Christine's walking & birds blog

The otter had caught the fish in Loch Ewe and brought it onto the rocks to eat.


It started to gnaw at the fish, looking up warily at me every now and then. But I had already been standing there when it hauled out, and anyway, if I moved now I would disturb it. A man coming along the path with two dogs seemed to decide things, and the otter slipped back into the water.


I've identified the fish as a short-spined sea scorpion.

The sea eagle was seen ahead as I drove, cruising towards me over the sea and the fields. By the time I'd pulled over, it was already passing me.



I got back in the car, only to see two golden plover fly across the road and land. They started to forage, and I didn't want to disturb them so I snapped them from the car through the wire fence. I've seen plovers on this field before - possibly the eagle had scared them away for a while.

At my next stop, a dozen or so greylags were seen grazing on distant fields beyond a sandy cove. Then I saw a handful of pink-footed geese, not feeding with the greylags, but "keeping themselves to themselves" and having a snooze.

The Slavonian grebe was probably the same one I snapped before; it was in exactly the same place, anyway. The sea was nice today but the sun was all wrong. Someone should move it.


Five greenshanks were feeding along the falling tideline at Dundonnell, on Little Loch Broom. Three additional greenshanks flew up the loch, low over the water, and landed in the shallows. They made their way up the beach and started to feed immediately.


This behaviour and the fact that they stayed in their little group, made me think they could be "new-in", having travelled north together from - wherever. But I won't add them to the year's tally, just in case I've already counted them.

A solitary swallow was my first on the west coast this year, and I saw my first wasp near Inverewe gardens.