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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Capercaillie71" data-source="post: 1191630" data-attributes="member: 32437">No bank holiday for me today, but fortunately I had some fieldwork to do in the Aviemore area, so having seen the good weather forecast I decided that today would be as good a day as any to get it done.  I set off at 7am for the hour and a half drive over the Lecht road to Speyside.  At Corgarff, in Strathdon I passed a group of five black grouse in a field by the road (and one on the road that I had to steer round to avoid hitting).  On the other side of the Lecht, about a couple of miles south of Tomintoul, I passed another group of seven black grouse by the roadside.Speyside was looking fantastic in the sunshine, with plenty of snow still on the Cairngorms, and the woods were alive with birdsong.  The first area I visited was close to the Spey and was packed full of singing tree pipits.  A couple of male redstarts close up were nice too.  I saw my first common sandpipers of the year on the Spey, along with two female goldeneyes and a pair of ospreys directly overhead calling for a short time.Next stop was an area of conifer plantation with the usual common species.  I managed to get a half decent recording of a singing redstart in this area too.  Plenty of signs of capercaillies in this area, including the remains of a long-dead female unfortunately.  A flyover crossbill  proved difficult to identify even with a sonogram, as usual.I stopped in briefly at Loch Garten and had a look at the top of EJ's head, before heading home.</blockquote>

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