Christine's walking & birds blog

I parked in the walkers' car park and then walked up the quarry road to where I could see Loch Achall. A skein of at least fifty geese went over very high heading south-east. Back near the car park, Greger caught me up, having come up Ullapool Hill and down the quarry road in a round walk. He had also seen the geese, and then said that high on the moors, he'd flushed a bird from a muddy stretch of the path which had flown a short distance away and gone down in the heather. Could this be another Jack snipe?

He continued on towards home, while I decided to head up the hill myself. I followed the steep path through scattered pines and birches and branched onto the hillside traverse, watching out for muddy patches on the path. I even had the camera ready. Suddenly a bird erupted from nowhere (I thought I heard the flick of wings that I heard at Clachan and then the sound of air rushing through feathers) and it flew out around me and went down in the heather back along the path where I'd just walked. I hated having to disturb it again, but I had to go back towards it - I wasn't going to walk all the way out to Loch Achall again - so I went back very slowly. But it must have been on the watch because it flew out, over the fence, and disappeared down the hill - and all I could manage was this useless shot.


Trouble is, I can't recall anything apart from what I heard. There was certainly no call, but was this a Jack snipe? It looks rather full-chested in the pic - but then the pic is too awful to be much use - and surely I would have recognised a woodcock, which is a larger and heavier bird. I just recall that the Clachan bird was clearly tiny - but then I had a better look at that, as it took off directly past me and also flew in a more leisurely fashion.

Greger had reported the sound of air through the feathers as the bird rose; he doesn't remember hearing the sharp flick that I heard, but he was quite sure it didn't call.