From Opus

Hello, I'm Paul, I live in London, and I have been birdwatching for the past four years. My interest sparked off on a family trip to the Everglades N.P. in Florida, and since then I have done a lot of birding and photography in both America and Western Europe. My favourite spots are in Norfolk (UK), Normandy and the Loire (FRANCE), and Florida (AMERICA). As my first message on BirdForum, I would like to tell you all about an extremely unexpected bird sighting that I had two days ago, on the 8th of July.

 I was in the Cairn Gorms in Scotland, mountain climbing with two friends. The climb lasted 10 hours, and in the first 10 minutes I saw some hooded crows, 1 goldfinch, 1 stonechat, some meadow pipits and skylarks, 1 grey wagtail and what I believe to be a snow bunting, but may not have been. For the remaining 9 hours and 50 minutes, I was privileged to view extraordinary mountains in glorious sunshine, but on such high peaks, there were no birds at all. It was in the last couple of minutes of our walk, on the final 20 metres or so, as we entered the lusher, grassier slopes, that out of nowhere I heard a loud "kruk!" to my left. A 'red grouse' flew a few metres in front of me, and around to my far right! It was a glorious bird, different from the ptarmigan that I had seen two years ago in the area, because it was a deep red, with a clean red brow, without the white underside of the ptarmigan. It was a new bird for me, and certainly a memorable sighting. 
 If there is a moral to this story, it would be that wherever you are, whether you are in a desert, on a mountain or at a rubbish tip, NEVER, EVER DOUBT! Always have faith in the birds, because in the most remote places on earth there is life (and where I was is one of the most remote places in Great Britain). 
 Good luck with all your birding, 
 Paul.