Christine's walking & birds blog

Achnahaird: The migration season is coming to its end, and I hadn't spotted any waders on the salt-marsh from the road, so while walking over the cliffs I paid more attention to the sea - and spotted my first long-tailed duck of the autumn.

There were two drakes; and then four long-tailed ducks went flying inland and across the headland. These later came back but carried on flying out to sea.

Driving home, I pulled in at Ardmair - to see yet another long-tailed duck quite a way out.

I don't know whether it was my attentions (although I was sitting in my car) or the arrival of a family running down the beach to have a stone-skimming contest that made the duck take off - but she merely seemed to relocate to Loch Kanaird. This was my first Ardmair long-tailed duck.