Christine's walking & birds blog

One hundred plus dunlin were on the river at the southern end of Achnahaird Bay.


It was murky, windy, and wet on the Coigach peninsula this morning; and three of four greenshanks feeding further along the river were snapped through the drizzle, giving them a rather ghostly appearance.


A black-headed gull landed near them and constantly chased one or other of them - particularly when they'd found food.

Across the headland it was still raining, so I sat in the car to eat my sandwiches. Three waders, flushed by walkers, flew past and landed briefly on the grass. I grabbed a shot through the window, vaguely registering a "pale wader with a red face". (That's a "much-ringed" plover in the middle.)


It wasn't until they flew again and the larger one came down closer that I realised it was a knot. It looks patchy - I don't think I've seen that particular stage of the moulting process before, but presumably it's an adult losing its breeding plumage.


The first walkers passed on and the knot flew back to the diminishing arc of sand with the other waders as the tide crept in. But two more people had just started their walk from that end; the man seemed to be beach-combing while the woman was also doing some beach-cleaning, so good for her. Trouble was, their dog went into the water and swam along parallel with the beach, barking the entire time, the nutcase. I don't know if this had any effect on the knot - I certainly didn't see it again - but it was driving me mad, so I called it a day and left.

The rain stopped and the cloud began to lift as I drove away; ahead of me, a shrew just made it to the side of the road and a merlin was glimpsed darting about on a rocky skyline far, far away.