Christine's walking & birds blog

We're into the tenth week of lockdown. We still can't drive anywhere for exercise, but we can at least go out more than once each day. I took a quick walk down to the spit at high tide, but could see no waders. A juvenile great northern diver in the river was a nice sight however, and I watched it for some time; it caught a crab.


A man and his small son walked to the tip of the golf-course spit to fish, and the diver moved gracefully down the river and out onto the loch.

I returned home, and Greger and I then set off on our longer walk. A photo of a birch sawfly I'd seen this morning on the Assynt wildlife website reminded me to be on the watch, as I've seen large sawflies up the quarry road before. This one zoomed by and landed on an emerging bracken frond; it's not large enough for a birch sawfly and anyway, its antennae clubs are black. I think it could be a Trichiosoma lucorum, but I'm not sure.


There was no sign of a wood warbler (or anything else, come to that) and I was feeling a bit down. Waders are almost certainly visiting Achnahaird on their way north but it seems I won't see them this year. It's also been a terrific spring for hill-walking but Mountain Rescue requested walkers to stay away from the hills so, like many others, we have. It's absolutely maddening to learn that some haven't.