Christine's walking & birds blog

Early(ish) this morning I drove north, pausing at Ardmair to watch a fishing otter making an arrowed streak of bubbles across the calm water of the bay. At Keanchulish Estate, a cuckoo was on the wires again and it wasn't long before I heard reeling. I snapped the grasshopper warbler, through the fence and at some distance, as it sang from the top of bog myrtle bushes - in flower (catkins) but not yet in leaf.


I returned home and we set off on a walk up Ullapool Hill through the Rhidorroch Estate. Willow warblers were singing everywhere and the gorse was a blaze of yellow. There was still a slightly icy wind but the sky was blue and the sun was shining, so we won't moan too much. Picking my way round a large puddle across the path I realised it was full of newts. This picture shows (I think this is right) a male palmate newt at the top, folding his tail in close to his body and vibrating it to encourage the female to pick up the package of sperm he will deposit.


We had lunch on the bank of the Ullapool River close to where it emerges from Loch Achall.


A dipper whizzed up and down the river, a grey wagtail fed nearby, and two swallows came down now and then to drink. Otherwise, there was a distinct lack of birds on our walk today.

Back at home, a redpoll was out the back where the pipit was feeding two days ago.


Some birds obviously like our rather weedy garden. I wonder if they're having a hard time finding food during this slow, cold spring - still with more of winter about it than summer.