Friday, February 23, 2018
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.
// posted by Christine @ 2:20 PM 
