Sunday, November 22, 2015
A white-winged gull was having a bath at the far side of Achnahaird beach, and between showers of rain on this very cold day we walked across the cliffs to get a closer look.
The herring gull and great black-backed dispute ownership of the starfish, the juvenile GBB (prob) manages to look bigger than everyone else, and the glaucous makes good its escape from the madhouse.
This glaucous is getting close to adult plumage.
While all the other gulls lifted lazily at our approach and flew a little way up the beach, the glaucous appeared unconcerned and stayed put, busying itself with preening. Same behaviour as usual, so is this the same one I first saw here in May 2014 and have been seeing on and off ever since?
At least four great northern divers were far out in the bay, three of them interacting and calling, one of them in fading summer plumage.
At Badentarbat there was a large flock of shags (35+). We saw no snow buntings, but a small flock of twite went skipping along the roadside verge as we drove across the moorland.
Late afternoon, a golden eagle was soaring high above the snowy tops of Ben Mor Coigach, wings held in a shallow V. The white wing patches and white on the tail were very conspicuous, pointing to an immature bird.
The eagle flew towards us across Loch Lurgainn to circle over the flank of Cul Beag, but it appeared unsuccessful in its hunting and flew back west. Let's hope it wasn't desperate as there wasn't much daylight left.
// posted by Christine @ 2:58 PM 
