Saturday, October 04, 2014
Greger suggested the walk round Rubh a' Choin again, only anti-clockwise this time. We parked in the same lay-by (above the head of Achnahaird Bay), and as we got out of the car a flock of about 30 pintail ducks came flying swiftly over going south.
We set off, thinking it would be good to get the boring stretch along the road over and done with first - but in fact the road proved fairly productive. First a snipe rose with a nasal call from the waterlogged moorland and went down again about a hundred metres away. Then I stopped at the second lochan to look at some ducks - which turned out to be mallards. "But what are those swans?" Greger said. Swans! What swans?
Intent on my ducks I'd failed to notice six whooper swans sailing majestically out from the edge of the lochan. They uttered little contact calls which were like muted trumpeting.
Black sheep - but this lot belong in a family. They're incredibly dainty and really very sweet.
The going was tougher this time as the ground was quite boggy. A single red grouse and later a pair erupted from the heather croaking and made us jump. A reed bunting was again seen near the river; and a great northern diver was in Garvie Bay.
On the Rubh a' Choin (means Headland of the dogs or wolves), Greger looks for a lunch spot (he's very fussy about the height of rock he sits on).
We saw curlews, shags, and a heron along the north coast, and far out to sea a white-tailed eagle flew west. Meanwhile Greger takes three giant steps for mankind.
The Allt Loch Raa, the river that runs down the side of the beach, was fuller than we've ever seen it. But the birds were disappointing; only two distant ringed plovers and no glacial glaucous today. But compensation came in the form of twenty or so barnacle geese flying south.
As we drove away we were about to check the lochan for the swans when six birds came flying past.
We assumed there would be none left on the lochan - but in fact there were twenty-one birds there.
A nice ending to a good day.
// posted by Christine @ 12:57 PM 
