It is by far, my favourite thing to do other than birdwatching. Gardening! It may not be everybody’s idea of fun....

Seals are marine mammals in the order Pinnipedia. They are thought to be descendants of animals such as weasels and bears, which ...

The Badgers have been coming every night to date and the countdown is on for this year’s cubs to appear.

Dragonflies and damselflies are an ancient group of insects that have been around on Earth since the Carboniferous Era 358 - 298 million

Badgers They regularly come in every night as the days continue to get longer. If any show up before 10pm it is usually just one...

In this post we'll take a look at some of the butterfly species found in Speyside.

Around the 5th of May is usually the Dawn Chorus Day and is fast approaching. Early May is when the chorus of songbirds has reached its...

Badger Sightings The cold period that kept the Badgers inside their setts has long since passed. There’s still eight of them and the...

Sessile Oak (Quercus Petraea) One of the largest deciduous trees in Speyside, growing to between twenty and forty metres in height and...

Badger Sightings The Badgers continue to come in and feed at our hide near Aviemore, now that the winter has passed it is warmer and that...

One of our rarest and most elusive mammals, the Scottish Wildcat, epitomises the Scottish Highlands. Sometimes referred to as the Highland Tiger, they are about the same size as a domestic cat but bulkier. They have greyish fur with black stripes and a thick club-like tail, with three to five black bands on it, with no line running down. The Wildcat is said to look more ‘serious’, which emphasises its wild nature, far from the comparative gentleness of domestic cats. Contrary

Something we do very well at Speyside Wildlife is watch wildlife. We go to all corners of Scotland and the world, in pursuit of some of...

Badgers A trickle of normality is returning following the end of winter at our hide near Aviemore in the Cairngorms. The Badgers have...

This blog focuses on finches, a group of colourful songbirds known for their diet of seeds and insects. It will discuss how to recognise them, their sizes, habitats and sometimes their relationship with humans. These can all be found in Speyside, within the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland. Chaffinch One of the commonest finches in Speyside. The male has an orange breast, which looks duller in the wintertime, but brighter in summer. Its wings have white patches, the exten

Our local Badgers Winter is a quieter time at the hide for Badgers. Stormy and cold weather can sometimes keep them at bay and when they...

In this blog post we’ll talk about the five species of tit that occur in Speyside. All of them can occur on bird feeders here, but one of...

I'm lucky to live in the Cairngorms National Park and I have positioned my bird feeders in my garden so I can sit and watch them from my...

There are currently three species of crossbill recognised in Speyside: the Common Crossbill, the Scottish Crossbill and the Parrot Crossbill, with around six species recognised in the world. Members of the finch family, they have bills which their mandibles crossover. This is an adaptation for extracting the seeds from pinecones. Their genus name is Loxia, the Ancient Greek, meaning ‘Crosswise’. The crossbills use their bills to prize apart the cones segments and they have ba

Autumn in the Cairngorms is a good time to view the mammals from the hide, they now have their thick winter coats and come in to feed and...

The air in the Cairngorms is noticeably colder, the days are becoming shorter and nature is slowing down. In the past few weeks, I have...