Saturday, April 11, 2015
The hills wore a fresh sprinkling of snow this morning and our route south down the coast took us first over high moorland on Destitution Road, where we encountered a blizzard of sleet and hail. It was just 2 degrees. The grass verges began to show white where the hail or snow was settling, but as we dropped to Little Loch Broom the clouds rolled away and we had blue skies and sunshine.
At Inverewe a greenshank was feeding (unusually, I think) in the same place, seemingly stamping with his feet and picking up tiny morsels of food from the edge of the waves.
We walked the National Trust for Scotland's pine trail, which was undulating and pleasant. But as we came down to the road, dark clouds rolled in again, there were terrific gusts of wind, and we hurried back to the car park with sleet and hail battering us from the sea. Greger was worried I would be blown into the road but I managed to stay upright; and I was worried that his legs were completely soaked as he didn't have waterproof trousers on. We went into the bird hide to wait out the rest of it - although the worst was actually over.
A few minutes later we were in Inverewe Gardens, with a blue sky above us.
And here we heard a distinct "chiff-chaff" and then caught a brief glimpse of the warbler - our first chiffie of the year.
// posted by Christine @ 3:21 PM 
