24). Birds & Mammals ft Eigg & Muck (p24).

SCOTTISH ISLANDS

Orkney in High Summer (p41), NEW! Wildlife of The Minch (p42).