Scotland Trip - Day 1

 This is probably the best post I have ever made for this blog in my opinion. Some of the photos I took of the rare creatures I found are incredible, and proabaly my best yet. On the day after we arrived (so the first full day) in Scotland we headed out to Threave Castle nature reserve. The aim was to see a rare bird of prey called an osprey. Ospreys have always been my favourite bird of prey since I saw one in the lake district a few years before I started my blog. Obviously I was too young to take any pictures but it's been a bird I've wanted to photograph for a while. Ospreys nest at the nature reserve and there was a hide looking over a river onto the nest. It didn't take long to see an osprey though, as before we even reached the hide I spotted it perched high up in a tree on the other side of the river. Luckily the camera I was using has a super long lens so I managed to get some good photos despite it being pretty far away:

It then landed on the nest briefly but I was too slow to get a good picture before it flew off again:

Ospreys weren't the only thing we saw at Threave as we also saw a red kite and a quick glimpse of a roe deer:

After we had seen the ospreys we drove twenty minutes south to Barhill woods near Kirkudbright. We went there to hopefully get a glipmse of a red squirrel. The red squirrels there are fully native as well, unlike populations in the highlands and elsewhere in the UK, the squirrels there were not introduced; they have been there long before the greys. We walked around the woods looking for a hide where food is left out for them (which took a long time for us to find) and once we reached it we saw a few other people photographing something up in the trees. The hide was locked, but it didn't matter as a red squirrel ran down a tree and hopped off. These were some photos I took of it:

When that one ran off, another one appeared at the food: 

Then the other squirrel reappeared and a got some amazing footage of them chasing each other up a tree:

One of them grabbed a nut and sat on a branch with it. That's where I got some of my best photos and video of the trip:

I think that this photo is probably the best I've ever taken:

I got down to the ground and tried to take some more level with it on the floor:

Seeing such a rare animal and getting so close to it is amazing. Along with the osprey, it was probably the best day I've ever had wildlife watching. I'm not totally against grey squirrels as they're here to stay now and it's not their fault that they're here in the first place but imagine if the reds where (as our native squirrel) everywhere, in all the woodlands across the UK. They look nicer and are more secretive and less likely to scare other birds off your bird feeder. Unfortunatley, the greys are the top squirrel now, and it doesn't look like it's going to change. There is a lot being done to help reds though and small areas of woodland like Barhill woods are crucial to the reds, especially if there are no greys. Anyway, that is all for today's post. I've still got loads more to show you from the Scotland trip so check for more posts over the next few days. Remember to leave a comment and thanks for reading!