Sums this week’s surveying up - a glimmer of hope but ultimately not realised. Grim at times. Quite a lot of times actually.

Doesn’t look great but it’s Argyll, so - 8 golden eagle flights today. Adult pair very much in evidence. Annoyingly almost all flights were cut short with the birds disappearing behind those trees.

Sub optimal on the VP today. One cormorant and two raven. Got a blink of sun about 90 seconds from the end!

Short delay on the way to the VP today while Gus wrestled a tree off the track. Every truck should have a Gus to deploy in such situations.

25min of topiary required today to get to near enough to the VP to walk in. The ~155 white fronted geese that came in was nice enough reward. First arrived 35min after sunset.

Eagley site, eagley weather, eagley time of year. No eagles! Well, one golden in a combined 24 hrs on the hill over 2 days.

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Eagley time of year. Loads of activity and some great action last 2 weeks. Both golden eagle nests appear active, suspect one pair on eggs already - Feb pretty benign. Support cast of hen harrier, peregrine and golden plover today was pretty good.

Dusk goose survey, extremely peaceful as darkness closed in all around me. Nothing to disturb my silent contemplation - including, sadly, any geese!!

I had 11 eagles up together today. x2 golden and x9 white tail. Pretty awesome.

Couple of nice bugs the other day pre survey.

Golden eagle nest with two eaglets was the week’s highlight. Both seemed healthy enough, taking food from the female. Pleased as this pair were robbed last year They moved to another nest about 1km away. Hope it pays off and they fledge.

An enjoyable day trying and failing to see dotterel. 4 dunlin nests/broods and a couple of white tailed eagle were about it.

I do like an emperor moth caterpillar. Top bug.

Setting up bat detectors today. Chest high wet vegetation was fun.

My favourite window. Over the years I’ve had WV TL WE EA HH ML BV RH DV NX AC WM TY TW loads of otter, porpoise, minke whale , common and bottle nose dolphin and a load more besides.

Awesome day out with Hebridean Whale Cruises yesterday. 25 porpoise, 46 common dolphin and 10 minkie whale, plus 100’s of stormies. In the middle of x4 lunge feeding Minkie at one point.

Cracking day on the hill today. Plenty eagle action (both species) and three hen harrier flights. Midges OK but loads of tiny ticks. Don’t want to think how many are wandering about my clothes - snd me. Took 10+ off my hands alone over the 9hrs - the joys of August surveying.

Great VP today. Cracking view (eventually), big boulder for shelter and plenty golden eagles. A couple of close fly byes (despite what photo suggests)! All accessed by boat which is a nice change.

A rather soggy 8hrs bringing in bat detectors in Argyll today. When it wasn’t raining the soaking wet thigh high vegetation made it feel as if it was.