Christine's walking & birds blog

The tide was out, and we didn't spend long trying to sort out the distant loafing gulls on the spit because of the insane, freezing wind. In the relative shelter of West Shore Street, a female stonechat was a nice sight, still eking out a living on the beach.


Along the river path we saw lesser redpoll, great spotted woodpecker, and treecreeper as well as a mixed tit flock. The yellow brain fungus (Tremella mesenterica) took me straight back to Egypt Woods in Bucks, where I snapped a lesser spotted woodpecker close to some of this fungus in December 2011.


When Greger drives home on Thursday nights with his head full of Spanish verbs, this is one of the hazards he has to watch out for on the Dirrie Mor. The stag turned away and ran out onto the moorland, fortunately.


It was captured on his dash cam, which has also caught flying red grouse on a couple of occasions - but they were too fast and too small for useful stills.

There was a light fall of snow overnight. Greger, driving earlyish to Inverness, was surprised to find that the road hadn't been cleared. He met a gritter coming the other way which would no doubt turn and go back - but it was a bit late for those commuting from Ullapool. Coming home, he saw a 4x4 that had slid off the road - but not badly - near Black Bridge. He's invested in a set of winter tyres for the Toyota, which make quite a difference - unless of course there's sheer ice on the road.

I ventured out for a walk at midday but saw nothing of note. A wind-borne flurry of hail coming off the sea made me miss out the spit and turn through the village. There was a bit of a fuss going on near the rookery, and I just caught sight of a brown raptor flying upwards from the road and heading off towards the harbour. Probable buzzard, I thought. Later on at home, I glanced out of a window at the back to see a sea eagle being harassed by a smaller bird. I grabbed the camera, ran outside, and got a record shot as it circled fairly low down.

 
This was at 3 o'clock; and thanks to the black clouds bringing yet more hail and sleet, it was almost dark. Again, I couldn't be sure but thought the bird was a juvenile. It must have been desperate to hunt so late and so low over the village. Wonder what it had spotted - no-one's pet dog or cat, we hope?

It's been cold and wet for most of the day. Forty-plus chaffinches have been on or under the feeders, with far fewer greenfinch, goldfinch, and siskin. Yesterday a redpoll visited briefly, but I didn't see that today; and there have been no bramblings so far this winter.

Putting stuff in the sink after lunch I looked out to see a sea eagle flying across the village, heading east and being chased by a gull. We both went through to the front, and I got a record shot through the window in poor light and drizzle (interesting to see that they'll fly in the rain). The tail looks all dark but the white can get lost at a distance - so I'm not sure if this is an adult or a juvenile.


It's not the first time we've spotted sea eagle from the bungalow; but it's an experience we're not likely to grow tired of. Meanwhile, snow has been forecast for tonight and tomorrow.

There is a new vegan-only pub in London, called the Spread Eagle, I read in The Observer. Fair enough, I thought - until I read on. One vegan blogger predicts that the rise of veganism will result in a split Britain. "There'll be no middle ground any more, just a divided nation." Sounds like a declaration of war! A man who is "devoted to promoting vegan culture" (yeah, it is a bit evangelical) adds with a laugh "In five years' time, the place selling meat will be the odd one out." I wasn't so far out on January 13th with the phrase "vegan fascism". 

This'll be a contender for my daftest bird picture of 2018.


I'd been driving north towards Ledmore Junction four days ago when two white-tailed sea eagles unhurriedly flapped across the road ahead. Quick look in the mirror! Quick swerve into a rough, narrow pull-in I don't normally use! Fumble with camera! Fall out of the car! Click! I think this is a hectoring raven rather than one of the eagles. Wonder what the sheep thought? However, one eagle circled and then resumed its journey, giving me a second chance.


Several sightings now point to a sort of eagle flyway; but of course they wander all over the place, so it might be coincidence. What I'd like to know is, how far east they go.



A great black-backed gull and two ravens were loitering.


All that was left of the head was the whiskery muzzle, the palate, and the teeth - the teeth of a carnivore.


I couldn't help adding that last bit, as I'm being driven mad by burgeoning vegan fascism - not least in The Guardian, which rams home their non-meateating message almost every day through one smug columnist or another who is often a recent convert to what might well be, in their case, a passing fad. Such people are fond of calling us meat-eaters "carnivores" - presumably because they think it has a cruel and nasty ring to it. It's not quite accurate though. A tiger is a carnivore, a wolf is a carnivore. Most humans are omnivores.

Despite a morning temperature of 0 to -1˚C much of the snow had melted away from the hills as we drove north; but we resisted the temptation to go walking across the moorland here and carried on to Loch Craggie. Big mistake.....


....because we found the Forestry Commission tracks there to be too slippery to walk on safely (although some slip-on spikes rather like pretend-crampons on my boots did help a bit); and after waiting in vain for an eagle to turn up (all we saw there was a buzzard and a great spotted woodpecker) we drove instead to Loch Assynt, where there was grass to walk on and a singing dipper to admire. That was a sweet sound in the deadening cold of a winter's day!


Yesterday we were over east, but there were no dolphins to be seen at Chanonry Point.  A small group of ringed plovers with one dunlin flew up and down, landing and being chased off by the many walkers who'd come out on this bright but bitingly cold day.


Across the Black Isle at Udale Bay, waders and ducks were massing on the grassy spits as the tide rose. A peregrine sitting on the fence some distance away gave great views through the 'scope.


Shame the picture doesn't reflect that. I said this could be the year I post only good photos - but don't hold your breath. I'm not known for sticking to New Year's resolutions.

Desperate for some exercise on this glum day we walked round the village, starting with the river path. A goldcrest foraging low down was a good sign that these tiny birds can survive wintry spells; and then a second goldcrest called from the trees and they sped away together.


From the very small to the very large: out on the spit, I scanned the ridge of high land across the loch and was rewarded by the sight of a very distant white-tailed sea eagle, flying up the loch and then turning north.


Two days ago I drove out Ledmore Way on an altogether brighter, crisper day, intending to stake out Loch Craggie where we saw the eagles on New Year's Day. The single-track road was even narrower, the sides white with snow where the the snow-plough had cleared a way; while passing-places, which don't get cleared, looked dodgy. However, I pulled into one on the approach of another vehicle and found there was no problem driving out again. When, across the open moorland, I caught sight of a gritting lorry approaching, I put my foot down to reach the start of a moorland track, where the road widens a bit and also has a passing place - and he got past okay without needing to slow up. What annoyed me though, was the attitude of some other motorists; if a passing place happened to be on their side of the road, I would show willing and pull in as much as I dared on my side, crunching into the heaped snow - whereas they would often pass me slowly and timidly, hardly pulling over into the passing place at all but trying to stay on the cleared part of the road. One of these was a 4x4 - that's what 4x4s are for, you nincompoop. Worse, a couple of them couldn't even be bothered to thank me - those who did put a hand up including a tradesman in a van and a farmer towing a trailer.

And then, just after I'd pulled into a forest track at the end of Loch Craggie, a small van came from the other direction followed by a flatbed truck carrying a big digger - and they turned onto the forestry road opposite, where I'd been planning to walk. (On New Year's Day, I'd been standing about where the van is when the second eagle appeared over the stumps on the hillside - probably not much more than a hundred metres away - and it had been pretty slippery then.) Anyway, while the van continued up the track, the lorry came to a standstill.


Eventually the van reversed back down, and two men got out to join the lorry driver. They produced shovels from somewhere and started to chip away at the ice. Having eaten my lunch, I opened the door and put an experimental foot out - no go! It was sheer ice - no wonder he'd got stuck.

I gave up and drove slowly back. I'd previously stopped and taken a pic across Loch Borralan to Cul Mor, with two whooper swans on a patch of open water between sheets of thin ice.


Now the swans were closer to the road and I snapped them from the car. They glided away, but were still there when I drove off. Lovely to see live, healthy whoopers after the dead one last year.


By the time I'd driven round to Knockan Crag (the track up to the loos had been cleared, hooray) the snow was beginning to look a bit thinner on Cul Mor.  However, the photo is misleading - the rocky terrain in the foreground is actually a spur of the hill - the skiers are in the corrie, beyond the spur, where the snow's lying more thickly - even so, I doubted if they could ski all the way back down to the road. I did envy them, though - it looked so wonderful up there in that lovely white world.


Six walkers were also making their way down, and every so often one of them would suddenly appear to be sitting or lying on the ground. Either they were taking part in a winter skills course, or they'd adopted my new method of descending hills - i.e. by falling down 'em.


Hope they all got down safely and enjoyed their day.  

We'd just got out of the car (carefully, because of the ice) when a large bird flew over, heading north-west and disappearing over a distant snowy hill. Adult white-tailed sea eagle, we decided.


I switched the camera off and turned - and suddenly there was a second one, flapping steadily past, a couple of hundred metres away.


We came for a walk here in the snow on Friday (a much brighter day) and saw a sea eagle flying along the same route. Today, the weather wasn't inviting. A male stonechat was hunting from a fence on a high stretch of road - near a spot height on the map of 102 metres.