Friday, September 17, 2021
I spent yesterday in an exhausting and fruitless search for the Sabine's gull I'd seen from Rhue. There are days when the topography of Ullapool can drive you insane - and this was one of those days. Undaunted, I started again this morning. Greger was happy as usual to drive to Inverness on his own, because then he can listen en route to one of the translations he's bought for practising his Spanish - "El perro de los Baskerville" - so I had all day.
Once again I started by driving down to the harbour and having a walk; I then drove to West Terrace and had a walk to the spit - and there I struck gold. Across the river, a small dark-hooded gull was among the mob on the golf-course spit - but some shuffling among the larger gulls resulted in the Sabine's taking wing. I thought it had gone down again out of sight - so I returned to the car, drove round to Morefield, and walked along the river to the golf course, where I could scan the whole spit. This brought nothing at all. The gull had obviously flown off. I went home, ate a hasty sandwich, and did the whole round again. Somewhere along the edge of the golf course, it began to rain - and I began to swear. Returning to the spit, I noticed that some gulls had flown up the river and were bathing. One was very small.....
