Christine's walking & birds blog

There were several wheatears among the dunes, but the best birds were on the beach. A flock of oystercatchers flying in contained a bar-tailed godwit.



For a brief space, there was no-one else on the sands; but the arrival of a lively spaniel and another dog sent the waders out to a spit beyond the river.

A few sanderlings were running about, and a Sandwich tern on the edge of the waves was a first for me at Achnahaird.


Having done a spot of fishing, the tern joined oystercatchers on rocks which were rapidly being submerged by the incoming tide.



A flock of about a dozen redshanks flew in.


A greyish, windy morning had turned into a sunny day, and the beach car park was now very busy. I drove home with my head full of calls - the panicky piping of oystercatchers, the wheezy trills of dunlin, the sharp "kik" of sanderlings, and the "te-heu-heu" of redshanks - which, lately, I haven't heard often enough. The bliss of walking where waders are! Truly, a "walk on the wild side".