Insh Marshes 18th May

After the second visit to Loch Garten, I made a detour to a nearby RSPB reserve, Insh Marsh, an unmanned reserve with good hides, which is only a couple of miles from where I was staying in Kingussie.

The other two hides are

• Gordonhall accessed by a long downhill path, I didn't fancy the uphill trek back
• Invertromie accessed by a narrow and tricky path, which again wasn't accessible for me.

PLEASE NOTE; Though I have accessibility issues, I am in no way critical of the access to these hides, I fully accept and respect the reasons for the locations of these hides and fully support them. This is more to allow the readers advanced information should they want to visit the reserve at any time.

Many of you know me well enough to know, I look for the positives rather than the negatives, and that remains the case with this post.

It is a truly marsh based reserve on the western edge of Loch Insh, and there were plenty of curlew and black headed gulls on the day of my visit, but sadly they were a bit too far away for a decent photo or two.

From the Lookout, for me the only accessible hide out of the three, the feeding station was busy, with siskins, predominantly one female holding her own against other would-be feeding birds, particularly male chaffinches and the views northwards to Kingussie and the Monadhliath Mountains, which i've walked in the past, were just brilliant.

My visit was well rewarded with god photo opportunities, not just the landscape, as in the next photo (I won't bore you with the many landscape photos I took unless requested, and my arm could very easily be twisted).

The above photo was taken from the accessible roof of the Lookout, which provides a camera location post

I did say good hides, though I only visited and used the Lookout, and I'm sure that will be a good representation of the other two hides.

Now for the wildlife, a siskin showing his plumage, even if her back was turned....

The remaining photos are of various feeder fisticuffs from a very dominant female siskin to any attempts to get on her assumed nut feeder

Though I say it myself, some brilliant action photo opportunities and well worth the time spent in the hide.