Christine's walking & birds blog

It was still sunny and bright this morning - but much colder, as I realised when I rounded the point at the end of West Shore Street and was met by an icy wind that penetrated my thin fleece and T-shirt - luckily the fleece has a hood. I was snapping a black guillemot that was still winter-grey when a bunch of eider flew by heading down the loch - a tick for the lockdown walk list.


Towards the horizon, a bank of grey vapour lay across the foot of the loch, swallowing up a fishing boat and blotting out the islands.


A little way ahead, a handful of turnstones were dozing away high tide.


We heard a cuckoo yesterday as we walked up the quarry road; it was calling from up the hill so we hoped we'd see it later. But as we made our way along the hill-path, it called again from down near the quarry road! Typical. We never did see it. Now, I heard a cuckoo calling from Allt na h-Airbhe across the loch - but again, it would remain just a disembodied voice.

Turning into our own road, I could see there was a band of haar (now white in appearance) lying along the unseen loch.


At home, Greger was up a ladder painting but hadn't noticed the mist as he was facing the other way. Now he half-turned and remarked on how fast it was moving up the loch, aided presumably by the keen wind. I'd seen on my walk that the ferry was about to leave, and now we heard its fog-horn as it moved off down the loch. In happier times I would have jumped in my car and driven to West Terrace to watch this phenomenon; but it would go against the rules, and I'm a goodie two-shoes (for the present, anyway). However, the haar didn't last - thanks, perhaps, to the strength of the sun from a completely clear sky.