Christine's walking & birds blog

A beautiful sunny day called us out to Achnahaird beach; but a fringe of cracked ice along the tideline behind a sand-spit (the only part of the beach high enough to have remained dry) was a reminder that it was only a couple of degrees above freezing.


It had in fact been a very high tide, and apart from the sand-spit there was just a narrow margin of sand to walk on between the receding water and the dunes. We headed out onto the saturated machair which felt spongy and springy underfoot. The farmer was about with his border collie, dragging a dead black sheep onto higher ground.  It had drowned, presumably.

Eighteen golden plover were running about on the drier grass towards the houses. My pics were all poor, but this one does just show that a couple of the plovers were showing the beginnings of their breeding plumage.


A rock pipit was feeding among them. Walking back through the dunes, Greger took a picture of a buzzard which was probably there for the rabbits - of which there were dozens and dozens.


Greger jumped across the stream while I walked up the slope looking for the footbridge; and as I did so, a wader flew up from the boggy ground with a mad flapping of wings and a sharp nasal call - my first snipe of the year.

As we drove across the headland, Greger braked suddenly and then pulled into a passing place; twelve whooper swans were sailing majestically on Loch Raa. I took a couple of pics - of nine swans and then three a little way apart from them - and Greger took the close-up portrait.

  


A couple of them seemed to be festooned with something stringy, but I think it was weed rather than fishing lines. I thought there was just one juvenile so I was pleased to see from the photo that there were two.

Before leaving the headland I had a last sweep with the scope from the high lay-by. Far off on the other side of the river, halfway down the beach, I caught sight of a greenshank beyond the two mallards.


There were also a few teal about; and yesterday I saw a lapwing flying round above the golf-course in Ullapool. I wonder if some birds aren't already on the move. Still, mustn't get ahead of myself; it's only February. But then, who doesn't long for spring?!