Christine's walking & birds blog

About four inches of snow fell overnight, with frequent flurries throughout the day. During a sunny interval on our walk, I snapped an icy Ullapool River with Ullapool Hill in the background.


But by the time we'd made our way round the spit, another lot was on the way from the east, with great dark clouds moving down the loch towards the sea; so we put bins and camera away and trudged home.


Forty chaffinches were present in the garden along with smaller numbers of siskin, redpoll, starling, dunnock, robin, blackbird, song thrush, goldfinch, greenfinch, and house sparrow. I haven't seen a wren here for some time, so I hope these tiny birds are still surviving somewhere.

While Greger stayed at home with a resurgence of his cold, I drove north and then east, and walked here. The hill with some snow lingering is Meall an Fhuarain, which we climbed in March last year. I walked up this forestry road (which we used for our descent on that occasion) for some much-needed exercise. From here the hill looked close enough to "pop up" - but I well know how much tedious, boggy ground lies between! I just walked up the road and then turned.


It was a beautiful day, though very cold. Buzzards were almost the only birds in evidence - but I did have one thrilling encounter. I had stopped to scan a distant plantation when a small sound made me turn - and out of the ditch behind me flew a snipe species. The sound was not the rather nasal squeak I associate with snipe - and getting my bins belatedly onto the bird I could see that the bill wasn't long enough for snipe. For once, I managed to remember the call, which I thought of as something like a muttered "Eh!" or "Ech!" But did Jack snipe call when they were flushed?

I wasn't quick enough to get a snap, so next best is this view of where it happened; the bird flew out of the ditch on the left. Conival and Ben More Assynt are in the background.

  
When I got home I looked up Jack snipe in The Birds of the Western Palearctic and read this: "Call of flushed birds, rarely uttered, a low and weak 'etch'." That seems to fit with what I heard - and that "rarely uttered" would make the sighting something even more special. Not 100% sure though.

The sparrowhawk was spotted from the bedroom window this morning - over the washing-line, through a few intervening twigs, and beyond the chimney pots.



P.S. An oystercatcher was back on its breeding territory, and on the same loch, a male goldeneye was having a snooze on a boulder.

Not walking-fit yet, we defied our lingering viruses and did the next best thing on this beautiful day - a drive south along the coast. Nine black-throated divers were seen at Aultbea, looking like adults just coming into summer plumage.


They were hard at work at Inverewe Garden in readiness for opening next month - but it was the swan on the spit that caught my eye.


Some people walking along the shoreline caused the whooper swan to sail out into the bay. It seemed a bit lethargic, but you can never tell with swans; I don't think the neck-bending was anything sinister - it was probably just weary. After I took the picture, it laid its neck back and went to sleep.


On the way back, we pulled into a lay-by as 85 barnacle geese flew over the water and landed in the sheep fields at Mungasdale.


Greger pointed out three stags which I hadn't noticed, making their way along the fence. They were fairly well camouflaged against the tawny-red sunlit grass.


It was also Greger who noticed the sea eagle flying towards us from Gruinard Island. The sun was in my eyes and I failed to get a decent shot; but this shows that it was probably an immature bird. We couldn't see a white tail at the time, and the pic in addition seems to show a couple of immature features mentioned by D. Forsman: the distinctly serrated trailing edge to the wing, and the relatively long tail compared to that of the adult bird.


Which, together with great northern divers, a quantity of buzzards, black guillemots both in and out of breeding plumage, and at least four distant Slavonian grebes - made for a nice day's birding for two convalescents.

On Friday (9th) when I still thought I had just a cold, a scan of the bull park from West Terrace brought two skylarks - not so common here at this time of the year.


On Saturday I felt worse, and by Sunday morning I knew I was in for flu. When I got up, Greger gave me the news that we'd run out of oil for the central heating; he was very apologetic, but I was just as much to blame. He'd already lit the wood-and-coal-burning stove in the lounge, and I cleaned up an old two-bar electric fire that had been out in the garage - and with these and an additional electric convection heater we did a fairly good job of taking the chill off, with outside temperatures fluctuating around freezing.

He suggested going out for a drive - at least he could get the car nice and warm! - so we drove down to Loch Glascarnoch. Ravens are nesting again on the dam wall - and when I looked back to see when we saw them nesting here in 2016, oddly enough it was exactly the same date - February 11th.

Fuel was ordered first thing Monday morning, and was delivered by midday. It's always a good service here - likewise for the calor-gas canisters which we use for cooking on the hob. I spent yesterday in bed, but today I'm a bit better - well enough to take an interest in the garden birds. While pandemonium reigned on the feeders at the front, round the back a nice little bunch (six or seven) of redpolls fed on buddleia seeds.

  

I had to snap them through the window, but at least they were almost at eye-level - and no more than about 12 ft away. A real treat.

We drove to Glasgow through a snowy Scotland. Greger was in high spirits, pleased to be escaping the northern winter for a couple of weeks and saying how he saw everything - even the travelling - as part of the holiday. He's always loved flying, and takes great interest in it all - not least the views from the window.

So it was with great disappointment as we boarded the following day that he realised he'd booked the only flaming window-seat in the aircraft that didn't actually have a window!


Not only that, but he'd booked the exact same seats for the journey home! At least he saw the funny side. Eventually.

We paid an early visit to the Maspalomas lagoon, where we found our first adult Audouin's gull together with two immature birds, plus several yellow-legged and black-headed gulls.





We'd planned to get up into the hills and do some walking, but this didn't quite work out. The day we hired the car, the weather turned wet and windy and the few trails we saw were too rough and muddy to do in trainers. Also, the winding roads and hairpin bends made the driving take longer than we'd thought. Finally, the minor road east we'd wanted to take from Ayacata to some of the best pinewood trails was closed, with a barrier across and a couple of sullen-looking police officers sitting behind it in their car. The problem was probably rain; even on the main route, stones were being brought down onto the road from the crumbling cliff-faces, and gangs of men were sweeping them into the verges or gutters.

So in the end, for the four days we had the car, we just enjoyed the drives and the viewpoints. This is looking towards the Pico de la Cogella; buses and coaches drove slowly along this stretch of road, sounding their horns at each bend.



With regard to birds, both in the mountains and on the coast, it was mostly a case of consolidating previous sightings, such as the ubiquitous Berthelot's pipit.


And the African blue tit - which, at a picnic site on the Embalse de la Cueva de las Niñas, cavorted at our feet, hoping for crumbs which we didn't have.


While a male spectacled warbler in the dunes gave us good views.


But ravens, buzzards, and a great spotted woodpecker gave us new birds for Gran Canaria; while on a sliver of a reservoir far below, a pair of ruddy shelduck made arrows across the greenish water before sailing under the cliff and out of sight.


In the end, we did more walking in the days when we stayed around the hotel than we did in the hills. Fleeces were needed morning and evening, when it was really quite chilly; but our last two days saw a return to blue skies and sunshine, so that we could enjoy some sunbathing and swimming after our morning walks.

Once again the return flight landed fairly late. However, we'd decided against driving home through the night as we'd previously done, because of the more wintry conditions; and we enjoyed a meal, a night, and a breakfast in the Holiday Inn at the airport before setting off mid-morning. This worked well because it was a sunny day and the scenery was wonderful. A red grouse went flying high across the A9 near the Drumochter summit. The hills looked inviting, and there were plenty of cars parked in lay-bys with ski-holders on the roofs.

    
These snowy hills provided quite a contrast with the brown arid mountains we'd left behind. We'd enjoyed our holiday, although by the time we reached home Greger had the start of a bad cold - and now I've got it!