Blue sky and sunshine promised a great day at Achnahaird, but there was a strong wind from the west that kept the temperature down.
A curlew was on the beach and two greenshanks, an adult and a juvenile, were on the Allt Loch Raa. The glaucous gull was again present, hobnobbing with all and sundry.
The worm-casts on the sand are maybe a clue to why the birds were there; along with the other gulls the glaucous would make little darting runs and pick something up from the sand or the water's edge, the shot below having caught it with a worm (lug worm?). On another occasion the food item was a small crustacean, and sometimes the birds seemed to be catching flies.
Three ravens landed on the cliffs beyond the stream, so I got a shot of them "with" the glaucous.
Later, up on the moorland, several grayling butterflies drove me mad by keeping their wings closed when they landed. I can remember the first time I saw one of these, in Swinley Forest. It was a lovely warm day, I seem to recall.....
The lovely sheep field sloping towards the sea at Achnahaird was always good in the past for lapwings, skylarks, and wheatears, despite the fact that it was a camp-site. It's no longer a camp-site but the birds seem to have deserted it too. There was one juvenile wheatear on the cliffs, and the field held a sprinkling of skylarks - possibly just one family. There was no sign of lapwings.
