Saturday, January 03, 2015
A glaucous gull was cruising and swooping over the salt-marsh, maybe buzzing the black sheep beyond the dunes because some of them had set off running. It eventually settled in the Allt Loch Raa below the lay-by and showed itself to be, probably, the long-staying bird.
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.
// posted by Christine @ 2:46 PM 
