Christine's walking & birds blog

Friday, February 28, 2025

Having spotted a sparrowhawk from the bedroom window this morning, I grabbed the camera and rushed outside. There was no sign now of the hawk, but scanning the ridge of Ullapool Hill I saw a distant golden eagle, flying south - and took a record shot of that instead.

Later at Ardmair, things looked quiet at low tide and as it was also quite windy I got back in the car. Something caught my eye - something brown moving swiftly along below the lay-by, on the grassy bank leading down to the beach. It was a red-legged partridge, running past my car about a metre away. It flew across to the sheep fields where it was joined by a second individual - both looking perilously conspicuous (at least through bins - with the naked eye, they could hardly be seen).

Like pheasants, red-legged partridges disappeared from my lists a long time ago as both are non-native species, introduced into the UK for the purpose of "sport". In fact, the Keanchulish Estate isn't far away, and on their website they offer "fast Partridges...driven off cliffs to the guns below on the beach....". Well, how jolly sporting.

Back home, I decided to do some "gardening" - i.e. slashing at a huge buddleia so that the oil delivery man can get to the tank next week! Given the sparrowhawk and the eagle of the morning, I hung my camera on the handle of our old lawnmower that's waiting to go to the tip - just in case something else turned up.

The clamour of gulls was distant at first - probably from the harbour - but it grew louder, and looking in that direction I had a glimpse through branches of something big. Grabbing the camera I walked out into the open to see two white-tailed eagles making their way unhurriedly towards me. Unlike the sparrowhawk, they didn't quite go over the bungalow or even the garden - but they were pretty close.

Some might consider the white-tailed eagle to be as "untickable" as the partridges - but at least they were once native to this country; and they've been reintroduced by people who care about wild birds, as opposed to those whose only wish where birds are concerned is to blast them to smithereens. Again, some argue against the reintroduction of raptors when the numbers of many passerines for example are in severe decline - and perhaps they have a point. Meanwhile, today, still in the middle of birding doldrums, I enjoyed seeing both the runaway partridges and the two eagles, the latter magnificently oblivious to the shrieking protests of gulls and corvids as they circled over the village and then flew slowly off to the north.

// posted by Christine @ 10:57 AM 0 comments

Saturday, February 22, 2025

My first greenshank of the year was seen in Dundonell, feeding at the end of Little Loch Broom with three redshanks.

Otherwise, birds were mostly absent on our drive south. From one of the high lay-bys at First Coast, in a maddening wind and a heavy shower, I spotted something flying low across the water that looked very much like a shearwater. A few days ago, my first redpolls of the year (two) were in a flock of goldfinches and siskins in the plantations up at the Braes - feeding in larches.

// posted by Christine @ 9:54 AM 0 comments

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Once again, a clear night-sky resulted in a sharp morning frost, followed by a day of unbroken sunshine. It was bitterly cold. Greger suggested a trip out to Achnahaird - our first visit there this year - and on our drive round the area we flushed a flock of twite. They soon landed again and proceeded to forage on the sheep-grazed turf beneath the viewpoint - a site often favoured by twite.

They landed so close to the car that I had to zoom out - and even then I failed to get sharp pictures. They were constantly on the move, while grass in my experience always presents a muddled background. Plus, I'm just not a very good photographer!

Another picture shows twenty-two individuals, but there were probably at least thirty altogether. They were a lovely surprise, giving me one of two new birds for the year - the other being a kestrel, hunting over the beach at Badentarbat.

We spent the last two days of January in Aberdeen, where Greger needed to consult one of the "Genius Bar" in the Apple Store about the Apple watch I bought him for his 70th birthday, which had stopped linking with his smartphone - or something. We took a short walk at Nigg Bay, where we saw bottlenose dolphins (frequent visitors, apparently) and we also revisited the splendid esplanade to the north of the city, where you can park at the side of the very wide road for nothing. From here we saw a raft of common scoter and several long-tailed ducks. (These, however, were always distant, and it was satisfying a week later to spot a local and slightly closer common scoter at Ardmair - February 7th). Meanwhile, one of the geniuses had updated the watch and all was well. Before setting off for home, we drove to the charging area, plugged the car in, and walked over to Ikea - where we stocked up on some cakes to take home and also had a very nice bowl each of tomato and basil soup, including roll and butter - the damage being just over £5 for the two.

// posted by Christine @ 10:16 AM 0 comments

Sunday, January 26, 2025

A cold walk at the dam brought just one raven and one red kite - the latter crossing our path from the south-west and circling a couple of times above us before heading north. It might be "only" an introduced species, but the kite looked quite magnificent, flying high against the pale sky - which, for the moment, it owned completely.

At the other end of the loch I scanned the skyline made by Meall Daimh, recalling the many times I've done this from the lay-by in the wildly optimistic hope of spotting a ptarmigan. I couldn't believe it when two dark birds flew in from the left, high up, and landed in the snow - my amazement no doubt partly due to the general lack of birds so far.

I watched as they made their way up the hill until they were approaching the realms of the ptarmigan.....

.....and then I had to get back in the car and warm up. I'd taken my gloves off to operate the camera and my hands were freezing cold, while my lower back had stiffened from standing in one position for so long. Stepping outside for a last look, I could no longer see the grouse.

They were too dark to be ptarmigan, but I'm not sure if they were red or black grouse; we've seen all three on hill-walks here. In one shot a tail looks rather long (but not long enough for a male black grouse) with a shallow notch - which argues for female black grouse. In another shot, viewing the birds from behind, both seem to show the little raised bumps on their heads which would be combs - which argues for male red grouse. And in yet another shot, both tails appear quite short! With such poor pictures, I don't think I'll ever be able to say for sure - although I reckon they're more likely to be red grouse. I estimate they were about a kilometre away, and had reached an altitude of roughly 500 metres. Despite the enjoyment I derived from watching them, I couldn't help thinking how conspicuous they would be to a passing eagle, and wondered why they were so high up when food might be easier to get at on the lower moors, where the snow cover was more patchy.

// posted by Christine @ 2:31 PM 0 comments

Friday, January 24, 2025

There were some savage gusts around 5 and 6 pm this morning, but the wind died down during the day leaving just dreary wet weather to contend with. Earlier this week we drove south down the coast. Two little grebes were seen - the first from Dundonell on Little Loch Broom, and then this one in Aultbea.

At Mungasdale, a flock of 200+ barnacle geese (together with two curlew) were on the fields. A dog walker on the beach flushed them - but after a bit of a zoom round, they returned to continue grazing.

Greger pointed out two Slavonian grebes....

.....and I spotted 20+ black-throated divers way over by Gruinard Island.

A few great northern divers were also present - but we looked in vain for common scoter, long-tailed duck, and white-tailed eagle.

There's a spectacled eider in the Netherlands - the furthest south one has been seen in the Western Palearctic, as far as I can make out. But how do they know it's genuinely wild? I came upon a website called waterfowl.org.uk which suggests that the species is not easy to keep in a collection, but added that some collectors do breed them successfully. Exciting though, to think that it is wild and belongs in icy cold places - even colder than Scotland! :o)

In all the madness going on in the US, a glimmer of light and hope and sanity came when a woman who took part in the Capitol riots turned down ~~Chump~~ Trump's pardon. "We were wrong," she said. Brave woman.

// posted by Christine @ 8:19 AM 0 comments

Saturday, January 18, 2025

I heard the crossbill before I spotted her - and as she flew away Greger said there were two.

The only other birds we saw on our Silverbridge walk were coals tits, a buzzard, and a red kite. On the way home we pulled into a lay-by to have our coffee and buns, and Greger pointed out something many Scottish people delight in seeing - a giant Saltire in the sky. You'd think I couldn't miss it, but I did happen to be facing the other way at the time, watching a golden eagle soaring above a ridge - and there can't be any better excuse than that!

Three whooper swans on Loch Droma were the first we've seen in the area for ages; the cold weather drove them away, presumably to ride it out closer to sea level. But, despite the sunshine, it was still fairly cold and it is still January after all; we could have snow again before spring.

// posted by Christine @ 2:33 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

The snow has gone, and with it the stillness. There was some sunshine today as we walked on the edge of tawny moors and it remained dry, despite the threatening look of a dark cloud which was soon dispersed by the very strong westerly wind.

Two male black grouse rose suddenly from the side of the track, giving great views as they whirred off up the slope and took refuge among the trees. Two golden eagles were present, quartering the hillside and the ridge.

This one seems to have a full crop, although in another poor shot the bulge under its upper chest seems more like a soft loose lump of (mostly white) feathering.

We lost them for a while, and then Greger pointed out that one eagle had soared up to a great height and was being mobbed by two ravens. As we walked back to the car I looked back to see a smaller raptor hovering - probably a kestrel, although I couldn't be sure. But a pair of buzzards spotted along the road gave me a third new species for the year.

// posted by Christine @ 1:42 PM 0 comments