North West Scotland, 18-25 May

A week's Munroing with Jen and Matt, plus birding added in, based at Ullapool. The weather overall was cool, cloudy and breezy, with the tops shrouded for most of the week except for 21st (when we were on Handa for the seabirds) and the afternoon of 24th. I managed to see a good selection of Scottish specialities during the week, starting with Wood Warbler and Pied Flycatcher in the bird woods near Aviemore. The mountain walks yielded several Ptarmigan sightings, more surprising was a trip of four (presumably migrant) Dotterel on the summit of Am Faochagach in the Fannichs. Needless to say, I did not have the camera in my bag..... A singing Ring Ouzel on Ben Hope, 2 Red- and 3 (brief) very smart Black-throated Divers on coastal lochs in Assynt and Dunlin and Ringed Plover on the beaches allowed good views. The ornithological highlight was a visit to the important seabird colony on Handa Island - one of the biggest in the UK with an estimated 200,000 birds. Both Great and Arctic Skuas breed here, the latter declining and in small numbers, their rakish falcon-like profiled distinctive amongst the lumbering Bonxies which are the bullies of the island. Large numbers of Guillemots breed including some of the bridled form, together with good numbers of Razorbills and small numbers of Puffins. Jen and Matt had never seen a Puffin before and were delighted with their views of 20 or 30 birds on the clifftop, behaving in their usual comical fashion. Altogether a very memorable experience, an added bonus being the views of the mainland and in particular the Assynt mountains rearing up into the sky in the primeval landscape, where the exposed rock look like the skeleton of the earth. Other species seen during the week included Rock and Tree Pipit, and a group of Twite around our chalet, but one of the most memorable aspects was the sheer number of singing Cuckoos - they are everywhere in the North West, presumably becuae of the numbers of Meadow Pipits that they can parasitise - and this is such a contrast to the south of England where the Cuckoos song has become something of a wetland speciality.