Thursday, January 19, 2017
After doing some shopping in Inverness, we drove to North Kessock and parked under the bridge for a walk along the side of the Moray Firth. A drake goldeneye was one of very few birds on offer.
Still, I'd rather it be quiet on the water than see the hundreds of auks that were here last January; many died, and the storm-blown circumstances of their arrival took the gloss off my first sightings of little auks.
Yesterday we paid our first visit to Achmelvich Bay with its gorgeous white sand and turquoise water. There's a caravan park here, and in summer it gets pretty busy; but today we had it almost to ourselves.
You walk up onto the dunes and gain access to the cliffs here, crossing the fence with the aid of that rare thing - a perfect stile.
Two well-spaced steps (not too far apart), and a tall sturdy post to steady you as you go over. Okay, this is a lowish fence, but the principle could still be followed for higher fences by simply adding more steps and a longer post.
When we'd driven back along the very narrow lane to the main(ish) road, we found that that road had just been closed for roadworks, so we couldn't turn right to get back to the A835 - the way we'd come. This meant a fairly lengthy diversion - but I didn't mind when I spotted two dark-headed geese with greylags on Loch an Aigeil near Stoer. Probably pink-foots.
Is the greylag on the right making sure he gets in the picture?
Rounding a bend we came upon more roadworks, and were startled to see a digger perched on top of a cone of rubble. We were even more surprised as we drew level and realised that a second, identical digger was standing next to it.
How did they do that?!
// posted by Christine @ 12:06 PM 
