120704 Skottland-Scotland , day 11 Wednesday Jura

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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

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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

 

Storulvån 110617 Friday Last day

My World Tuesday

World Bird Wednesday XXXV

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NF Photo 110617 at Storulvån in Jämtland, Sweden. :)

Storulvån 110617 Last day
Today we should meet a little later as we had to pack and clean the rooms before we left for the last hike on the mountains.

We woke up at 7 and started to clean up and pack. Then I had time for a short walk to see if I could get another look at the  Blue throat.

When everyone was done with breakfast, packing and making lunch package we gathered outside to leave for the last hike. While waiting I spotted a man doing some welding work. Had to take a shot of course. 

We headed halfway upside the mountain. Stoped at one place where Johan showed us how to see the normal snowlevel in winter on the trees. The trees were "marked" with a special kind of dark lichen at that point. It was as high as I am tall. :) Interesting to know.

Then we turned left to follow the river downstream. But we were higher up of course. :)

Todays walk was more on the same level, not much more ups and downs. Except for when we came to the hanging bridge. 

Water stop

 In places like these you don´t need to carry that much water, you can drink from the streams you pass.  It is clean good water. Really good actually. You never get that at home. Not even bottle water. Really, I skipped all wine to dinner this week and only had drinking water from the stream. Well, back to hiking.
.

We passed the hanging bridge and enjoyed the scenery and rested a while. Beside the river was, still, lots of ice and snow left. It was beautiful and made some great shots I think.

We continued a bit and came to an area with small ponds. We chosed a place with a big stone to be our "camp" and left our gear there and went to explore the surrounding area. Not that much birds but nice anyway. We had our lunch at the "camp". And I took some shots of some plants.

NatureFootstep alias Monica

Then we left and after a while we had a shower coming down at us. I checked out some finches I spotted at a patch of snow. It turned out to be gråsiska - Carduelis flammea - Common Redpoll. And then I had to run after the others.

Then the highlight of the day. We were spotted by a Short-eared Owl - Jorduggla. It obviously had a nest on the ground because it tried to lead us off in other directions. It was fun to watch when it landed on the ground and played wounded. The right wing was very badly wounded I think. :)  It was really fun to watch.It was quite a show it put on And so our guide thought too. He had never seen this behaviour before. Nice! :)

Jorduggla - Short-eared Owl

Soon after that I spotted a Meadow pipit - ängspiplärka flying over some bushes. I managed to get some decent shots of it flying.

We came back to the Lodge around 16.00 and dinner should be at 18.00 so I made another walk alongside the river. Today we had a lot of bread to choose from as they had had a bakery class for some people. Most of the bread was good.

After dinner we met at the balcony for a last birdlist and to write the usual note about how the stay had been.

Then we were picked up by a car at 19.30 that drowe us to the station. This time I had the bed at the ceiling. But it was OK.

In the morning the train passed my city and stoped at Hallsberg where I had to waite a while for a train to go back to Katrineholm. I was home around 10.00 Saturday morning with aching legs. And lots of nice memories.

More on Storulvån here:

NatureFootstep Photo2
NatureFootstep Birdblog
Labels: Resor, travel, trip, journey, vacation,  Sverige, Sweden, airplane, flygplan, sky, photo, photography, Monica Johansson, NatureFootstep, nfphoto, NF_photo, nature, natur, fågelskådning, birding,  Storulvån, gråsiska, Carduelis flammea, Common Redpoll, Short-eared Owl, jorduggla, Meadow pipit, ängspiplärka