Scotland Sojourn

My new job as an Ecologist with Thomson Ecology has brought me to Scotland for a few weeks.  Carrying out surveys of both black and red-throated divers, golden eagles, and black grouse in particular, with notes of everything else that happens along!
Scotland gave me a typical Scottish welcome, driving rain, scudding cumulo nimbus clouds, and a dark grey wash to everything.  It was like driving through an old black & white photograph!  I stopped on the shores of Loch Lomond for lunch, but the weather put a dampener on my photographic aspirations and I just grabbed a quick shot for the record.  I picked up my first Scottish ticks of the trip there, a common gull came by to share a corner of my sandwich, and a blackcap sang from a bush.  On the road again and into Argyll proper I got a year tick too, a gannet flying along the shore of Loch Fyne.  A little further on and I soon had more of a Scottish speciality tick, a hooded crow sat on a rock, I was beginning to like Scotland!
I found the cottage fairly easily, and Neil, my colleague, even more easily, he was on the settee watching the Simpsons.  Good, so we shared the same sense of humour, that might come in handy with all this rain!  A quick munch and a can of McEwans (yes I know but when in Scotland.....) and we studied the maps, made a plan for the morning and called it a day.  Not before I had added another speciality Scottish creature to my list though - the dreaded midge!  I only nipped out to the Land Rover for a minute, one minute!  In that time I was bitten almost to a pulp by these voracious beasts.  That Avon 'Skin So Soft' better live up to its reputation, but I think it has got its work cut out!

Loch Lomond, I am sure it is usually in colour!