Sunday, March 17, 2019
The weather forecast was for sunny spells and showers, and so it proved. A walk round the harbour brought a probable Iceland gull.
There was no sign of any kittiwakes. I walked along West Shore Street, passing two hooded crows feeding on a dead sheep.
Several black guillemots in breeding plumage were fairly close to shore and I took a few in-focus pics (for a change) - but try as I might I couldn't "get the eyes". Needed a bit more sun, perhaps. Seawards of the camp-site headland the water became choppier and a common scoter could be seen riding the waves, repeatedly diving and surfacing with large molluscs of some kind.
If it's a female, it seems to have quite a lot of yellow on the bill; I wondered if it could be a first winter male, but that would leave it very little time to change its plumage to black before the breeding season begins. Things were brought to an end by the rattle of hailstones, and I hurried back to the car.
Yesterday at Achnahaird: 40 plus skylarks, 10 displaying lapwings, a rock pipit and a meadow pipit feeding along last year's Lapland bunting stream, and a pair of shelduck.
// posted by Christine @ 9:52 AM 
