Tuesday, July 23, 2024
Day 12 of the flu - and it was much too nice a day to stay indoors. A visit to what I think of as the eternal bog in hopes of an azure hawker, brought instead a female northern emerald dragonfly - which was a welcome sighting as I failed to see one last year.
Tuesday, July 09, 2024
The bee beetle was delving deep into a fading rhododendron(?) flower. A low but spiky fence prevented me from getting closer, which is probably why I failed to see the ant at the time.
Long ago - well, in the 1990s - we went on the Shearwater's predecessor the Summer Queen (Dad was with us), and I remarked that on that occasion, we too nosed into the cave a little way; but Greger can't recall doing that, so maybe I'm "misremembering". Today, he managed to spot the only Manx shearwater of the trip - otherwise interest lay mainly in good numbers of puffins, a pod of common dolphins, a few porpoises, four common terns, and a couple of bonxies.
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We had been thinking of going down to Cornwall this week, but as the weather wasn't any better than here we've stayed put. When England had a heatwave earlier this year we couldn't travel south, and Greger will soon be tied up again with electricians and solar panels - I seem fated never to experience warm sunny days and balmy evenings again. Never mind, at least we have (in Westminster at least) a Labour government. :o)
Monday, June 24, 2024
Today, I bagged a Dodd! On our walks along Loch Glascarnoch, I've often remarked to Greger that getting up the hill that rises from the track just after the second gate might offer a better route to the tops beyond than the rough mire I generally plod and squelch across to gain them. Seeing another walker going up recently, I decided to give it a go. Having done a bit of research, I discovered that Meall an Torcain (536m) is one of the Dodds - hills 500-599m high with a drop of at least 30m all round.
Well, it was pretty steep and fairly wet in places, but eventually I got to the top and looked past the modest summit cairn to my next two hills.
Picking my way down the northern flank of the Dodd I got into some really rough, wet ground - but I was cheered up by the sight of a fairly large patch of dwarf birch (I think this photo is upside down!).
A few oddly shaped reddish things like berries away from the main patches were possibly diseased dwarf willow - perhaps galls. Just over a kilometre away, Tom Ban Mor was now out of the cloud. I knew that if I continued I might find cloudberry fruiting again, while higher up there would be the outside chance of ptarmigan and dotterel; but then I recalled the rough ground I had to cross later in order to get down to the track - and I reluctantly decided to start going down. I was taking the old route rather than going back over the Dodd. Actually, the first part wasn't too bad - although a sighting of golden plover or red grouse would have made it better. On reaching the deer fence I was dismayed to find the walkers' gate gone, while a wide metal vehicle gate had replaced the old wooden one. This was no doubt to accommodate the huge diggers that have been doing work on the hillside recently - and fortunately, it wasn't padlocked. After all my struggles I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed having to climb over!
And a marsh is certainly what it was growing in! When I tried to move, I found that my feet had sunk into the mud; and after I'd gone a hundred metres or so, I realised that I'd left one of my walking poles behind so I had to go back into the same mire to pick it up - its handgrip now, of course, covered in mud. When the going wasn't wet or muddy, there was very long grass and other tangled stuff to contend with and I tripped a couple of times but managed to stay upright. By the time I reached the hydro track I was pretty weary, and pleased that I'd made the decision up there not to do the extra two kilometres.
Other birds: willow warbler, skylarks, ravens, stonechat, a house martin over the dam, several unseen common sandpipers calling anxiously from the loch-side - and a possible dunlin calling as I started my descent from the second top (or was it a dotterel?)
Thursday, June 20, 2024
An hour into the sailing, I spotted two terns which I'm confident were Arctics.
There were a few great skua sightings, but I probably saw no more than three individuals during the whole trip.
I spotted one small pod of dolphins but saw no sign of whales. At Stornoway we had to disembark (after a long wait while the vehicles exited) via the car deck - the passenger gangway being still out of service. I concentrated hard as we sailed back to Ullapool but the sea was fairly quiet. By the time we were approaching the Summer Isles I thought it would be safe to relax and finish off my Maltesers. Unfortunately they had been in the top of my rucksack, in the sunshine, and had melted! I didn't realise this immediately though, and in no time at all I had chocolate all over my fingers - at which point, a birder called out "Manxie!" and I managed to miss the most promising little flurry of birds on the return trip. Typical. Never mind, it had been a nice, bright day (although a bit on the windy side) and I did see other birds: puffin, guillemot, razorbill, fulmar, kittiwake, gannet, shag, white-tailed eagle - and, at Stornoway, common tern and grey heron.
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Yesterday: Three black-throated divers were hobnobbing off the beach at Badentarbat.
Saturday, June 15, 2024
We drove south down the coast and had a walk round Inverewe Garden. Aultbea could offer no hen harrier this time, although we did spot a white-tailed eagle flying across Loch Ewe. On the way back we pulled in at what used to be a large lay-by and which has, since Covid, become a pay-and-display car park; we don't normally use it but I wanted to have a quick walk there to hunt for whitethroat. There were none - at least, that I could see. But in a damp meadow with a small flood in a hollow, I found a few ragged robins.
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
I trudged along muddy paths to the shallow pools and puddles where dragonflies patrol in the summer - but I was jumping the gun as usual, and there was nothing to see yet. A golden eagle soared above a distant ridge, and a sika deer melted quietly into the shadow of the forest without its earsplitting shriek. I could hear song thrush, chaffinch, blackbird, goldcrest, blackcap, and wren - but they weren't singing with real conviction, and one by one they fell silent. Then came some lovely fluting "cuckoos" from somewhere nearby. As I walked back to the car a second bird started up - and I thought I also heard the brief call of a female. One of the male birds flew onto a bare branch, where it perched for a while against the backdrop of Sail Mhor.
A small bird on a lower branch was bothered by the presence of the cuckoo; they took off together, and watching them as they flew out of sight brought to mind Shakespeare's most famous stage direction [Exit, pursued by a bear.] Except in this case the pursuer was a chaffinch.