Wednesday, April 07, 2021
Birds are on the move. There was snow on the hills and the moorland down to road level today and it was bitingly cold, but spring can't be far behind. Near the dam we flushed a snipe species from the ditch; it flew over the fence and up the hill with a startled call and was followed by a second (silent) bird. No idea which snipe, but it was a nice encounter.
Across the loch, on the road to the wind-farm, I could see two black birds strutting about. I thought they were probably corvids but reckoned they might just be black grouse, and clicked off a few shots - to the amusement of Greger, who thought I was being way too optimistic. It's true the birds were almost a kilometre away, but when I uploaded the pictures we could see that I'd recorded at least five black grouse, spread across the road and verges like a gang of hooligans.
We drove to the wind-farm road to have our coffee and cake, and soon caught a glimpse of one male grouse flying high towards the loch.
