Sunday, March 31, 2019
A raven and a buzzard indulged in a bit of mid-air aggro, then each landed on top of a dune and sat motionless, intent on the rabbit-hole below; I waited for a while but didn't see if this strategy for a meal worked. Back at the car park I made my way out onto the rocks and sat watching a great northern diver, possibly the one that was here on Thursday.
The "chipper" call of a snipe made me scan a grassy area without much hope - but in fact the bird's head was just visible. Doesn't seem much, but here it's another important sign of spring.
Down south, I used to love seeing snipe return in the autumn - now they have become a summer bird. The only other evidence of movement I could see today was the presence of two greenshank and a redshank on the Allt Loch Raa at the side of the beach.
They weren't my first of the year, though. On Saturday we saw several redshank at Dundonnell, while this greenshank was at Poolewe.
And on the 29th, a greenshank was by a roadside loch east of Ledmore Junction - on a day when I also saw clumps of hatched tadpoles and a bunch of cruising, socialising palmate newts.
// posted by Christine @ 1:59 PM 
