Christine's walking & birds blog

Our first bird was a redshank, down on the river.


Stonechats of both sexes and all ages (migrants?) were seen throughout the walk and these three were handily lined up against the sea.


Greger spotted an otter alternately diving and leaping out of the water, and two twite flew past and landed in the heather. A friendly man from Inverness doing the walk anti-clockwise stopped for a chat. We had lunch on the edge of the cliffs and watched some approaching fins far out, but couldn't tell if they were porpoises or dolphins. And then they were gone.

Rounding the first headland we could look across towards Rubh a'Choin, its point partly hidden by an island. Out on the headland, I could just see a woman with a dog. These and the man from Inverness were the only people we saw on the walk.


As we made our way along the north coast, the glaucous gull came cruising by. I'd been hoping it would put in an appearance, and then when it did I almost missed it.


The building shown on the map at the head of the deep narrow cove is a ruin. The rock scenery was amazing; but the haze in the distance didn't lend itself to landscape photography.


I heard gulls making a clamour somewhere, but could see nothing. Then, to the south, a white-tailed sea eagle went flapping steadily along mobbed by a large gull until disappearing behind a ridge.


The next thing was a cove full of seals lounging around on rocks the way seals do.
  

You can by-pass Rubh a' Choin itself, but I wanted to get closer to the island with the shags on it, so Greger had a coffee halfway along while I went exploring. On the far side of a vast sloping slab of rock a great black-backed gull surveyed the world from an undisputed vantage point. Beyond the gull there is a gannet - one of half a dozen we saw during the walk.


Down at the edge of the waves, a curlew and an oystercatcher were foraging in the seaweed.


When I couldn't go any further without walking into the sea, I sat on a rock and took some pics of the distant shags.


The end of the headland held some enticing tidal pools while the blocks of rock offered endless possibilities for scrambling; but it wasn't fair to keep Greger waiting so I made my way back and we continued round to Garvie Bay. We debated whether or not to wade across the river, and meanwhile I snapped a rock pipit on the sandy beach.


We decided against wading and followed the path instead around to a small reedy pool (Loch Garvie on a larger-scale map) which held no bird life at all. But further on, along the river, Greger pointed out a reed bunting. Eventually we came out onto the road and set off on the two-kilometre walk back to the car.

I could hear something exciting on the still air but couldn't quite pin it down. It grew gradually louder until through the mist we could see thirty or so geese, flying high over us to the south-east. From the slightly hysterical but lovely calls I thought these might be pink-foots, but I'm not sure.


I was just thinking "There can't be a better way to end a walk" when I looked up again to see a merlin, although I mistook it at first for a high peregrine.


What with the scenery and the variety of birds, this would - I remarked to Greger - go down as one of the great Saturday walks of all time. Yes, he replied, it would - if only this was a Saturday. It was just under 9km but quite strenuous, with a rocky and sometimes boggy path.


Other birds seen: herring gull, hooded crow, lesser black-backed gull, meadow pipit, raven, ringed plover, and starling.