The Scottish Highlands — especially the Cairngorms National Park and Spey Valley — has a reputation as one of the best places to go birdwatching in the UK. This stunning national park is home to species that are either rare or completely absent elsewhere in the UK, including the majestic golden eagle, elusive capercaillie, tiny crested tit and three high mountain specialists: ptarmigan, dotterel and snow bunting. These birds aren’t always easy to see: you’ll have to trudge up mountains, walk along wooded river valleys and search through pine forests to find them — all while enjoying some of the most spectacular landscape in the country. Together with wonderful views, excellent accommodation, great places to eat and drink, and the famous malt whisky, the Highlands are a very enticing package to newcomers as well as experienced birdwatchers. So pack your walking boots and waterproofs, grab your binoculars and get twitching.

The mountains

The Cairngorm Plateau is the only ‘arctic-alpine’ habitat in the British Isles, which means several species that specialise in living at high altitude breed there. Only one is so well adapted that it can survive on the high tops of the mountains all year round: the ptarmigan, whose name derives from the Scots Gaelic word for its distinctive croaking call, which echoes around the spectacular scenery. Actually seeing this bird can be tricky though, since ptarmigan are masters of camouflage, moulting into three distinct plumages in a single year (including almost pure white in winter). But if you sit quietly and carefully scan the rocky slopes, you’ll eventually see them.

Another much smaller bird, the snow bunting, spends the spring and summer on the high tops, alongside the ptarmigan. Each year a few pairs breed in snow-filled corries — sheltered dips formed by glacial erosion — where they sing their tuneful song. After breeding, they head down the mountain; some go all the way down to the coast, while others stay much closer to home, in the car park at the bottom of the funicular railway that takes visitors up to the top of Cairn Gorm itself. Snow bunting flocks can be very tame, foraging for scraps of food left deliberately or accidentally by the many visitors.

The third mountain speciality, the dotterel, is only here during the late spring and early summer months, having migrated all the way from its winter home in North Africa. The dotterel is a wader, but with a difference: unlike its marsh-loving relative, it breeds on the tops of mountains. It also has a bizarre sex life, with the more colourful and assertive females laying their clutch of eggs and then heading off to Norway to breed again. This leaves the drabber male to incubate the eggs and raise the chicks.

A day’s birdwatching on the Cairngorm Plateau may only produce half a dozen species — you might also see red grouse, meadow pipit, wheatear, ring ouzel and, if you’re lucky, golden eagle — but combined with the mountain scenery, it’ll certainly be a fruitful day.

Forests and woods

Much of the land below the plateau is covered in trees: both the Scots pine and the more open birch woods. These forests are full of special birds and other wildlife, but can also feel as if they’re totally deserted, as the wild creatures that live here are very good at hiding away.

An early morning start on a fine, calm day will help, as it enables you to notice the tiny movements that give away a bird’s presence in the dense foliage and also, in late winter and spring, hear the birdsong. In the pine forests, there are coal tits, treecreepers and goldcrests, while the crested tit — more or less unique to this area of the Highlands — can be hard to see. Listen out for its distinctive call. Siskins and chaffinches are very common, and along with the various tit species, will often come to bird feeders in car parks, where you can get close-up views and take photographs.

The most elusive bird of these forests is also the largest: the mighty capercaillie, whose name also derives from Scots Gaelic, meaning ‘horse of the woods’, because of its bizarre call. The world’s largest species of grouse — the size of a turkey — used to be common here, but numbers have plummeted in the past few decades and birdwatchers are now asked not to go off the forest paths to search for them, as they’re very vulnerable to disturbance. If you’re very lucky, you might come across one at dawn or dusk as you walk along the forest trails — if so, be sure to keep your distance.

The birch woods are easier places to watch birds: listen out for the delicate song, descending the scale, of the willow warbler, which returns here in late April all the way from Southern Africa to breed.

Rivers and lochs

Speyside — or Strathspey as it’s known in Scotland — is named after the River Spey, which flows through this valley in sight of the Cairngorms. As well as being a beautiful river in its own right — and supplying water for some of the best malt whiskies in the world — it’s home to a host of birds.

Look out for the dipper — which birdwatching hero Bill Oddie once described as “like a cross between a wren and a torpedo” — the only British songbird that regularly submerges under water. Plump and about the size of a thrush, it’ll bob up and down on rocks in the fast-flowing river, and then plunge beneath the surface to grab aquatic insects with which to feed itself and its young.

Two other birds also perch on rocks and bob up and down: the resident grey wagtail, which despite its name has bright lemon-yellow underparts, and the common sandpiper, a smart little wader that spends the winter in Africa. One species of duck — the goldeneye — was once only a winter visitor here, but in the past few decades, they’ve colonised as a breeding bird. Today, the black-and-white males and grey, chestnut-headed females can be seen all year round.

Make sure you also visit some of the many lochs that are dotted around the lowlands here. Special birds include the black-throated diver (on larger areas of water) and the Slavonian grebe (on smaller ones). Do keep an eye out for large raptors overhead — golden and white-tailed eagles are regularly seen. Perhaps the most famous bird of prey, however, is the osprey, which returned to the area to breed in the 1950s and is now commonly seen hunting for fish on the larger lochs from April through to August.

The coast

If you can tear yourself away from the rivers and lochs, it’s worth spending at least a day on the nearby coast. Head to Spey Bay, Black Isle and the Moray Firth where, ducks, geese and waders are the main attractions, especially in winter or during the peak migration periods of spring and autumn, while ospreys often hunt for fish here.

Target birds include the largest British duck, the eider, whose calls resemble a very human-sounding “oooh”. In winter, there are large flocks of greylag and pink-footed geese, while waders such as dunlin, sanderling, curlew and redshank are found in huge numbers — sometimes accompanied by rarer species. Offshore, you might also see gulls, terns, divers and distinctive auks such as the guillemot and razorbill.

Other wildlife

While birds are the main attraction, there are plenty of other wild creatures found here. The pine woods are home to red squirrels — which can be easy to spot as they clamber around the branches above your head — and pine martens, which are more elusive.

If you walk up the path to Cairn Gorm, you have a very good chance of coming across our only truly montane mammal — the mountain hare. This animal, like the ptarmigan, turns almost completely white in winter. Other easier-to-see mammals include red deer. Also, don’t forget to check the forest floor for colonies of wood ants, which emerge on a sunny day and whose colonial behaviour can be quite mesmerising to watch.