Friday, January 01, 2021
The snow began to thaw yesterday but it froze overnight, so that the paths were very slippery this morning and it was best to walk on the road. As there was very little traffic this was no problem; and to begin with, there were no other walkers either.
A great northern diver was on Loch Broom, just off the camp-site point.
In fact, the diver had been further out - but when I stopped to look through the bins, it began to move towards me.
I'd gone out as I usually do on January 1st to start a year list - but, as often happens, I was so beguiled by one particular bird that I probably missed out on other "ticks". Down south it was the lesser spotted woodpeckers in Burnham Beeches - an early one would keep me rooted to the spot, oblivious to the charms of all the other birds in the woods. Today, the diver became my lesser spot; and I only moved on when I realised I was becoming very cold!
Other birds on the water: Eider, shag, black guillemot, a pair of goosanders, and a second great northern on the far side of the loch. A distant auk was difficult through bins, but a picture later cropped on the computer proved it to be a razorbill.
It was low tide, and waders running about on the distant spit could just be made out to be ringed plovers and turnstones. Oystercatchers were also present and a couple of greylag geese flew over and went down on the camp-site. I'd heard a curlew calling, and now one flew past me and landed quite close.
At home, the bossy blackcap was still occupying the top spot on the feeder stand trying to keep other birds away. He's been uttering a call I've never heard before - rather like a small raptor, a merlin for instance - especially a young one begging for food.
But the best thing I heard today was the call of a diver from the far side of the loch, a three-note rising call that's something like a yodel - except that yodel always sounds a bit of a daft word. It's difficult to describe, but to my mind it's one of the most melancholy, haunting calls in the natural world. Lars Jonsson in Birds of Europe uses "desolate" which does the job nicely.
