Tuesday, July 19, 2016
After two wet days spent indoors doing housework, we were called out by the sun to walk the Rubh a' Choin headland.
A family party of twite buzzed about among the rocks, and a flock of dunlin zoomed along the river and went down near the beach. Across the river on the salt-marsh, two ravens and a great black-backed gull disputed ownership of a sheep's carcass.
The beach car-park was rapidly filling up, and a few people were in the sea in wetsuits. Two children ran up the beach and splashed joyfully through a long shallow lagoon left there by the tide - I wouldn't have minded doing that myself. But although it was warm, the temperatures didn't reach the dizzy heights of the south of England, while a very soft, cooling sea breeze made sure we didn't get overheated.
If there's one thing that spoils this walk in the summer, it's the bracken. There are patches where it's shoulder-high and you have to push your way through - always being careful not to fall into one of the holes or gullies in the path. I wondered if it was good for anything other than the ticks which might be infected with Lyme Disease - and as if in answer, hundreds of magpie moths fluttered out. So they obviously like it!
We ate our lunch on the first, small headland; and while Greger took a phone call, I wandered about peering into rock-pools. Tiny fish darted under cover as I loomed over them, but one goby just froze until I'd moved on.
At least four adult gannets were fishing and the usual shags were diving, or preening and wing-drying on rocks. A great skua flew purposefully out to sea. Stonechats and a willow warbler were spotted, and rock pipits and oystercatchers were seen in several places.
There was no way we could approach the basking common seals without them taking fright, and the noise of them rushing into the sea was like the murmur of thunder. Luckily, the path then winds away from their cove, and they soon calmed down and went back.
This is English stonecrop. It's fairly common apparently, but that doesn't stop it being very pretty.
All too soon, it seemed, we could see Garvie Bay, where we would turn away from the sea and negotiate the boggiest part of the walk before coming out onto the road.
In the bay were Eider duck and mergansers. Much further out were a couple of black guillemots and two great northern divers.
The two kilometres along the road is always hard on the feet after this fairly rough, demanding walk - and today there were no further wildlife sightings to cheer us. But it had been worth it!
// posted by Christine @ 3:17 PM 
