Saturday, May 10, 2014
Yesterday: On a grey, coldish, drizzly morning I drove north to see if a pair of wigeon had remained on a reedy lochan visible from the road overnight. I couldn't see them, so I drove a short way down the Achiltibuie road where Greger met me with coffee after helping the plumber at home.
A hundred or so pink-footed geese flew calling over the hills of Coigach towards the sea.
Beyond Stac Polly the sky was clearing; it looked so inviting. Greger had more stuff to do at home but generously suggested I go out to Achnahaird.
So I followed the geese, driving along the single-track road from dreariness into summer. The light rain gave way to sunshine; skylarks were singing and wheatears seemed to grace every stretch of fence and wall.
I found thirty or so of the pink-foots on the machair and the sand; the rest were at the far end of a tiny lochan.
The only waders seemed to be ringed plovers and oystercatchers until I spotted a solitary dunlin along the channel of Allt Loch Raa. Beyond the dunlin, a pair of mergansers was diving.
Walking back to the car through the sand dunes I flushed several twite. They flew off grudgingly ahead of me but never went far; and I finally snapped two on the cliff-top against the backdrop of the sea.
My first terns of the year were over the bay; they were distant and will have to go down as "commics".
// posted by Christine @ 2:31 PM 
