Having arrived at our Scottish house at about 2am after a long but uneventful journey we were both fairly tired today. However along with my sister and her husband we had a good local walk in the afternoon at the Back O’ Bennachie, a well-known area for forest walks.

It was relatively quiet for birds, but I did see plenty of coal tits and a few siskins. It’s a lovely area of forest though, not too dense, and with good open areas. There was a lot of damage here in the big storms about a year ago and many of the paths were closed for most of 2022 whilst damaged trees were cleared or made safe.
After a fairly steep climb on the Quarry trail you finally get above the tree line where there are great views of the surrounding countryside. I’m looking forward to exploring more of this area.

Brenda has brought her moth trap to Scotland and so today she set it up. Last time she ran the trap up here – at the end of August – we had dozens of large yellow underwings, but at the moment she doesn’t think we’ll get anything, even though it’s been relatively mild up here.
No new species for February 13th:
TOTALS TO DATE:
Birds = 119
Moths = 3
Wildflowers = 15