Scotland in Style: Jun 03—11, 2008

Great birding for Scottish specialties, plus wildlife and the flexibility of optional cultural and historical visits.

We have designed a special weeklong tour visiting birding and historical sites in the heart of the Highlands of Scotland. During six full days we will enjoy a varied and flexible daily program of birding and cultural/historical options which will make this tour appealing to birders with non-birding partners or family.

The Highlands scenery is the most dramatic in the British Isles: the highest peaks; extensive moorlands; ancient Caledonian pine forest; a stunning coastline of cliffs, inlets, and offshore islands; vast prehistoric peat bogs; and fast-flowing rivers. We will target localized and rare specialties such as Eurasian Capercaillie, Black Grouse, Rock and Willow ptarmigan (the British subspecies known as Red Grouse), the endemic Scottish Crossbill, Ring Ouzel, Crested Tit, Horned Grebe, Arctic Loon, and raptors such as Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Golden Eagle, Osprey, Red Kite, and White-tailed Eagle. Most of these breed only within the British Isles exclusively in this wild region of Scotland, and we have good chances of seeing them all. There will, of course, be many more widespread species of interest to birders new to European birding: Great Spotted Woodpecker; Tawny Owl; Great, Blue, Coal, and Long-tailed tits; Goldcrest; Eurasian Treecreeper; White-throated Dipper; Eurasian Jackdaw; Hooded Crow; Rook; Eurasian Siskin; Eurasian Greenfinch; Chaffinch; Eurasian Bullfinch; Red Crossbill; Tufted Duck; and Common Pochard. Further opportunities exist for watching exciting coastal sites for migrants, shorebirds, and seabirds.

We will be central to many fine castles and sites of historical significance such as hugely ornate Dunrobin Castle, one of Scotland's finest stately homes; Cawdor Castle—started in the thirteenth century, mentioned in Shakespeare's Macbeth, and still lived in now; gaunt, ruined, medieval Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness; Culloden Battlefield, site of the defeat of the Jacobite Scottish Highlanders against the English monarchy in 1645; and Fort George, a huge military complex built in the 18th century to defend against further Jacobite invasions.

Easy day excursions covering a wonderful array of classic Scottish Highland scenery of glens, lochs, mountain, moorland, forest, and sea coast.