Christine's walking & birds blog

After a frosty night, a settled sunny morning drew us out into the garden to continue the spring tidy-up. The flowering currant was attracting several honey bees and a few bumblebees, such as this buff-tailed queen.


The afternoon became cool and windy, and between bouts of housework I surfed the birding net. Down south in familiar haunts, two good birds have been reported recently - a common scoter at Dorney Lake (Eton College Rowing Lake), and a lesser spotted woodpecker in Egypt Woods (which we failed to see on our March trip).

The woodpecker was seen in Whitespark Wood; I've never been able to work out where one of these woods-within-a-wood ends and another begins, but of my sightings of the lesser-spots in Egypt, three have been roughly in this section. Others: two between Whitespark and Staplefurze Wood, five well inside Staplefurze, eight in Heathfield Wood, three in Nine Acre Wood, and an unexpected summer sighting in Healy's Gorse. Evocative names, nice to call them to mind.

The black-throated diver was on a roadside loch, and as I pulled over to take a picture a great spotted woodpecker could be heard drumming from the clear-fell beyond.


There was plenty of frogspawn in the ditch I checked, with the tadpoles already taking shape. The newt was one of three seen - all moving very sluggishly, and none of which I could confidently identify.


So engrossed was I in life in the ditch, that I only belatedly registered constant harsh calling from above; and I looked up to see a raven furiously attacking a juvenile golden eagle.



Back in Ullapool I was too tired to go for another walk, so I just took the high road along West Terrace and looked out from my car over the river spit. Even at that distance you could pick out the glaucous gull.


Also seen during the day: one buzzard, one goldeneye drake, three whooper swans flying west, and quite a few meadow pipits displaying.

Three whooper swans were on the far side of Loch Lurgainn; and near them was a black-throated diver, coming into summer plumage (our first on the west coast this year).

Several male stonechats were seen; Greger snapped this one from the car.


A very strong wind meant a very short walk, over the cliffs to the beach. A week ago, the place had been buzzing with skylarks; but today we saw just two and heard only one singing. A great northern diver was in the bay.


Across the headland, gulls had taken over the sandy beach, and the greenshank was foraging a little way off among seaweed and rocks.


A brown bird powered low across the water parallel with the beach - a female merlin. But she didn't take her coat off, she wasn't stopping.

We scanned for an eagle - though not for long; it was a relief to get out of the biting wind and back into the warm car.

In Burnham Beeches, several Mandarin ducks and drakes paddled quietly about in the muddy water of the moat.


We had walked through Dorney Wood without seeing much at all, and now we slipped under the newly repaired fence to make a loop in Egypt Wood. The best bird was a woodcock, flushed near the stream.

In the afternoon we visited Dorney Wetlands on the Jubilee River.  Three female pochards were drifting about near the car park. Two Cetti's warblers sang and a water rail squealed from the reeds. The Eton Wick flood was much depleted.


A goldcrest and a chiffchaff were moving about restlessly in the tree by the gate, which was covered with white blossom. Gadwall were feeding with Canada geese on the common - where the flood was now just a puddle.

A little egret came high from the south and turned to follow the river downstream.


We called in at Sainsbury's to buy a white chrysanthemum in a pot, and took it to the grave. St. Mary's churchyard at Hitcham is potentially a good spot for firecrests - but by this time, I was too tired to bird any more.

The following day we did an 11.7 km (7.3 mile) walk in Swinley Forest. We saw a pair of stonechats and a pair of "specials", but no woodlarks. A pipit in a dead tree on Bagshot Heath was probably a meadow - bit early for a tree pipit.  By the stream on Wishmoor Bottom, Greger pointed out a crossbill low in the bushes; there were at least two, flying down to drink from a swampy ditch.


It was a lovely sunny day, although there was still a chill in the air. The following day was greyer, and we took a short walk in the Beeches, this time from the main car park on East Burnham Common. The old paddock (apparently the grazing animals have now all gone, which is a shame) was alive with birds, all feeding on the mossy ground. There were: a wren, three song thrushes, blackbirds, robins, a nuthatch, two coal tits, and a pair of bullfinches. As we scanned the tangle of oak branches for our target bird, three great spotted woodpeckers flew calling into a nearby tree; and an Egyptian goose flew over to the west.

It was pleasant, wandering through the woods; but we had to tear ourselves away. Six hundred miles lay ahead of us - which took about eleven hours to drive. Once again, the lesser spotted woodpecker had proved elusive. I'd wanted to see it both for myself, and for Greger (who still hasn't seen one); and I'd looked forward to getting a photo with my new camera. I was a bit subdued as we drove north up the M40 - but now we're back home, I'm looking forward to what the spring brings us here in Scotland.


Wednesday, March 16, 2016

A glaucous gull was on the Ullapool River spit this afternoon.

We spent this bright sunny day tidying up in the garden. Two or three honeybees were investigating the barely-opened blossoms of the flowering currant - they were my first of the year.



But early afternoon, a whispering, sibilant wind sprang up suddenly, a wind from the north that somehow sounded as cold as it felt. A raven flew over the garden calling, very high.

"Women still upstairs getting ready for International Women's Day!"
           
 - headline on Wednesday 9th March (the day after IWD) on the NewsBiscuit satirical website, pointed out to me by a gleeful Greger.

It was grey and rainy today so we stayed in. But yesterday we drove to the Cairngorms, setting off half an hour earlier than we did last week. Greger dropped me in Glen More again, and I followed a road up behind the visitor centre to an old township; there wasn't much to be seen apart from ruined walls, but it made a good walk. I took a picture on the road up because it's where I heard a crossbill calling as it flew over - but that was as close to a crossbill as I would get all day.


Rising above the forest I spotted two birds engaged in a spat above the distant ridge, and getting the bins onto them realised that it was a buzzard mobbing a golden eagle. I got the camera out and switched on in time, only to find myself looking through the viewfinder at the picture I'd just taken; I'd pressed the viewing button by mistake! By the time I'd sorted myself out, the buzzard was gliding back down to the clearing, and the eagle had disappeared.

It was a fabulous day, blue skies and bright sunshine, and the mountains looked wonderful. Looking back I could see the whole Cairngorm range; these corries are to the south-west of the main ski-ing area, and are very popular with climbers.


Making my way back down, I sat on a tree stump in a clearing and spotted a longish bird sitting on a pine branch below, with Loch Morlich offering a good, plain background. Looking through the bins, I realised it was a sparrowhawk. I should have just taken the picture, because as I reached for the camera, it flew down and out of sight.

Greger took this picture high on the slopes, looking along the Cairngorm range across the funicular railway towards the corries in my photo.


He'd had a fantastic day. They'd opened another tow further to the east, which gave access to a nice long run which he thought was the best of all. The snow was mostly good although getting slightly thin in one place, and the views were fabulous. I was glad he'd enjoyed it; and I felt that although the birding had been a bit frustrating, I was at least getting to know the area, and - well, I can't expect the equivalent of an obliging tawny owl on every walk!

P.S. I mentioned in my previous post from the Glen More area that although I'd often heard tawny owls call in the daytime, I'd never heard one call twice. But, re-reading a post from a trip down south in March last year, I note that we went for a walk in Dorney Wood (Bucks) and heard a tawny owl call - twice. My memory isn't what it was. Come to that, almost everything isn't what it was.

The great northern diver and guillemot were at the sea end of Loch Broom, near the lighthouse at Rhue.


Also present on the very calm water on this bright sunny day were black guillemots, shags, and a red-throated diver. We almost missed the sea eagle flying past - high, wild, and wonderful!




As it was an adult bird, let's hope it will breed locally. A male kestrel flew across the water to Isle Martin, and two or three porpoises were spotted, heading up the loch.

We drove along the single-track road to Achnahaird through a snow-storm; but it was a couple of degrees above freezing and the flakes were melting as they hit the ground.

The beach was messy with plastic and other manmade debris; so we filled a carrier bag as we walked, in particular disentangling lots of blue fishing-line from seaweed. Four curlews flew over calling, and three lapwings were on the fields. Beyond the dunes, golden plovers were foraging; Greger counted fourteen. Some now have quite advanced summer plumage.


At Badentarbat, a greenshank was feeding in the shallows as the tide crept up the short strip of sand at the north-western end of the beach.




Three ringed plovers and two oystercatchers were also present. A handful of meadow pipits at Altandhu were possibly migrants, new in. Birds are on the move - not many, not yet - but it's begun!

We left home at eight o'clock this morning and were in Aviemore by ten. Greger dropped me off in Glen More and then took the funicular railway up into the Cairngorms to do some downhill ski-ing; I planned to walk round Loch Morlich, seen in the picture he took on his mobile from the ski slopes.


I sort of hoped for crossbills and crested tits, but saw neither. Out in the middle of the loch were male and female goldeneye, and on the far side was a small group of tufted ducks (prized more highly here than down south, as they're rather more scarce).


In a patch of carr, two goldcrests foraged at ground level among half-drowned dead branches and sodden tufts of grass. In a drier area I climbed up a bank and sat on a root under a huge pine to eat my sandwiches. The sun came out and for a while, it felt quite warm.

Back near the road I crossed the footbridge over the Abhain Ruigh-eunachan and then spotted a dipper a short way downstream.


I was coming to the end of my walk and could now hear traffic on the road - but what else could I hear? I thought it was a tawny owl, but there were also voices coming from the loch where some people were out in a boat. Then, I thought I heard the second, longer, part of the call. I stood still, and realised that small birds were making quite a noise in the same location the sound had come from. That was a good sign that a tawny was present.

I walked to where the small birds were making a fuss, but they seemed to have dispersed. On the loch side were pines, and on the other, deciduous trees - mostly birches, a few of them gnarled and old. Somehow these seemed more likely to be the haunt of a tawny owl, so I spent a long time looking among them.  I was getting cold, and I prepared to go. Something made me look up into the nearby pines - and there, near the top, was the owl - seemingly looking down at me! It sat in a little gap of the foliage but with a spray of pine needles across its face and its half-closed eyes.



Greger had enjoyed his day of ski-ing, although he said it took him a while to get into it properly as he hasn't skied for about fifteen years. He was quite impressed with the ski area; it sounds as though it has been improved since I came ski-ing here back in the 1970s. I can't ski now but I'm not too sad - I was never very good at it anyway!

We stopped and took some pictures before driving home. The mountain railway runs up the northern flank of Cairn Gorm itself.


Just the outing and weather to lift the spirits after the gale-force winds and incessant rain of yesterday.

The raven was one of a pair busily collecting something at Ardmair; it looks like fleece, so perhaps there was yet another dead sheep on the beach. Some chicks are going to have a very cosy nest.


A probable meteor was captured on several dashcams in Aberdeenshire yesterday evening as it burned up in the atmosphere. This gave Greger the idea of getting a dashcam for his car. I pointed out that the chance of his filming another meteor is even more remote than the chance of winning the lottery, but he loves new gadgets so off he went to Inverness to buy one.