Christine's walking & birds blog

It's been a lovely weekend weather-wise, with blue skies and sunshine; but there was a ground frost last night and ice on the car windscreen this morning.

On the high moorland near Badentarbat, a merlin flew away from the road-side low over the heather and alighted on a distant post. I pulled into a passing-place and used a patch of gorse as cover to get slightly closer.



It was the best view I've had of a merlin this year. Pools on the drenched machair at low tide held tiny darting fish. Then this snaked out from beneath a stone. It's probably a European eel (elver), although I'm not certain; it was two or three inches long. (Later: it's almost certainly this, another pic showing its lower jaw to be longer than the upper.)


When I first arrived, three tired-looking pink-footed geese were with the rams in the field by the junction lay-by. By the time I drove away some hours later, they'd gone. A handful of stonechats, several curlews, a fair number of meadow pipits, and a flock of twite were the only other birds of note.