Christine's walking & birds blog

Saturday: Greger stopped along the Destitution Road (A832) on this very windy day to take pictures of the dramatic cloudscapes with his phone.



A couple of redshanks and a dipper were the only birds of note on the beach at Poolewe.


Today I went for a forest/moorland walk; the wind had dropped but it was still pretty cold - and I didn't see another soul. A great spotted woodpecker, a species so often dismissed in Burnham Beeches when I was hunting for a lesser, gains significance by being less common here and also by being one of very few birds I saw today!


Across Loch Eileag, a lonely house stands out on the single-track road that brought me here; while beyond are Canisp and Breabag.


Canisp was our first hill-walk in Assynt, back in 2005. It was a bit of a slog, but the birds were good; on a high lochan were a pair of common sandpipers and a bathing dipper, while closer to the mist-enshrouded summit were a female ptarmigan with her chicks.


On the way home today, I stopped at Ardmair. Across the bay and the loch, a large bird was wheeling above Beinn Ghobhlach. It was a sea eagle, and was always too distant for my camera as it flew north high above the sea - but the picture does succeed in showing the white tail of an adult.


The eagle swept round beyond Isle Martin and then turned back, sailing up the slope of the island and landing on the far side - with just its head showing on the skyline.


Which kind of made up for the general lack of birds on my walk!

Having arrived on Orkney Mainland, we drove straight to Skara Brae from the ferry and whiled away an hour at this famous Neolithic settlement.


On the sea, a cormorant was doing its best to swallow a wide, white fish. In the end the fish came out again and the cormorant flew away!


A memorial to General Kitchener stands on the cliffs near Marwick Head; but a curved wall at the foot of the outsize tower holds the names of all who died (737) when the HMS Hampshire was sunk by a German mine during the first world war.



The cliff-tops were rough and unstable, with cracks and holes in the surface and slumped patches where rainwater collects. It's easy to see how stacks are eventually created. A few fulmars were circling below us or crouching on ledges.

On the way back, three wheatears foraged ahead of us on the path with a couple of meadow pipits.


We liked the Stones of Stenness, which stand on a natural causeway between the lochs of Stenness and Harray. In the background are the hills of Hoy.


This is a small henge compared with the impressive Ring of Brodgar, but we spent more time here as the site includes the remains of Barnhouse Village - a late Neolithic settlement. There were also, it has to be said, plenty of birds on Loch Harray, including loads of pochard and tufted ducks, and several Slavonian grebes. And this was something that brought everything to life for me - the idea that 5,000 years ago there would have been the same birds, and almost certainly in even greater numbers. So the constant cacophony of greylags and other waterfowl that drifted across the water would have been heard at this time of the year by the Neolithic people who lived here. Did they like to hear the birds? Did they exploit them as a source of food?

You are never far from farming on Orkney Mainland. Just across the fence, a man on a quad bike rounded up a large flock of sheep remarkably quickly, moving them to the next field along. Which left these two rams (in the same field as us) standing sadly watching as their chance of a love life receded before their eyes!


At St. Peter's Pool on the south coast, we climbed the dunes to face the sea. A dead seal lay half submerged in the sand, while long-tailed ducks effortlessly rode the waves on the wind-heaved water.


On the way to the north-west corner of the island, I spotted a white-winged bird fly up from the road and over the wall into a cemetery. I walked along the wall and was able to snap a snow bunting on a gravestone.


Huddled at the base of the cemetery wall was a poor blind rabbit. Myxomatosis, I suppose. We drove on to the Brough of Birsay - an island connected to the mainland by a concrete causeway across a fascinating tidal area pitted with rock-pools.


We walked up to the lighthouse and scanned the sea for birds. A great northern diver flew swiftly past followed by two barnacle geese; and a flock of twite flew restlessly around. On the drive back to the hotel two hen harriers were spotted quartering fields and a low ridge.


The last day was windy and wet, and we just drove about - getting a soaking on this road as huge waves surged over carrying seaweed and small stones that rattled against the car.


Light was fading as we boarded the ferry, and the black guillemot we looked down at from the deck didn't come out well in the picture - but it's still the best pic I've taken of a "tystie".


The birding interest of our five days lay mainly in numbers - in the constant spectacle of swimming and flying flocks, in the music of curlews and golden plovers - rather than in anything of a rare or special nature.

 At Badentarbat a guillemot was close to shore, driven in probably by the storm.


A very windy walk across the cliffs, dunes, and beach brought only a solitary golden plover and a couple of calling curlews; and a flock of twite numbered at least sixty birds.

No tern could be seen at Ardmair this morning; but the "allotment" area of the sheep fields was busy with one each of robin, chaffinch, twite, and meadow pipit; several dunnocks; and three stonechats.

From the junction lay-by at Achnahaird I had just lowered my bins after identifying four dunlin on the sand below when a buzzard hurled itself at them; the dunlin scattered - and the buzzard was left musing on what might have been before flying off to try its luck elsewhere.


A sturdy-looking wheatear was running on the grass on the cliff-tops.


I followed it a little way to make sure it was a northern wheatear; it was, although possibly a Greenlander. Doesn't matter - it takes the place of the Ben Wyvis bird as possibly my last of the year and in any case, the sight of a wheatear always cheers me up.


And I needed cheering up, what with the insane wind, the sudden short flurries of rain, and the lack of birds. Only other birds of note: a group of seven or eight golden plover that lifted off calling from the fields near the houses (and then went back down again where I couldn't see 'em!), a flock of at least thirty-five twite, and two little grebes in Old Dornie harbour.

A juvenile tern was fishing at Ardmair on this very windy day when it was virtually impossible (at least very unpleasant) to walk on the beach; so I just watched and snapped it from the car. I still couldn't hold the camera completely still as the wind was rocking the car!


A violent shower of rain sent the tern to the spit, where it preened and rested....


....until a common gull chased it off the rock and I lost it. I didn't see it well at the time and the pics are rubbish, but I'll see if I can work out if it's common or Arctic.

After a brief shopping visit to Inverness, we drove to Alturlie to look for tree sparrows - but the field which last autumn was full of stubble and bales had been planted with brassicas.  I scanned the shore where loads of redshanks were feeding with oystercatchers and curlews, and found two little stints, hunched and fluffed up against the very strong wind and occasional shower.

 

We had bought some food and as it was fairly warm today (when you could get out of the wind!) we didn't look for anything else but headed for home.