Christine's walking & birds blog

The sun lay warm on Alturlie Point on the east coast, and the cut field full of straw bales was attracting corvids, starlings, wood pigeons, a curlew, and a small bunch of sparrows. There are five or six adult tree sparrows in the picture; but I think at least three of the birds are house sparrows.


The sparrows were feeding on the ground; but they were flighty, and we weren't the only flushers. People walking by and passing cars sent them up into the tall weeds at the field-edge; but they soon went back to the stubble. The shore itself was covered in gulls, curlews, redshanks, oystercatchers, and lapwings. A bar-tailed godwit, plunging its bill in the mud to its full length, was a bonus.


Then we had to turn our backs on the great outdoors and go shopping. I tried things on in H&M and M&S, bought a T-shirt - and then gave up. I'm not one of life's natural shoppers. Which, Greger says, he's truly thankful for.

On the way home we saw two whooper swans on the far side of Loch Droma - our first of the autumn.