Christine's walking & birds blog

There were at least four rock pipits on the beach at Ardmair, and one came up into the lay-by close to the car. The bill looks longer and stronger than that of my hill bird yesterday, and the legs are dark.


A male black darter dragonfly was still on the wing at the turn-off to Rhue.


Driving south to the head of Loch Broom, I went over to Clachan on the other side. This is looking back towards Ullapool over the salt-marsh at low tide.


I wandered about here for a while, peering into the hollows where tiny fish darted in panic where water remained, and tiny crustaceans (shrimps?) scuttled in the mud where the water had mostly dried out.

Approaching a narrow channel of water, I heard the distinct flick of wings - and a small, beautifully marked bird flew out from the tussocky grass. I spun round to watch as it flew off with perhaps a tiny bit of zig-zagging and a gradual gaining of height. I noted conspicuous straw-coloured stripes and a bill that seemed to lack the extreme length of a snipe's; the bird flew with its head up and I had an impression of it turning slightly to the left to look back at me before it turned to the right and dropped down beyond the thickets of gorse (on the right in the picture) and perhaps also beyond the trees behind the gorse. There had definitely been no call as it rose from the stream.

I won't say I'm absolutely certain, but I think there's a good chance that this was a Jack snipe.