Christine's walking & birds blog

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.