Tuesday, April 25, 2017
A sedge warbler was heard muttering away unseen yesterday, between bouts of diabolical weather; so today, again between showers, I returned - but heard nothing.
At Ardmair, there must have been 100 meadow pipits, mostly on the sheep fields with a few on the beach. This one seems to have found a grub of some sort.
A ringed plover was hunting in the same place, extracting and dispatching its prey so speedily, I could never quite snap or even see the creatures it was feeding on; but although their removal from the ground often involved a tug-of-war, they looked too short to be earthworms (could be crane fly larvae, or leatherjackets).
A female wheatear and a pied wagtail were also present; and the birds carried on foraging even when a sharp shower of hail swept across the bay. Meanwhile, the white (?) wagtail chased and shouted at all and sundry.
Two red-throated divers were calling and courting on the sea, too far out to be photographed; but a great northern diver was fishing a bit closer in.
There was a green cast to the diver's black areas that I hadn't noticed before, especially when it pulled its head back just prior to diving.
A drive round the harbour didn't bring any white-wingers; but along West Terrace, a swallow swooped down across the road in front of me and was lost below the bank towards the sea.
// posted by Christine @ 7:44 AM 
