Christine's walking & birds blog

Another loch held a second black-throated diver, a third loch held several herons and mallards and a pair of little grebes, and a fourth loch held two whooper swans.


The frogspawn had developed; the little round eggs were now elongated into tadpole-like shapes.


Two lapwings were on farmland where they certainly hadn't been in the winter. A bird of prey seen in the extreme distance might have been a goshawk, although the length of the tail argues for sparrowhawk. The tail-end seems rounded however, and the wings broad. Don't know.


Back in Ullapool in the rain, the glaucous was once more hanging around the harbour.


It was very cold and windy today with heavy, sometimes sleety showers; and there was a sprinkling of snow on the hill-tops. It was a day of lay-by birding; there were still no real migrants but there was some evidence of bird movements. Meanwhile, wheatears and sand martins have been reported from Moray/Nairn and the Stoer Peninsula (just north of us).

I went home for lunch and to dry out and on a hunch visited the harbour in the afternoon. The glaucous flew onto the quayside with herring gulls, and I went as far as I was allowed with the construction-site restrictions.


A fishing boat must have thrown out some of their unwanted catch - possibly catfish; the gulls didn't seem over-keen, but perhaps they'd already dined.


It was galling to see a fisherman walk right past the glaucous, which unlike the other gulls, stood its ground. Belatedly aware that I was getting drenched for the second time, I gave up and went home for the rest of the day.

Another day of strong winds and heavy showers - some of these joining together to form - er - rain. We read through Greger's authors' mini-bios, sent them off, and then went for a drive. We went south for a change, to Dundonnell at the head of Little Loch Broom.

Through the rain we watched three Slavonian grebes far out on the water.


They are close to full breeding plumage.

Greger called a halt at about 4.30 - just as it began to rain. But we went for a drive anyway, and ended up at Ardmair watching a man kitesurfing. This looked really exciting; he would skim across the choppy sea and then leap into the air, going quite high.

On a dull day we went for a drive inland. The clouds were amazing, lying across the landscape in rolls and scrolls and stacked-up lenses.


A crossbill was seen on a distant conifer, and when we walked down to the shore of a loch, two brown ducks (female tufties? they seemed to have a white strip along the trailing edge of the wing) we'd failed to see went winging away the length of the loch, just above the surface. Watching them through the bins I saw them suddenly split away from one another like Red Arrows, while just below them a dark shape emerged from the water. It was a black-throated diver, and we heard it call.

A pair of goldeneye were at the far side of another loch, and a dozen or so whooper swans were dotted about - nine or ten of them close to the road. I was able to snap them from the car.



Yesterday I saw a stonechat singing and displaying; today it was siskins.

Saturday: The sun came out this morning and cheered everything up, so we drove to Achnahaird. We walked on the cliffs and through the dunes, then back across the shining wet sand; judging by the pools on the machair it had been a very high tide.

Ringed plovers and skylarks were the most numerous species. As I watched a drake merganser from the car park, a meadow pipit alighted on a rock in front of me - unfortunately with the sun behind it.


The merganser was just floating, not feeding, in the same spot. It's unusual to see one on its own, and I wondered if there was a female resting unseen on the rocks below.

A greenshank was still present at Badentarbat. A strip of sand is always exposed at low tide, but this was the lowest tide I've seen here.



Down by the water's edge, the beach was erupting in squirts of water, some arcing up to a couple of feet high. Many of the razor shells (razor clams) were visible, but wherever I pointed the camera, the next squirt would appear somewhere else. Oystercatchers were enjoying an easy harvest.

Low tide at the spit this afternoon was very low, which put all the birds a long way away. A grey wagtail was a nice sight where the two strands of the river meet - then I realised there were two.


Then I realised there were three. Then I realised there were four. But all my efforts to get them in one shot failed, as they skipped about on the rocks interacting with each other. The foam on the water is probably something to do with the quarry, but I daresay it's harmless.

Greger wanted a tougher sort of car for living here and bought a Toyota Rav.


It's almost new, is quite nice and will be more useful; but I mourn the loss of the most comfortable car seat I've ever sat in.

On another bright, cold, sunny day, Enard Bay seemed full of black and white dots. Many were the familiar great northern divers and black guillemots; but these are four razorbills that came into Achnahaird Bay - and there were more further out. Two guillemots were also seen.

I walked into the dunes to look at some pools that have collected there. This was easier than in the summer, when the spiky marram grass can be unpleasant; but you still have to watch out for all the rabbit burrows. The pools held only a pied wagtail and a skylark.


Further up the beach towards the sheep paddocks, a faint, plaintive call alerted me to the presence of nine golden plover.


Driving back I stopped to watch a red-throated diver flying very high above one of the lochs before it finally flew out towards the sea.

Black-throated divers were calling, a pair of mergansers sailed by, and ringed plovers were displaying and posturing on the grass above the shore.


I almost missed the white-tailed eagle going over towards Ben Mor Coigach; despite appearances the tail was white, so this was an adult.


I was watching a distant pair of goldeneye diving in a lochan when I heard a "weet" sound. I traced it to a male stonechat. I've heard their "weet-chack" loads of times but without the "chack" part I was flummoxed until I saw it.


Other bird movements: on the short-turfed cliff-tops at Achnahaird there were at least 20 skylarks; and far out on the salt marsh four golden plover. Lapwings were also in evidence in the area. So things are shaping up.

As I set off on the drive home, a gull splashing about in the middle of Loch Vatachan appeared to be a white-winger.


Frustratingly, I couldn't get close and the picture is cropped million-fold; and having finished its wash the gull flew off away from me towards the sea. (Later: a glaucous gull was apparently on the nearby Loch of Reiff on Saturday, so this might be the same bird.)

I took my newly-repaired car for a tentative local drive, carefully avoiding all pot-holes. Two new springs have been fitted at the front - £150. Not bad.

Driving along West Terrace and looking down on Loch Broom, I noticed a bunch of small birds in one of the sallows at the end of the camp-site. When I got out of the car I could hear their constant twittering. The twite are back!



I counted 29 altogether and took a bit of video to record the twittering - but they were too far away, and before I could get my stuff together and walk down to the loch-side, they had flown off in a skipping flock towards the river mouth. Walking down to look at the trees, I could see the furry white catkins just emerging which give them their popular name of pussy willow.

I watched these ducks with delight. Maybe long ago I twitched a female scaup somewhere - but if I did, I can't remember it. I think these were my first. Greger got out to look through the scope and also thought them striking birds.

Back in Inverness I heard a sharp call from above and saw my first grey wagtail of the year on the roof of the bank.


As we drove home the wind dropped at last and although it was dusk, a beautiful clear sky gave us enough light to see a snow-speckled Ben Wyvis and lots of red deer mooching about at the side of the road.

We drove to Achnahaird in what looked like promising weather from inside the car, and walked across the cliffs in a bitingly cold wind. The tide was high and there was nothing on the beach but a dead whooper swan.

As a sleety, stinging rain began to fall we walked quickly back to the car. There was nothing at Badentarbat, so we drove round the Polbain loop. In the fields where we saw barnacle geese before, we counted 26 today.


Turning away from the Reiff junction, we pulled into a passing place to make way for an approaching car - and I spotted a male red grouse, and then a female.



These were my first of the year. It felt wrong to be seeing and snapping them from a car, but there wasn't much else to do. It was far too cold and windy to walk far today; and as we turned north and climbed towards Knockan Crag, the rain turned to snow. Noticing that it was settling on the moorland down to the roadsides, we decided to head back to sea level - and rain.

In the afternoon the sun came out, so I went for a walk round the village. There was still a brambling along the river path with chaffinches.

We set off on the journey south in my Fiesta, as the Volvo has grown unreliable in its old age; it would be less comfortable, but we would have peace of mind and also save on petrol.  A couple of miles south of Ullapool we hit a pothole; there was a bang, and we realised the front suspension had gone. We drove back carefully, transferred all our luggage to the Volvo - and tried again. Apart from the familiar jolts from low-gear changes and the grinding noise when turning at slow speeds (unless you turn off the traction control), the car behaved perfectly and brought us safely home.

Our journey was broken by a night at the Tebay Hotel (Cumbria), and just before we reached it (at dusk) we saw a murmuration of starlings which rose suddenly at the side of the motorway and then veered up and away across the moors. It was the first time we've ever seen one of these. A few lapwings were also seen in flight.

With such windy weather, Swinley Forest seemed a better place for a walk than the Ridgeway. The six-miler through the forest and out onto the heaths was enjoyable, and we were surprised to see the two new pools still there in the cleared area, although slightly smaller; but we saw none of the hoped-for birds. Magpies were everywhere; and a new water pipe is being laid, making the tracks and all of Lower Star Post a quagmire of mud.

After taking Greger to Maidenhead station for his day in London, I sped up to the Beeches. Feeling generous I paid the £2 parking fee even though it's voluntary on weekdays and set off only to find more surprises. A big new board informs dog walkers of their obligations, while these posts are found throughout the woods.


I felt quite emotional when I saw all this - and vindicated for the moaning I've done in the past. There have of course been good guys: an elderly man with a sweet border collie who used to come up gently to have a fuss made of her, and a woman with a large pointer which also approached quietly for a pat on the head. But the dogs you remember and rage about are the ones that bothered or even scared you - like the snapping, snarling Jack Russell that darted around my ankles while its owner said "If you're nervous of dogs you shouldn't come to a place like this", leaving me standing there open-mouthed at the woman's unbelievable stupidity and selfishness. As if Burnham Beeches was preserved and managed specially for dogs! (Well, it's sometimes seemed that way.) Then there was the smart young man in a suit, yacking on his mobile phone while his big Alsatian left a big pile of poo next to a bench I was about to sit down on. (No, the owner didn't pick up the poo, and no, I didn't sit on the bench.)

Well, now they're all being held to account, and I'm afraid the good guys have only the the bad guys to blame, and the bad guys have no-one to blame but themselves.

The following day we paid a visit to the Jubilee River, walking from the Lake End Road car park and climbing the bank to view the floods. The common pool has dried up yet again - but quite recently, I should think.


The flood in the field is also disappearing; it looked great for waders, but all we could see were shelduck, teal, moorhens, and gadwall. A kingfisher landed for a few seconds on a bare twig above the ditch before scudding off downstream. Vegetation has been cleared from the Roundmoor (including the low, water-dipping branches beloved of the Cetti's warbler) and also from the edge of the common next to the wetlands hedgerow. Tree-clearing can exacerbate flooding. I don't know why they must keep tidying everything up; the old willows also offered shelter from sun and wind to the cattle grazing here in summer and were good for spring migrants. Passing the boardwalk on the way back to the car, we heard a Cetti's warbler and a water rail.


We spent the afternoon in the Beeches - and the following day, before setting off north again, we took a last, lingering walk through Dorney Wood. We were hugely disappointed not to see a lesser spotted woodpecker. An observer recently reported seeing a male bird drumming on the permissive path. Wow, what a stroke of luck! In 17 years I've only heard the drumming twice, both times at dusk when there was no time to follow it up. However, as on the second occasion I was snapping an intently listening female sitting just above me, I s'pose I can't really complain.

We saw redwings, treecreepers, nuthatches, green woodpeckers, goldcrests, and buzzards; while a tawny owl hooted twice. Egypt Woods has undergone a great deal of clearing which gives it an airier aspect; had I known, I would have spent more time in there.

I found it hard to leave. I hadn't realised how deeply rooted I'd become in all these haunts where I've walked and birded for twenty-three years. I know we now live in a fantastic place with great birds, but I still miss home. I would gladly have swapped my ivory gull find for a sighting of the lesser spotted woodpecker. Probably my failure to see her (the female is my favourite) somehow got mixed up with other troubles and that's what made me feel so down; but as we put the miles between us and the quiet sunny woods, it was the characterful little woodpecker herself that I pined for. She's one of the best.