Scotland

Crested Tit (Hugh Harrop)

I'm really looking forward to my trip to Scotland in early January next year. It's going to be great, especially stalking around Mull.

I've been thinking about my first trips to Scotland during the school summer holidays as a youth hosteling teenager. I went with my local youth club in Wembley, north London and me and my mate Alan were the only birders on the trip. I say 'birders', we were not that great, however, we did find a female Surf Scoter along the coastline of Handa Island, up on the west coast. Well, we didn't know what we had found, but we knew it was interesting. So we wrote and left a description on the warden's door (as he wasn't about). He very kindly wrote a couple weeks later to tell us of our exciting discovery.

The other day I was having a moan about Visit Scotland and their apparent unhelpfulness. Those words were written during a time when I was feeling a little peeved by a few things not going to plan at the time. In reality, Visit Scotland are totally fine. Having thought about it since, they very helpfully facilitated my trip to Edinburgh earlier this year when I did the Firth of Forth cruise. Maybe I spoke out in haste. I'm so passionate about getting the urban birding message out there sometimes I get annoyed when I feel that I'm being impeded.

As it happens, it now looks like they may be able to assist with my up and coming trip to Glasgow. It may well be a case of all's well that ends well.