Christine's walking & birds blog

We left home in sleety rain, but out on the Coigach peninsula the weather turned dry though very cold. A short-eared owl was seen from the car, flying strongly above the moorland between Achnahaird and Badentarbat.




A red-throated diver was also present in the bay, and a distant black guillemot was in breeding plumage. Near the houses there were half a dozen fieldfare.

The rook was one of several visiting the feeders yesterday and was snapped through the window.


Needless to say, no rooks turned up for the RSPB's Garden Birdwatch today; but I shouldn't complain. We got 11 species, including 35 chaffinches and 4 siskins. But the best was 5 herring gulls, which briefly came down onto the lawn for bread. They took me by surprise so I didn't get a photo.

I've taken the plunge and bought a new camera - a Canon Powershot SX60 HS, which is another bridge camera. We'll have to see if my pictures improve. Meanwhile, Greger used it to take this one of the glaucous gull from the car along West Shore Street.


A couple of auks - probably guillemots - were seen flying fast and low over the water, far out on the loch. But most gulls were hunkering down on the camp-site while in the village, an oystercatcher was having a vigorous bath in a puddle on the children's sports field.

We woke to the sound of hailstones being flung against the window by a tremendous gust of wind. Greger said there had been thunderstorms in the night, but I slept through them.

We drove to Ardmair, where it was impossible to open the door on the seaward side. Greger got out to see how strong the wind was, but he soon got back in again.


Two guillemots were riding the very high tide in the most sheltered corner of the harbour. They were preening and occasionally diving, and seemed healthy enough. Several shags and half a dozen Eider were also present.



The Stornoway ferry remained here all day, I believe. I don't think I could live on an island; even on the Outer Hebrides with their rolling moors and huge skies, I think that being cut off from the mainland would feel somehow claustrophobic.

In heavy rain, two guillemots were looking a bit miserable in a rather oily corner of the harbour, near the boats the ivory gull liked to perch on last winter.


Two grey wagtails were skipping about on the sloping wall above the beach - my first of the year. But I couldn't hang around because we were going swimming (what better thing is there to do in this weather?)

It's unusual for a village to have a pool - especially a nice, 25-metre pool like this one. We go to the Senior Swim session - it's a bit cheaper, and very quiet and sedate, as you'd expect with us elderly folk. We swam 500 metres, had a sauna, and swam a bit more - a further 250 metres for Greger, just 100 metres for me. Fortunately I can do front crawl, so don't need to do the froggy leg movements of breast-stroke that wouldn't be good for my knee. I've got to get fit somehow if we are to do any hill-walking this summer.

In the afternoon I went back to the harbour, and this time took a walk during a lull in the rain. I found three dead guillemots spaced out on the town beach. This one was the worst as it was freshly dead, and I realised it might be one of the two I snapped earlier (I could only see one there now).


It's not unusual to see the odd dead auk, generally storm-blown, around the coasts of Britain. But with the high numbers of auks (I'm presuming these included guillemots and razorbills along with the little auks) that were swept across the North Sea by easterly winds, I suppose there are bound to be more casualties this year. The Sussex birding site (sos.org.uk) had a report of 40 dead guillemots washing up dead at Eastbourne on 21st January; and I saw a second report of 20 dead guillemots (can't remember where).

Tomorrow, I see, Storm Gertrude will be bringing to Scotland "heavy rains, high winds, snow, and ice". What, all of it?! Gordon Bennett. I think we'll be hunkering down indoors.

The temperature might have gone up to about 11°C, but the wind today was bitterly cold. We tried Alturlie Point again for tree sparrows and got lucky, with a small mobile flock of seven or eight birds.


The Moray and Beauly Firths were alive with auks whizzing madly up and down; most were too far away to identify, but these guillemots came slightly closer.


Several hundred lapwings were seen in the air and the nice rolling "churrup" of skylarks was heard.

The bright sunshine and freezing temperatures of the last couple of days gave way this morning to grey skies and +3°C. Someone tweeted a picture yesterday of "pancake ice" on the Ullapool River; that would have been interesting to see, but today the water was flowing freely.

A load of soil and mud has been deposited on the open ground near the camp-site. I nearly missed a rock pipit foraging there....


.....although my first meadow pipit of the year stood out a little better.


Ten twite were busily feeding, and the insistent "tseeu" calls of reed buntings could be heard. But along the river paths I couldn't find the firecrest; a goldcrest was seen low down in gorse, and a very vocal flock of twenty or so long-tailed tits moved through the tree-tops. A treecreeper was also present.

I drove down to West Shore Street and once again, there in front of me was a little auk. It's all residents' parking there but it's a fairly quiet dead-end road, so I pulled over and took some shots from the car.


I compensated for the dull light but still failed to "get" the eye. Little auks have a way of looking at you with deep suspicion - and then paddling furiously away.

It was a very strange day weather-wise. We drove north to Achnahaird Bay, and although we had blue sky and sunshine, a dark layer of cloud lay on the horizon all round as far as we could see - and would remain there for most of the day.

A peregrine powering over the moorland to the south-east might have explained the seeming lack of life on the beach. Greger took a low-angle pic of the ripples with his mobile.


Ice gave the sand an unusually white appearance.


Among the dunes, the small pools were frozen; but at least we saw some birds here. A song thrush and a couple of mistle thrushes were foraging among the clumps of marram grass. Looking up the sheep pasture, I saw a flock of dark birds flying and landing, so we made our way towards the road. I thought they looked like golden plover, but it seemed the wrong time of year (although I believe some winter on the east coast of Scotland). However, that's what they were.


There were between 40 and 50 birds, all intent on foraging, although I don't know what they could get from the frozen ground; and several flew towards us, seeming oblivious to our presence.


They obviously needed to feed, and we backed away and took a wide berth around them. Presumably this was a cold weather movement - but from where?

Stopping for a last look over the machair from the high lay-by, we chatted with an English couple who also live here. The woman mentioned how nice it is in summer at Achnahaird with all the pipits and skylarks. As we drove away a bit later, a bird with white edges to its tail flew up from the road-side and I thought "Was that a skylark?!"; I took several snaps, but it was hunched over feeding and always moving away from me. A passing car flushed it, and as it landed a few yards further off I saw its crest raised; so it was, coincidentally, almost certainly a skylark. An interesting sort of day.

A group of Eider diving together in the harbour.


We drove out to Craggie with our cross-country skis, and although much of the snow of yesterday had melted from the lower level moorland, the forest tracks up here were still covered and the snow was crunchy and perfect. The skis just swished along.


I didn't swish as far as Greger though, because of my knee. I tend to fall over a lot when I ski. The gate above me is a nuisance, as without it, we would have had a clear downhill run back to the car, gently levelling out before the road.


Loch Borralan was iced over with a layer of snow, so there were no water birds to be seen.


In fact the only birds we saw were robins, coal tits, blue tits, and my first goldcrest of the year.

I planned to check the harbour, then walk round the camp-site and river spit, and on to the river paths to look for the firecrest. It started to rain as I pulled up on Shore Street, but it was only a shower.

The glaucous(?) gull was still around, having a wash just off the west beach.

We awoke to a sprinkling of snow this morning, and Greger wanted to try out his winter tyres; so we drove north, passing and being passed by a gritting truck depending on whether Greger wanted to get a move on, or I wanted to stop and look at a bird (which usually turned out to be a buzzard).

Although we started off in bright conditions it soon began to hail and then snow quite hard, but by the time we reached the car park at Kylesku Bridge there was another spell of dry weather. We looked down on the steely water, full of currents and whirlpools, of Loch a' Chairn Bhain, and saw quite a number of razorbills and guillemots.


They were fairly vocal, although the calls were like a short bark rather than the "growling" we heard here in May 2013, when the loch was dotted with even more auks than we saw today. Four immature kittiwakes were flying about below us, seeming to dive-bomb the auks now and then. On the far shore, a great black-backed gull landed on rocks with something round and pink - probably a sea urchin.

On the way back we called into the Loch Assynt car park; two drake goldeneye were diving in the bay near the ruined house.


Back in Ullapool we drove down onto West Shore Street, and a glaucous gull floated along the beach in front of us and went down on the waterline.


A very nice end to a dramatic day.

The east coast of Scotland is the place for little auks - more so this year with an influx of hundreds brought over on strong easterlies from their Scandinavian wintering grounds; and Greger wanted access to his computer and desk for the day. So I headed for Inverness. There had been hail during the night, but up on the Dirrie Mor snow had fallen and Ben Wyvis wore a thick white coat. The car park was full, and I guessed some walkers would be taking skis up with them - lucky things!

Despite the sunshine it was very cold at Alturlie; and everything seemed to be happening on the far side of the Moray firth, near North Kessock. Auks whizzed back and forth, too far away to call. Long-tailed drakes and mergansers were also on the wing. Once more,  I searched for tree sparrows in vain. I then made the stupid mistake of driving on eastwards to Fort George; this was a waste of time, except for the spectacle of large flocks of pink-footed geese grazing in the fields.

My third location was North Kessock, under the road bridge; this turned out to be the most productive spot, but the light was already failing. Immature gannets flew up and down and dived in front of me. Juvenile kittiwakes were flying to and fro with the gulls. A guillemot preened just close enough for a croppable record shot.


A razorbill also came close enough to be identified. A bunch of shags sailed out from behind the lifeboat station, and as I watched them swim under the bridge, a tiny dark bird flew past them. It sort of crash-landed in the water - and then I lost it; but it was probably my first little auk.

Finally, a black guillemot was seen close in; like the one I snapped a couple of days ago, it was moving into summer plumage, but the barring on the wing-patch suggests that this one is a juvenile bird.


Driving back was easier as the roads had been gritted. Loch Glascarnoch with the mountains grouped round it looked lovely in the evening light; and deer had come down to graze near the road. Greger had had a good clear-up in the office and cooked a delicious meal, and after eating that, we both fell asleep halfway through Midsomer Murders.

And when I looked up today's little auk sightings on birdguides, there was one reported here in Ullapool. Typical.

On a grey rainy day, a rather hunched-up black guillemot was close in to shore on the Moray Firth. It looked a bit messy, being between winter and summer plumage.


Also present were wigeon, teal, scaup, redshanks, rock pipits, curlews, oystercatchers, lapwings, goldeneye - and far, far out, a couple of Slavonian grebes and what looked like a black-throated diver. Four pintails flew west. But I couldn't see any tree sparrows, and wonder if they were only there when the field was newly cut and the straw standing in bales.

A buzzard was circling above the road as we drove through Coigach on this lovely day - and just beyond, a golden eagle was being mobbed by a raven.



A white-winger was alone in a corner of the beach at Achnahaird. It was being dive-bombed by great black-backed gulls, but these flew off as we made our way across the dunes to get behind and sunward of what looked like an Iceland gull. The wing-tips protruded well beyond the tail and the bill looked stubby in comparison with the bill of a glaucous.



The gull lifted off and circled round several times before landing back in the same place. I failed to catch it in my shots, but the primaries looked bright white against the darker parts of the wings.


A long-tailed drake was diving out beyond the breakers.


Much further out, a Slavonian grebe was keeping company with two female common scoters and one of the great northern divers did a spot of tremolo-calling.

Down at Old Dornie, a white-tailed eagle was spotted from the car flying purposefully out to sea.


Calling back in at the beach car-park we found the light much worse. I still couldn't quite identify the auks I could see way out on the bay - guillemots and razorbills were probably both present though alas! no little auks - but we were compensated by Greger's find of a red-throated diver.


The sheep were determined to walk along the road and crowd round us; and after we'd edged our way past, they turned and stood staring after us.


Perhaps the farmer gives them supplementary feed from a vehicle and they regard every car as a potential source of nosh.

Having made a dull day even duller by doing the ironing, I then looked through the window out the back to see a chunky bird among the chaffinches and siskins perching in a tree beyond the bungalows that run at right angles to our row.


A waxwing is a nice bird to record on the second day of January - but there wasn't much walking involved. If I don't do some serious walking soon, I'll have to change the name of this blog.

A dry but dullish morning had brought out many people. Rather than start from home, I drove to West Terrace to save wear on my knee and then began my walk and the day's count. Six twite were once more on stony ground near the camp-site, and a dipper was on the river. This looks like a pair of goosanders.....


.....but it wasn't that straightforward, as there were five drakes and just the one female.

Far out in the middle of the loch were some thirty shags, with at least two cormorants among them.
A flock of oystercatchers, half a dozen turnstone, several ringed plovers, and two curlews all stood together at the edge of the waves; and a smart male reed bunting flew calling across the waste ground.
A hooded crow was feeding on a dead sheep washed up on the shore.


After lunch, Greger came with me to Ardmair, where we saw two great northern divers on Loch Kanaird and a pair of ravens flying over. It was such poor light by then that we called it a day. I saw thirty species; and Greger got almost as many by staying at home all morning and looking through the window now and then at the feeders!