Wednesday, September 16, 2020
I drove out to Achnahaird earlyish and found a space in the nearly-full car park. A walk round the dunes and the salt-marsh brought no waders, but beyond the fenced plantation a group of sheep huddled together as though afraid of something. "What's up with you then?" I asked. Yep, I'm becoming so mad that I do actually talk to sheep. Then I saw the white-tailed sea eagle circling high and quite a distance away; with a dark tail and pale axillaries, it looks like an immature bird.
Walking down the sandy beach to the sea, I saw a bar-tailed godwit on the edge of the waves; a dog running about full of the joys flushed it, but it went down again closer to me.
A flock of large birds appeared above Cnoc Mor, heading into the bay against a strong south-easterly; I could just hear their constant calls above the wind. A lovely way to see my first returning pink-footed geese.
A dragonfly landing on the beach was probably a female common hawker.
A raptor seen briefly in the distance was no doubt, a sparrowhawk - no matter how much I try to make it into a goshawk.
Two buzzards were seen at Old Dornie. Yesterday, a walk along the beach near the golf course brought a merlin; but the majority of the kittiwakes - and probably the Sabine's - seemed to have gone.
