Christine's walking & birds blog

With recent clear nights to aid migration to the south, I didn't expect much to have dropped down at Achnahaird - and I didn't get much! A solitary sanderling landed nearby, giving me wary looks as it foraged; but it was still there when I walked away.


This seems to be a lion's mane jellyfish. There were several lying on the sand; and mindful of its reputed ability to sting even after death, I made no attempt to touch it.


A sparrowhawk cruised over the dunes and landed briefly on the fence for a record shot.


On the other side of the headland, I was scanning the sparkling sea for birds when I spotted dolphins, porpoising through the water between the mainland and the island of Tanera Mor.


Tanera Mor has been sold to someone wealthy who is doing huge works on it, to make it into an exclusive holiday destination for - well, more wealthy people. As well as boats going to and from the island, the area round the old jetty is now busy with workmen's cars and vans and the area is cordoned off as a construction site. The access to the cliffs is within that site and it seemed to be blocked off; however, they've left a pedestrian corridor leading to the jetty, so I walked out on that instead. The dolphins moved further into the sun and it was difficult to count them. There are eleven in the picture above, but there were certainly more.

Aware of a plaintive, unfamiliar whistling, I looked down to see an adult razorbill with a juvenile. Again, it's just a record shot - I seem to spend my life looking into the sun!


But I was pleased with the sighting - and the whistling, which I'd never heard before.

Back on the beach later, I was mortified when looking along the narrows between the mainland and the island to see a line of splashes receding - the dolphins had returned that way, and if I could have got up onto the cliffs I might have had closer views of them.

Pausing at the junction lay-by on the drive out, I snapped the hills across the salt-marsh - with Cul Mor draped in cloud.


Despite the traffic coming into the area, driving out was going smoothly until near the end. Approaching a left-hand bend I was confronted with a car very much on my side of the road. The still pics taken from my dash-cam don't convey how sudden this encounter was.



You would think that when approaching a right-hand blind bend, common sense (even self-preservation) would kick in and a driver would steer naturally into the passing place on the left. There was no apology from the woman - she stared at me as if I shouldn't be there, on my side of the road - so I shouted at her. It's the second time this has happened to me on this road since we came to live here; the first involved a man in an open-topped sports car, and he just managed to spot me in time and veer to his left - into the passing place that he should have been using in the first place.

A couple of years ago, we were returning from a hill walk in Braemar and driving along a single-track road near Tomintoul. A blue police sign warned of an accident just beyond the bend ahead, and Greger prepared to turn - but a policeman waved him on. As we went round the bend in the passing place, we saw two cars to our right, smashed together head-on, with the force of the crash making both cars rear upwards. Clearly the one going our way had ignored the passing place and hugged the rock face to the right - giving the car coming the other way no chance at all.

So there you go. Don't approach a blind bend on the wrong side; it's a single-track road - it hasn't suddenly become a one-way road.