120704 Skottland-Scotland , day 11 Wednesday Jura

Translate? See Google translation in the sidebar!

Click to enlarge All photos NF Photo 120704

120704 Wednesday, day 11, Jura

 

 



Raining in Port Askaig Harbour

Woke up at 7.30. Then breakfast at 8. We had our dark coffee and dark toast. :) It was a rainy morning so it did not look good. We left for the ferry to Jura at 9. Raining all the way to Port Askaig Harbour. The ferry left at 9.02 and was on Jura at 9.08. It took only 6 min to go across The Sound of Islay to Jura. :) No need for drinking coffee on the ferry. Or try to be birding.

We went north and stoped at one place and did a little birding and "sealing" before going to the Destillery. We spotted a herrier and a short-eared owl.

 

 We were taking the tour around the distillery and had a very unexperienced guide. A young woman that was not at all used to talk to a group. Or handle a group. She started the lecture long before everybody had come into the room where we were. So I had to ask her to slow down and wait.

Well, this tour was slightly different from the others. We was allowed to smell the head, heart and tail liquids and in the end of the tour we were allowed to smell in some barrels. The sherry barrel had a very appealing scent.  :)  Isle of Jura Destillary After the Destillary we went to check out a small art shop they had downhill. And checking out the small harbour and view over the ocean.

 

After that we went birding for an hour before coming back to Juras only hotel for lunch. Today I was a bit annoyed. For the first time I wanted to have a cup of coffee and a whisky cheesecake as dessert. And for the first time the others decided desert was not needed. So I could not have it. :(

 We was supposed to do some birding  on the north part of Islay, but we stayed on Jura as the weather started to be really good. And it payed off. We spotted some female hen harrier feeding a young. And some Short-eared Owls (jordugglor). And a nice view of a Common Stonechat (svarthakad buskskvätta). The view over The Paps of Jura  was quite amazing. I really like those mountains.

 

Above, Craighouse I think. 

This Ringed Plower (större strandpipare) stood on one leg as long as I saw it. Maybe it only had one.  We also got good sightings on Stonechat (svarthakad buskskvätta) and short-eared owl (jorduggla).

 

And now we were running out of time. Of course interesting stuff  happens in the last moments so you don´t really can enjoy them. We had to hurry a bit not to miss the ferry back to the mainland or we had to stay on Jura for the night. That was not really an option.

We arrived 10 min before the ferry should depart, but they were almost in the landing and no traffic. I guess they kept track of the visitors on Jura. We were the only car returning to the mainland adn as soon as we were onboard they left to take us over. Then we had a 30 min drive back to Bowmore and the hotel.

At 19.00h we were at the nearby hotel for dinner. Same as yesterday. I ordered some chicken breast with Cheddar cheesecovering.  It was very good. Then we went to the lounge to deal with the birdlist. A short but nice list today.

I took a shower and wrote this of course. Did check out the blogs too.

120701-04 Harbour Inn, Bowmore Islay http://www.harbour-inn.com/

Tomorrow we meet at breakfast and are supposed to be packed to leave at 9.30.

 

 The view over The Paps of Jura was quite amazing.

Map of Jura


Himmelsk 102   Sky Watch Friday

Mer om Skottland på NF Photo och Fågelarter

More about Scotland on NF Photo and Bird species
Labels: Resor, travel, trip, journey, Sverige, Sweden, sky, photo, photography, Monica Johansson, NatureFootstep, nfphoto, NF_photo, nature, natur, fågelskådning, birding, Skottland, Scotland Islay, Scotland, Skottland, whisky, Isle of Jura, Jura, destillary, ferry, Short-eared Owl, stonechat Islay, Isle of Jura, Jura, Port Askaig Harbour, Scotland, Short-eared Owl, Skottland, stonechat, whisky, Paps of Jura, Craighouse, hamn, harbour, distillary