Friday, August 08, 2014
I woke at half past five this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so I had breakfast and drove out to Achnahaird. Despite overnighting camper vans in the car-park and a couple of tents out on the cliffs, I had the beach to myself for a while.
Two great northern divers were hunting in the shallows, emerging with mostly flatfish. Later, as I sat on the rocks eating an apple, one of the divers called from the far side of the bay - a rising, heart-stopping sound that the words "howl" and "wail" don't do justice to.
Two red-throated divers flew round the bay twice calling "kak-kak, kak-kak", and a merlin raced over moorland in the distance. A stonechat was alarm-calling from the headland beyond the stream, and several rock pipits and wheatears flew along the shore in a panicked huddle. I soon saw why: a stoat was among them, running across a pale grey rock and disappearing into the heather. I watched its progress up the hillside but couldn't get a picture. There was no sign of the glaucous gull.
// posted by Christine @ 7:50 AM 
