Christine's walking & birds blog

Greger began the day in Edinburgh with an ice-cream.


We then joined the gathering by the Scottish National Gallery, ready to move off behind a police van in a peaceful protest against the prorogation of parliament.


The column walked up High Street and Canongate while tourists took pictures or looked down from open-top buses, some cheering and giving us the thumbs-up.


At Holyrood, others were waiting by the Scottish Parliament building.


The crowd probably numbered hundreds rather than thousands, but it was a fairly off-the-cuff event that might have drawn more had there been more notice. Other towns and cities had protests but none so large as that in London. This one was good-humoured, with fairly polite placards such as "Boris is bad" - while two young girls paddled about in the pools outside parliament with a sign proclaiming "Boris is stupid". Nice understatement there.

The only birds noted were swallows, three magpies, and a lesser black-backed gull.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The good was a trip into the Coigach area, with three black-throated divers lounging on a roadside loch, and some welcome, if familiar, birds seen on the usual walk. At least 50 twite were near sheep pens - and a knot was on the beach with five sanderling.


Little groups of sanderling were also seen on the machair, but as they whizzed around a lot they were difficult to count - ten was the highest seen at one time. They sometimes took off, flew in an arc, and then landed closer to me; often running towards me in their feeding. At one point I had to zoom out as one approached my feet - and that doesn't happen very often. Dunlin were also present - at least 25.



The bad was a seemingly sound apple that I bit into a few days ago, the feel of crisp white flesh quickly changing into a sickening softness - fortunately I looked down at the apple and what I saw made me spit the bite out. Ugh! It's a knife for me in future.


The ugly was the head of a sharp-toothed dead fish receiving the half-hearted attention of a great black-backed gull on the harbour beach. It's probably a monkfish or anglerfish (apparently they're the same).


I found a similar head at Ardmair years ago when we were on holiday; apparently only the liver and the tail are okay to eat, so fishermen cut their heads off at sea and throw them back in. The filament that acts as a lure to prey can be seen between the monkfish's eyes, above slanted teeth that prevent escape from its fearsome mouth. Perhaps because of the picked-about eyes, and the fact that the jutting lower jaw isn't evident in my picture, this one appears more surprised and anguished than ugly.

I wandered off paths now well-known to me and found myself in a wide grassy ride between conifers, which opened into a clearing where a boss of grey rock was overgrown with heather and lichen.


Two large blue hawkers (probably common) ceaselessly patrolled the forest edge. In a string of boggy pools in another ride, a male black darter was my first of this species for the year - and a female nearby gave a better chance of a pic. I now know that it can be distinguished from a female common darter by the black triangle at the top of the thorax.


Several spotted flycatchers whisked busily about among larches, but I looked in vain for a migrating pied flycatcher - not very likely, perhaps, this far north.


And then came a sound - the faintest of sounds, so faint that I couldn't be sure whether it was a bird or something man-made. It came again, slightly louder, as though the caller was approaching - and then it grew fainter and I didn't hear it again. It must have been flying over but although I scanned the sky madly, the strong sunlight (yes we do get some!) and the tall trees limited my vision. I thought it sounded like a green sandpiper but couldn't be sure; just one of those frustrating, all-too-brief birding encounters that, though thrilling at the time, will remain a mystery.

Arriving at the junction lay-by, I stopped for a preliminary scan of the salt-marsh, and the first thing I saw was a herring gull doing its best to lift an immature (but well-grown) merganser from the Allt Loch Raa.  The merganser struggled and dropped back into the water and the gull flew away disappointed of its meal.

The tide had just begun to drop and the salt-marsh was saturated. Four ravens and a great black-backed gull were making a racket around a dead sheep. It was already fairly windy and I found it difficult to hold the camera still (cue a series of bad pics).


A walk across the beach and machair brought loads of meadow pipits, a wheatear, and about 20 curlews. Heading back towards the sea I saw movement - and there just ahead of me was a solitary turnstone, wandering about investigating lumps of seaweed and other detritus.


This is only the second turnstone I've seen at Achnahaird. I took some pics and walked carefully on, leaving the wader undisturbed; it didn't seem bothered by my presence - even coming steadily closer - but maybe it was too weary to care. Perhaps this was the first landfall it had made since leaving its breeding grounds. I'll never know - and that is part of the mystery and the beauty of birds.

By the edge of the sea were half-a-dozen ringed plovers - and a juvenile sanderling, alternately dozing and feeding.


Before leaving the area, I parked again by the junction lay-by and spotted some waders on the now-exposed sand of the dwindling river. Making my way down past the sheep pens, I could look across the water at a handful of ringed plovers, seven dunlin, and a juvenile knot.


The pale blush of a juvenile knot is as attractive as the delicate buff that marks the juvenile sanderling - but in both cases this wash is soon lost. I wish I could have captured it as well as I could see it, but my camera was hand-held in an increasingly strong wind and the birds (apart from the turnstone) were fairly distant. The knot was also in motion the whole time - walking, knot-like, as it ceaselessly probed the damp sand, but now and then breaking into a brief run.

Supporting cast was provided by two juvenile stonechats, a bonxie flying over, and a restless flock of 40-50 twite. The flock contained quite a few juvenile birds, so twite must have had a successful breeding season. And that's a piece of good news in depressing times.

It's cool and rainy today, so I've stayed in and tackled a large pile of ironing. These two pics from yesterday show (I think) common darters: a male (red) and either a female or an immature male.



In August two years ago, I snapped a yellow dragonfly in the same location and identified it as a female black darter. I think that was also a common darter. It's dragonfly season, but some nice settled warm weather would help. I won't hold my breath.

It was windy but mostly sunny up the quarry road. A female common hawker settled on the ground near a boggy area.


A male common hawker was also present.


He hovered near me for a while and must have caught something which I couldn't see, because he immediately landed on me to eat it! A wing protrudes from the dragonfly's mouthparts while a couple of reddish legs can be seen on my T-shirt behind him.


There were also common darters (I think); but I couldn't relocate the northern emerald on this third time of trying and, unusually, there were no golden-ringed dragonflies to be seen. A sound like a young raptor begging for food was heard, and a probable merlin flew over. The trees were alive with sleek, yellow, willow warblers - presumably this year's birds.

We walked up through the plantation looking for an azure hawker dragonfly. The only birds were meadow pipits until, as we sat eating lunch in the spot where I was buzzed recently by a golden eagle and a raven, a small bird of prey materialised in front of us, jinking about like a merlin before flying off up the hill. Greger thought it was more likely to be a kestrel, and I have to admit it was very light in colour. Of course, it had to appear just as I had a cup of coffee in one hand and a Mr. Kipling apple pie in the other, so there was no chance of a photo!

On the way back to the car we got caught in a downpour - as did this caterpillar, one of two on the roadside verge.


Subsequent research reveals it to be the early form of the caterpillar of the fox moth (Macrothylacia rubi). We didn't see any azure hawkers, and it's maybe a bit late for them now; but it wasn't really dragonfly weather.

Spots and speckles today up the quarry road - with a family of spotted flycatchers remaining mostly well hidden in birches and alders.....


.....and several speckled wood butterflies nectaring on bramble flowers.


There have been many occasions when I've been walking here or up on the hill when I've heard what sounded like a red-throated diver - the goose-like "cuk-cuk-cuk" - seeming to come from the steep-sided, wooded river gorge. This of course would be impossible, so I assumed it was flying over; but it wasn't until today that I finally spotted one, in rapid flight towards the loch.


It would have flown over Ullapool. I do a lot of moaning about the cold summers here, but I suppose it's quite nice to live in a village with flyover divers and the odd flyover eagle.

I think I've sorted out the mystery of the painted ladies. The writer of the letter in the Guardian, who was of the opinion that there was no invasion of these butterflies, was probably right; but what there has been, it seems, is an emergence. I wondered why the individuals we saw in May/June were so tatty while those present in late July/early August were pristine; this is because the latter had not undergone a terrific migratory flight, but were hatched/metamorphosed here. I had thought that couldn't be possible because there wouldn't be time (the painted lady cannot, I've learnt, survive the winter here in any form), but apparently the life cycle of butterflies can take mere weeks. I'm still not certain, but anyway, their numbers have now dwindled - although it's anyone's guess as to whether they will die or attempt to migrate south. Opinion among experts on this matter seems to be divided.

I walked up Ullapool Hill early on, coming out by the bridge over the river and then walking back down the estate road. Somewhere near the upper quarry I snapped this dragonfly. I couldn't see it very well without my glasses but was sure it was something new for me. Research at home suggests it's a northern emerald. How exciting - I was planning a trip to Loch Maree to try and see this dragonfly, and here was one just a couple of kilometres from home!

Yesterday I noticed a fritillary in the garden among all the painted ladies, and kept an eye out for it today. There was no sign of it in the front garden, so I went round the back to bask in the sun - and suddenly it was there in front of me in the huge buddleia over the wall, a couple of yards from where I was sitting, a dark green fritillary.



Once again the painted ladies (of which I counted 40) took exception to its presence and chased it away. Also in the buddleia: one large white, one red admiral, and at least two small tortoiseshells.