Christine's walking & birds blog

A great flock of birds flew up from a rowan tree and swirled around high above the road. I pulled into a passing place for a few minutes and watched as some of at least fifty winter thrushes settled back. They were mostly fieldfare with smaller numbers of redwing; it's nice to see something eating the rowan berries at last.


Further on were more birds - stonechat, robin, a few more fieldfare - and something black which promptly disappeared - hope it wasn't a ring ouzel! And further on still were more birds in a field by a plantation. Three stonechats and a meadow pipit rested on a fence before swooping back down into tussocky grass that effectively hid them.


I was full of anticipation. After a rainy night the weather had cleared, and the view from the lay-by at the junction was promising; a super moon three days ago had produced a very high tide, and even today the salt-marsh was almost swamped. I drove to the other side of the headland to use the loo, then drove round clockwise to the Achnahaird car-park. As I turned onto the beach road and passed the farmhouse, I heard a loud "Pop!" and thought "There goes my tyre". Yep - a thick screw protruding from the rubber.

Now, I must admit that I've never changed a wheel; but the RAC are quite happy to do it. However, when I tried to phone them, I couldn't get a signal. My ancient phone said Emergency Calls Only. Well, this was an emergency! I walked around on the moorland and got a signal, so I rang Greger to let him know what had happened; but he didn't pick up, so I left a message. I lost the signal again - but recalled that I'd phoned loads of times from the car park, so I drove carefully down there; and got through. Greger cheerfully assured me that he'd got my message and was on the way!

When my hero arrived, he proceeded to wreck my car. No, it was my useless jack really, slipping, and leaving a dent and scraping the paint off. Using the jack from his own car, he hoisted up the front and then put my jack back in place and successfully changed the wheel. A nice man who had just pulled in to the car park with his wife on a quad bike came over and offered his foot-pump, but we didn't need it. I shared my sandwiches with Greger and drove back home ahead of him - it had, in any case, started to rain quite hard. Another frustrating day bird-wise.