Been on my hols...

A brief trip away Soooth, not too far, just to Loch Ness, need to get Nessie on my pan species list.... dipped on Nessie but ticked this:

 

Quite an interesting bird and a likely contender for Loch of Bosquoy or Harray, I'd be dead chuffed to find one anyway.

Great Cormorant (sinensis I think) (no it's carbo)

At the same spot, Loch Flemington, not a species I generally am able to get close to. I must get the protractor out and measure the angles on this as it looks to my eye to be greater than 65 degs, indeed looks like 80 degs or so which would make this sinensis. (Oooops, wrong angle, it's carbo.)

Common Crossbill. 

I spent much of Tuesday stomping around conifer woodland near Nairn seeing many flying crossbills. Eventually back in the car park 30 or so dropped in to the Alder trees and gave excellent views, all were Commons.

The real highlight of my trip was coming across a field of crows, a true hybrid swarm, take a look at these!

Hybrid swarm

I counted 25 Carrion (types) 16 clear hybrids and 4 Hoodie (types) in the one field, well smart.

Also an interesting Jackdaw in the field, I need to look at the pix a bit more carefully though.

Today more crow stuff as I found a pale hybrid collecting nesting material and located the nest (this back at home in Harray). This bird was paired with an as yet unidentified crow, either a Hoodie or a pale hybrid. Also two Sand Martins and two Ruff at The Shunan.