Woodpeckers, seals and other things I saw this week

For most of this week I've been on holiday in Skye, and I came back on Friday. This week has been great for seeing lots of wildlife. I have already written about seeing the white-tailed sea eagles but here are some of the other things I saw there and at home since I came back.

One of the most amazing things about Skye was how many stars you could see. On the second night Dad was leaving out the rubbish and then he called me out to see the sky. You could see so much because there were no clouds or streetlights and we were in the middle of nowhere. This is how it looked:

While was out in the harbour on a boat to see the white-tailed eagle, I saw lots of other animals. This was a male eider duck. I am working on an eider duck skeleton at the moment !

This cormorant was standing with its wings spread open on rocks near the harbour. Cormorants do this a lot.

Cormorants are social animals which means they hang around in big groups. Here were another load of them on a different rock.

Then we only saw one of these: a seal ! It popped up by salmon pens in the harbour, then dived down again. I am working on a seal skeleton at the moment as well.

We went on a walk at the north of the island and I found this caterpillar. I haven't been able to identify what type it is:

On the same moor was this flower which is called Sheeps Bit:

There were loads of lots of limpets on the rocks at the sea. I don't often see sea wildlife because I live so far from the shore.

I saw a new species of crow: the hooded crow. I have never seen one of these before but they were common in Skye:

I have seen lots of grey herons before, though. This one was at the harbour in Uig:

This curlew was very hard to spot. I had never seen one before. Amazing beak !

These are juvenile redshanks which were near the curlew. This was another new species for me:

These greylags flew over when we were at Uig. Dad thought they were pink-footed geese migrating south but they were greylags which live on the island:

Dad ran in the cottage one day very excited to get his camera because he thought he'd seen a rare bird of prey, but when he got closer he realised it was a buzzard. Buzzards are common here but he got some nice photos of it flying off.

Another time he stopped the car because he saw this buzzard which had stolen this dead bird off another buzzard after a fight:

When we were in Portree harbour there were lots of herring gulls. The red spot on the beak is where the baby gulls peck to get food from their parents:

I've been lucky since I came back home as well. Yesterday dad spotted these common crossbills on a pine tree in the deer forest. The top one is a male and the bottom one is a female:

Then on a walk today on the moor near my house we saw this male Great Spotted Woodpecker:

We saw this adult female kestrel hunting on the moor too. There was a kestrel on Skye near the cottage which hunted near the sea.

On the way down from the hills I saw four long-tailed tits scrapping as well.

I love Skye and want to go back there one day. This is one of the amazing views at the north of the island.

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