Christine's walking & birds blog

It is, however, a long time since I've seen a redpoll.

The raven was up the hillside beyond the fence. He flew past us calling mournfully and did one or two rolls as he went.


We drove on to the Ben Wyvis car park but didn't walk far because the path was icy. Blue, great and coal tits were active in the birches, a kestrel hovered in the distance, and a red kite floated about near a house where two people were at work with shovels clearing a very long drive. Buzzards and hoodies made up the list. It was windy, grey and cold today but it was good to get out for a while.

Back in Ullapool a scan of the harbour produced only two shags; the ivory gull seems to have gone. Then we went home and worked on our translation for a couple of hours, while real darkness fell and brought the short day to an end.

Less welcome were four rooks which, though entertaining, eat too much and pull the feeders off the hooks.

It was a relief to walk without having to battle against the wind. A stonechat flew along the ditch on our left, and took temporary refuge from us in a snow-laden tree.


The stonechat then flew down to join two robins, a dunnock, and a wren on the sun-warmed gravelly bank of the ditch, where they were no doubt finding food items in the mud and the stones. A female stonechat was also present a bit further away.


On our way back two crossbills flew into a nearby tree and I got a shot of one (originally thought to be female, but I think the yellow-green colouring is too dark and solid, and also shows hints of red)  and a second one of both birds when they flew to the top of another tree.



We had already seen a red male on the top of a pine on the drive out, so three crossbills were recorded today. A raven flew over calling. Back at the car we ate our sandwiches standing up in the cold, crisp air, and several drivers waved to us as they passed. It was that sort of day.


We then drove back to Ledmore and up to Kylescue Bridge, but there were no further significant bird sightings. The best thing we saw was a couple who had pulled into a lay-by above Loch Assynt and were sitting in state in fold-up chairs with tartan blankets on their knees and a large wicker picnic hamper between them. A bit classier than our lunch.

The ivory gull is sometimes described as having a pigeon-like appearance - caught best perhaps in the last picture.

Coming down from the Braes, we had a quick look round the harbour for the ivory gull but couldn't see it. After lunch, Greger wanted to go for a longish drive in his car to charge up the battery so I went back down to Shore Street. And there was the gull again! I got some poor footage of its flight which is swift and strong but somehow fluttery - sometimes like a tern, sometimes a bit like an owl or a bat - as it swooped and soared restlessly around the boats. I also caught the call - but like other video clips, it's disappeared from the blog.

There seemed to be no one else watching the gull so in the end I broke my rule of not reporting and phoned it in to Birdline Scotland.

Four mad-looking shags were milling about near the beach, evidently not sure if they were feeding or courting but managing to do a bit of both.


Beyond the shags, two large grey seals were snorkelling, now and then raising their heads to give me reproachful looks before going back to the serious business of feeding. Meanwhile, I went home to a delicious and not inappropriate fish pie.

We stopped in the Morefield lay-by to look at some buzzards. A flock of medium-sized birds appeared over the hills on the far side of Loch Broom (a kilometre and a half away) and as I didn't have the bins to hand I snapped them with the camera. I was surprised to see when I uploaded and cropped the pictures that they were lapwings - at least twenty-six of them, flying eastwards. Was this a cold-weather movement? They are the first lapwings I've seen on the west coast since we moved here last April.

Among the ringed plovers hunkered down behind the sea-weed was a purple sandpiper.



The spell of sunshine soon ended as dark clouds swept in again from the sea, blotting out all the world beyond the car in yet another wind-thrown blast of rattling hail. We gave up and went home - where two siskins had joined goldfinches and greenfinches on the seed feeder.

There was a bit of robin-like tail-cocking going on, but I don't know what that means - if anything. Wet snow was now falling hard, but it was slightly warmer today and we drove home through rain to do a couple of hours' work before dinner. The only other birds we saw were five hooded crows on the high moorland and a buzzard on a road-side post.

But at the far end of the dam two small birds were swooping into the wind, making me think of sand martins - which of course they couldn't possibly be. They were snow buntings, and they went down on the windward side of the dam.


As we walked back two buntings (maybe the same ones) landed and began to forage on the ground ahead of us.


They scurried along every now and then to keep the same distance between us.


Eventually they flew up onto the wall where they were joined by a third individual. As we approached they all flew up, and through the noise of the wind we could hear a lovely trilling.


Ben Wyvis was partially covered in snow - and, for most of the time, in cloud. In the top half of the picture is the Aultguish Inn, which has been refurbished and is up for sale. A lonely enough spot to live - but it's less than an hour's drive to Inverness.


Then the wind started up again, clouds blew in and blotted out the view, and we hurried back to the car with sleet stinging our faces. Back home we worked for another hour or so, refreshed by our airy walk in the great outdoors, the smell of snow, and the sight and sound of the completely unexpected buntings.

(The first and last pictures were taken by Greger on his mobile.)

The lesser spotted woodpecker was snapped in Egypt Wood on the first day of 2010, so it's fitting that she should start the year.

Earlier, driving along the road towards Achiltibuie, we'd seen a juvenile white-tailed eagle flying low above the loch and then settling on a rock on the far shore - about 600 metres away.


Out over the sea two distant gannets flew strongly to and fro, unfazed by the bitterly cold wind and the high seas.

Two single and a pair of stonechats were evidently "staying on", and half a dozen greylag geese seen in flight were later found grazing on high boggy ground near Reiff. The good thing about greylags here in the north is that they are almost certainly wild geese - and these were wary enough to be wild.


The year list hasn't grown much. But the important thing is, we got out at last into fresh air and sunshine (and hail) after a fairly housebound Christmas; and we loved seeing the gannets. They seemed both a memory and a harbinger of summer.

I couldn't sit in the car all the time so I got out and walked along the wet, seaweedy shore towards the spit. Four ringed plovers took off and flew a little way along the waterline. A great black-backed gull and a herring gull lifted and flapped off lazily, and two curlews flew off calling but soon landed again. A heron took flight. A turnstone was preening on a rock out in Loch Kanaird and two rock pipits chased about on the edge of the camp-site.

Near the chalets, a robin, goldfinches, and chaffinches were in the bushes; and on the other side of the road blackbirds and redwings were feeding in the sheep field. The rain was falling even harder and the light was getting worse, so I decided to give up for the day.

On the way back to Ullapool I saw a kestrel hovering over Morefield, and the drive through the village brought the inevitable collared doves and house sparrows. I drove along West Terrace to look down on the river spit, but couldn't find a glaucous among the gulls there. Half a dozen wigeon were dabbling near the beach. Further out was a small flock of eider ducks; and up from the sea through the still-falling rain came the gossipy outraged cooing that is the courting song of the male.