Sunday, February 24, 2019
The outdoors was calling and the day was mild (it reached at least 12˚C) and I drove up Ledmore way to look for frogspawn and crossbills. Frogspawn has been reported from the Assynt area, but probably at a sea-level location; I thought it was a bit early for my higher site (about 150m above sea level) - and so it proved.
However, I enjoyed a short walk (although an icy wind made me keep my hat on), and a scolding stonechat who almost certainly had a mate nearby was a cheering sight.
There was very little traffic on the single-track road today, so for long stretches I could drive along at 30 mph with an eye to moorland and forest either side and also on my rear-view mirror. I drew a blank for crossbills until, approaching the end of the plantations on the way back, I spotted a male further along the road. The little rough pull-in is now clear of snow and mud, so I reversed in and walked closer to the bird. By now I could hear that he was singing, and as I watched he flew up as though in display and then over the tree-tops to a conifer closer to me.
The trilling part of his song seemed to be echoed from behind me, and a female came flying over, trilling, circling over where the male was perching and then flying into a small spruce near the road. Mindful that they could well be breeding, I walked back to the car.
There wasn't much else about. A pair of buzzards soared and mewed above Loch Craggie, and somewhere over this "high lonesome road" between Glen Oykel and the Cromalt Hills, an unseen skylark was rapturously singing.
Monday, February 18, 2019
We drove six hundred miles to look at some flats on the Isle of Portland, and after a walk round Radipole Lake in Weymouth, Greger suggested going to Lodmoor. We've been there once before when it was drizzly and grey and not seen anything, but it was handy for the hotel, the evening was lovely, and so we parked and paid for the third time that day. (Radipole and Ferry Bridge in the morning.)
When we saw two waders in the distance, I assumed they were both ruff. But the second bird came closer and I realised I was looking at my first-ever lesser yellowlegs - much more like a wood sandpiper than a ruff, I realised. I snapped away, but better pics were taken the following day, also in golden evening light.
I was losing the good light now, but earlier I'd watched Mediterranean gulls coming in to land with black-headed gulls.
They were very vocal, and the call to me sounded like "yeeow". I also heard the lesser yellowlegs, as it flew towards me uttering a "tyu" not unlike a redshank but quieter and less panicky.
We had a short walk at Portland Bill and then enjoyed a good lunch at the Lobster Pot - where a rock pipit rooted about near our feet and on the tables for crumbs. Two lovely, sparkling days.
But I was already feeling ill, and by the time we reached Burnham Beeches the next day I suspected I was in for flu. We had an enjoyable walk in the woods that afternoon, and a second one the next morning - but no lesser spotted woodpecker was seen or heard. Back home, I'm in the throes of the awful hacking-cough flu, which I last had in 2010 - this despite a flu jab in the autumn. Wrong strain, I s'pose.
Thursday, February 07, 2019
Some birds were fairly close as we walked along the beach at Cromarty yesterday, like this rock pipit....
.....and others were far out on the water, like these long-tailed ducks.
Today, a walk along a Forestry Commission track at an iced-over Loch Craggie brought only a flock of siskins, a bullfinch, and two buzzards. Pulling in at Ardmair on the way home paid off, however, as two adult white-tailed sea eagles were soaring over the sea beyond Isle Martin - more than a kilometre away and only just visible without bins.
I've no idea what's going to happen to my blog in the next month, but if it's The End, I might as well go out in a blaze of bad pictures!
Monday, February 04, 2019
Panic stations! An email from Flickr informs me that from tomorrow, unless I start to pay, my blog photos will begin to be deleted (oldest first) until they are within the new limit of 1,000 images. Now, I'm not opposed to paying (I've always been in awe that all this stuff with blogging is free) but I think they could have given more notice. There was a previous email in January which admittedly I missed, but if they emailed me about this in November, well, I never saw it.
The point is, when we tried to reply, Flickr kept stating that they had no record of my email address - even though they'd just used that very email address to contact me!
I'd thought that when Picasa stopped, the images were held on Google; but when we went through to that, they were actually on Google+ which itself is going to stop in April. Flickr also talked of a "pro" badge on my account - well I didn't put it there. It's a muddled message altogether. This is all because Flickr has been bought by a new company called SmugMug. Rotten name.
Anyway, perhaps this is a good time to weed out all my really awful pictures; meanwhile I feel like just doing nothing - "let it fail" as they said in 2001 A Space Odyssey - see what happens and then proceed from there. (Oh dear, I've just remembered that that incident didn't end too well in the movie; someone went spinning off into space I think - lost forever.)
Saturday, February 02, 2019
The Slavonian grebes were on Loch Ewe - my first for the year on this bright, cold day.
Eight or nine black-throated divers were spotted lounging together far out; and several great northern divers fished slightly closer to shore.
We stopped briefly in a passing-place to grab a pic of a pink-footed goose with greylags.
About 60 barnacle geese were on fields at Mungasdale.
Late afternoon, the clear pale sky provided no contrast for the snowy Fannichs when I snapped them through the windscreen....
.....but it added to the beauty of the landscapes we drove through on our way home.
