Christine's walking & birds blog

A barnacle goose was grazing on the sloping fields above Old Dornie harbour on this frosty-cold but sunny day, along with half-a-dozen greylags. Five more barnacles then walked out of the long reedy grass.


One or two of the sheep seemed mildly curious about the birds, but if they took a step towards them the geese would close up together, raise their heads on stiff necks and sidle away like a bunch of neurotic ballet dancers.  A curlew and an oystercatcher were also foraging on the field. A drake goldeneye was on Loch a' Mheallain.

Achnahaird Bay held great northern divers, a black guillemot, and a female common scoter. A pair of stonechats flew across the road. On a reedy loch-end near the main road a pair of whooper swans preened and fed. They were several hundred metres from the road but Greger tried a shot from the car.


We pulled in at Ardmair hoping for snow buntings and purple sandpipers and other impossible things, but it was very quiet (five shags were close in) and so cold that we didn't stay long. But the cold was manageable as there was no wind - and after all the hail and thunder and hurricanes, the weather today was very welcome.