Friday, January 13, 2017
High on West Terrace, I watched the hail-storm sweep in from the sea and blot out the loch, so I drove to the harbour - because on just such a day as this, in January 2015, I looked across the road to the harbour from a sheltering doorway and saw, through the driving sleet, my first ivory gull.
Today, however, I had to be content with a glaucous and an Iceland gull. Not that I'm complaining; I still find these white-wingers exciting - and today things seemed more exciting than usual when I thought there were two of each. But I think I just kept seeing the same two - sometimes separately, sometimes together.
Nineteen redwings (newly arrived?) were on the sports field, and as we watched them, two birds flew over which looked like small geese. In the afternoon I drove to Ardmair to see if they'd ended up there, but they hadn't. A pair of stonechats hunting along the fence in a burst of sunshine provided compensation.
One brambling was in the garden; a couple of days ago there were three.
// posted by Christine @ 8:28 AM 
