Wednesday, March 31, 2021
It's been dreary weather lately, and this morning was no exception, with wind and rain galore. But by early afternoon it had dried up enough for a walk. On West Shore, a great black-backed gull and a hooded crow were sharing a dead fish - or at least, the gull was feeding on the fish and the hoodie was keeping its distance but making the odd little darting foray to grab a morsel when it could.
After a while I walked down to take a look. It was another skate, but a lot smaller than the one I saw in October last year at Ardmair.
The website sharktrust.org says that skates are vulnerable partly because they're slow to grow and mature, and they produce few young. I had to stop googling for images because I was sickened by the number of photos of (presumably) dead skates in the hands of grinning men who looked so pleased and proud, you'd think they'd given birth to these fascinating creatures, not merely hooked them out of the sea and killed them. Further research revealed that fishermen are urged to return them to the water alive, so maybe these photos are old. Meanwhile, some that are washed up probably die from natural causes. What natural causes, though?
The Ullapool river was racing and roaring down both channels, and was also flooding the island that the boardwalk crosses. Out on the spit at least 20 meadow pipits were foraging on the grassy banks and bathing in the shallows, and being chased by a smaller number of pied wagtails.
It was nice to hear their familiar urgent calls again. An Iceland gull flew past, and a great northern diver and a summer-plumaged black guillemot were out on the loch.
// posted by Christine @ 3:05 PM 
