Christine's walking & birds blog

Scotland

We are not only in our new home, we now have broadband again! Parcel Force delivered the last bits we needed this morning.

But first we had almost three weeks in holiday lets, the first in a tiny chalet in Laiken Forest, on the east coast near Nairn. This is Culbin Forest, an area of Scots and Corsican pines planted on sand dunes in a successful effort to halt erosion caused by the removal of machair long ago.  

From the main road to Inverness we would often see flocks of pink-footed geese flying high. There must have been several hundred of them.

After a week in the tiny chalet at Laiken Forest we moved to the caravan on the west coast and found a couple of pink-footers with greylag geese, in the sheep field opposite the camp-site.

Arriving a month earlier than ever before gave me a second Ardmair tick in the shape of a redwing.

The twite was on the path outside the caravan and was snapped through the window.

If I find myself pining for the Eton Wick flood, I can always jump in the car and drive to this lochan. On one lovely bright day it held a black-throated diver, a common sandpiper and two calling greenshanks. 

We took time out from unpacking boxes for a trip to Achnahaird. As we sat enjoying the sun in our favourite rocky cove, a whimbrel suddenly alighted just below. When it kept still it was not easy to see.