Christine's walking & birds blog

We drove down to Contin and took a walk in the forest, aiming for Loch na Crann and hoping for dragonflies. The loch was pretty, with lots of white water lilies giving it the feel of a large pond. But there were no dragons. A jay was notable because we don't see them over west and, back at the car park, a spotted flycatcher was only the second I've encountered this year.

Along a shady path by a tangle of undergrowth, I felt sure that I'd heard the faint reeling of a grasshopper warbler. It was difficult to tell exactly where it had come from, and Greger couldn't help because it's one of the sounds that unfortunately, he just can't hear any longer (too high a pitch). After a pause came another short burst but it was still very faint. Perhaps it was just a large grasshopper!

On a day of high winds, almost constant rain, and cloud that hung down to sea level, I cut short my usual round of beach, salt-marsh, and dunes, and returned to the car park. Walking a little way across the cliffs in the other direction, I scanned Achnahaird Bay and spotted two red-throated divers. I had turned to go back when a distant cluster of dark dots caught my eye; they resolved through bins into probable common scoters, five males and a female; although definite ID only came by snapping off a picture and viewing it zoomed-in on the camera.

Another visit to the bogs among the conifers found the bogs mostly dried out. On one that still contained some water, a territorial four-spotted chaser constantly drove off a male azure hawker each time it approached. I'm now confident of the ID. I'd been planning a walk up Abhainn an Torrain Duibh where I've had two previous sightings, so it was a nice surprise to encounter azure hawkers in Ullapool - and one of those, my first female (second and third pics).

Two ravens were scavenging on the beach at Ardmair, seeing off a bonxie that tried to join them.

The dead animal was very degraded but I think from the shape of the snout and the squarish teeth it could have been a young harbour porpoise. I thought it looked burnt, but Greger reckons it's just that its black skin was dried and shrivelled.
The temperature today was about 14℃ - half what it reached in south-east England. It doesn't seem we'll be moving anytime soon; property down south has become ridiculously expensive and anyway, everything's already sold. We can't even go on holiday down south because everything's booked up. I sink deeper into gloom.

I went out looking for dragonflies, and found these - a male in the first shot eating a fly or moth, a female in the second.

After much research, I'm sure they're Azure Hawkers. It doesn't seem to be the right habitat for Azure, being forest rather than moorland; but there are wide corridors and clearings in the forest, and moorland isn't far away. After a while, the promised (threatened?) rain started to fall, and as I'd forgotten my cagoule I returned to the car and drove home.

 A hot and dusty walk up the quarry road brought two, possibly three, bee hawk-moths.

This individual was duller in colour than the one above.

We got a bit closer to Slavonian grebes today by going to a loch we'd been given a tip about a year or so ago.

Beyond the loch, tracks lead enticingly into the forest; we hadn't gone prepared for a long walk so just went a little way, but we intend to come back some time and explore further. Willow warblers, a blackcap, and at least two chiffchaffs were singing - and this time, I managed to see one of the chiffchaffs. A green hairstreak butterfly landed handily on a nearby gorse flower.

There were lots of boggy patches which I'm sure will soon be alive with dragonflies, although today we could manage only a common blue damselfly.Yellowhammers and sedge warblers were singing, and a striking male reed bunting was spotted briefly near the top of a tree. As we left, a cuckoo was heard.

As puffins are in the news today for all the wrong reasons, I'll post a useless shot taken from the ferry in celebration that for now at least, they still exist; we saw a fair number of them across the Minch and approaching Stornoway. 

The Loch Seaforth has returned to service after extensive repairs. This was a pity in a way, as I was hoping to do our first "pelagic" of the year in its stand-in - the old boat, the Isle of Lewis. When the fine new ferry came into service several years ago, we felt it wasn't as sea-watching friendly (not so much rail room) as the old one, and I wanted to compare them again to see if that was really the case - or if we just wanted something to moan about.

(This reminds me of something that happened years ago at Wilstone Reservoir, near Tring. I walked round the rim of the reservoir one day and found that a splendid new hide had replaced the former one, which I remembered as being dark and cramped, with an earthen floor and the odd suspicious whiff in the corners. The new one was larger, airy, and gave off a fragrance of warm pine. A couple of local birders came in while I was there. The man looked around warily, while the woman sniffed a few times and then said "I think I prefer the old one". Honestly, there's no pleasing some people.)

An interesting feature of today's trip was the different route the ferry took through the Summer Isles, both outward and return. We sailed, for example, close to Tanera Beag and its Cathedral Cave.

I think this is one of the outer skerries, Stac Mhic Aonghais, with Glas-leac Beag to the right.

Apart from the puffins (our first for several years, I think) no special birds were seen. This was disappointing although I felt more sorry for the people who were hoping for cetaceans, which were also conspicuous by their absence. But it was a lovely sparkling day at sea, and possibly the first pelagic I've done without my thermals on! Back in Ullapool, we bought fish-and-chips at the Seaforth chippy and sat at one of their picnic tables. How nice to eat out of doors in the evening and not feel cold!