Sunday, May 22, 2016
We went to Eden Court Centre in Inverness yesterday, to see Chimes at Midnight - Orson Welles' cinematic version of three of Shakespeare's history plays. There were six of us in the audience!
We came out into a light shower, which was an improvement on the thunder-and-lighting and torrential rain that had marked our arrival. The car was parked by a high wall, and looking through the wrought iron gates into a rather elegant sports ground (turns out it's the home of the Northern Counties Cricket Club) we saw our first oystercatcher chick of the year.
Driving over the river, we saw our first swifts of the year.
Today, at least 23 dunlin were on the beach in the Coigach area with ringed plovers. The beach was busy with kayakers and coastal rowers, and the waders constantly flew up and down. Eventually, I walked out to where the tide was uncovering the sand, thinking the waders had gone; but then I realised they were foraging in the tide-wrack, where it was difficult to see them - especially when they were among the yellowish, slippery stuff that always reminds me of the pale type of lasagne when it's been softened in boiling water (hmm - I haven't made a lasagne in ages, must do one soon).
I also realised that I was between them and the sea, and when two of them stopped feeding, I thought they'd be off. But in fact, the two of them came slightly closer and promptly went to sleep. Need overcame any wariness, I suppose; and I passed quite close to them as I made my way up the beach without disturbing them.
I took a walk along the cliffs in quite warm sunshine. A king eider has been in the area for some weeks, and it would have been churlish not to scan the common eider and so miss a spectacular duck just because I'm not a twitcher - but they were too far out to be seen well in any case, so the king eider remains a potential self-found lifer. A cuckoo was seen in the distance, and a skylark and a sedge warbler were singing.
A whinchat was singing on a wire.
A male stonechat was a bit further along on the same wire; and a willow warbler sang from a gorse bush. The warbler was quite close to me, and despite its sweet, rather restrained song, it managed to drown out the more distant whinchat.
Three great skuas were bathing in Loch Vatachan, another sedge warbler was heard singing, and the only raptor seen all day was a buzzard.
// posted by Christine @ 11:59 AM 
