Now don’t get carried away, I am not suggesting that we don shorts and slap on the factor 20! But I have definitely noticed the first stirrings this week, the sky has been decidedly bluer of late, and in the garden, the Lupins are throwing up leaves and Snow Drops and Celandine are tentatively exposing their flowers.
This morning, our resident Great-spotted Woodpecker was half-heartedly drumming, whilst Great Tits were uttering their ‘teacher-teacher’ call.
Yesterday, whilst out for a walk a ‘rogue’ Capercaillie came out of the woods in full display mode and chased me up the track until I was off his patch. Very early for this type of behaviour, even for a ‘rogue’.
I daresay we haven’t seen the last of winter, but it is nice to see that spring is not that far away.

John Picton, Speyside Wildlife Guide

The forest is notoriously quiet at this time of year, indeed several walks around my local patch of forest recently, has resulted in 2hours of walking without seeing hide nor hair of bird or beast.
Yet two days ago my luck changed, the same walk produced a red squirrel, pine cone in mouth scuttling up a tree, and a lovely little crested tit busily searching bark and lichen for an insect or spider.
Further along the same path two male capercaillie, in the same tree, one of whom went into display posture, fantastic!
A little later, I flushed a male black grouse who was feeding in a pine near the path. By the end of the walk I had added two woodcock and a roe deer, plus another ‘crestie’ and a solitary crossbill, which flew over ‘chipping’ away.
It just goes to show, it’s all out there, sometimes you just need a bit of luck!

John Picton, Speyside Wildlife Guide

It’s that time of year already and Speyside Wildlife’s first Speyside-based holiday kicks off in just a few weeks!  Speyside 24/7 is great for those who want a taste of all the best wildlife the Cairngorms National Park has to offer, with 24 of the best birds and 7 of the best mammals.  You ‘ll even get the chance to explore a little further afield, with a trip to the West Coast for White-tailed Sea Eagle and the Black Isle for Bottlenose Dolphin.

To celebrate the start of what we hope will be another bumper season in Speyside, Speyside Wildlife are offering a fantastic discount of £200 per person on their first Speyside 24/7 trip running from 2-9 April!  Spaces are limited, so to book yours give Speyside Wildlife a call on 01479 812498.

It’s been great weather in February this year compared to all the snow we had last year.  With lots of sunny days both Mistle and Song Thrushes are now singing and several waders have returned to the strath with Ostercatchers and Lapwings around plus the earliest Curlews we’ve ever seen on fields near Broomhill Bridge today.  This photo of Loch Garten was taken by Speyside Wildlife guide, Simon Eaves.

Great news for us here in the Cairngorms National Park – National Geographic has voted the Scottish Highlands one of the top 20 places in the world to visit in 2011!  Click here to read more.

Speyside Wildlife have announced that, due to the extremely wintry weather the Highlands are experiencing at the moment, the Evening Wildlife Watching hide will be closed until the end of January.  If at all possible it will be reopened before then, but until the weather changes they’ll play it safe and keep it closed.  They apologise for any inconvenience caused, particularly to those people visiting the Cairngorms National Park area over the holidays.

The Speyside Wildlife guides have put a out a plea for people to keep feeding the garden birds during the cold snap.  Keep watching them too, as often in cold weather you may get a visitors to your feeders that you don’t often see.  For guide, Simon Eaves, it was a Jay, a scarce bird in Speyside and only the second one ever in his garden.

As winter sets in, all things wildlife are a bit quiet in here in Speyside and the Cairngorms National Park but Speyside Wildlife guide, Simon Eaves, is still finding a few gems.

Over the last week, Simon has heard a few Crossbills singing in his garden … the one song that can be heard at almost every time of the year.

Speyside Wildlife have been having great sightings at their evening wildlife watching hide recently of both Pine Marten and Badgers (see the amazing images below taken by Speyside Wildlife guide, Mark Denman!)

The hide is now operating winter opening hours and will be available on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.  To book, call Speyside Wildlife on 01479 812498 or you can book online at www.speysidewildlife.co.uk

Speyside Wildlife guide, Simon Eaves, posted the following on Facebook recently: “Things are certainly getting a bit more wintery in Speyside now with quite a bit of snow on the Cairngorms.  Waxwings have mostly moved on with more sightings in southern Scotland and into England now.  Numbers of finches have increased locally with good flocks of Chaffinches around.  Worth a look at this time of year is a roost of Jackdaws and Rooks near Loch Pityoulish it can number several thousand and is quite a spectacle on a nice evening.”