Christine's walking & birds blog

Thursday 28th April

Greger departed yesterday for England and the Fully Charged Show in Farnborough, with instructions to me to indulge in "unfettered birding" while he's away. Right!

Although it felt a mite early for a pelagic, blue skies and sunshine tempted me into making a snap decision with little time to spare. In spite of the low temperature and even if there were few birds to see yet, a day spent at sea is always enjoyable; so I speed-walked down to the harbour and bought a return ticket for the ferry.

Two schools of porpoise were seen in the distance, and two gannets were my first for the year - likewise two kittiwakes. I thought I glimpsed a pair of puffins but they dived and disappeared.

All too soon we were approaching Stornoway - and looking back along the ship's wake I spotted a white-tailed sea eagle; even this mighty bird is dwarfed by the immensity of sky and sea, and it could hardly be seen without bins.

The eagle veered in towards land and a number of birds went up - including geese.

A great black-backed gull was also involved, but I couldn't see exactly what was going on. Then the ferry turned in towards the harbour and I lost them.

As soon as the ferry docked, a hooded crow flew onto the deck.

I wondered what it had its beady eye on - and the next moment I found out, as it swooped down and landed on the back of the seat on which my rucksack was sitting. Could it smell my lunch?I'm trying to map the Summer Isles - by looking at them from both the land and the sea; and I'm not making much headway. Beyond this island, with what you would think would be a distinctive arch, can be seen Tanera Mor, currently being developed by its rich owner into an exclusive holiday destination - and beyond that, the hazy outlines of Suilven and Canisp. Should be easy enough to line these up on a map and then identify the island (although it doesn't help that I initially identified the hills as Quinag!). Hmmm.

This is my latest candidate for a white wagtail.

A solitary whooper swan was on Loch Raa, its head and tail stained with orange; I think I've read that this comes from iron in the water where they feed. There were a few faint calls - sounding a bit like the intermittent barking of a small dog.

On an overcast day with a slight drizzle in the air, an unexpected short-eared owl was just the thing to brighten up our walk.

Looking it up in BWP I found that the owl could already be breeding, so I won't mention the location. I feel a bit guilty now about taking the picture, but the camera was on full zoom and the photo has been cropped; the owl was at least 200 metres away. Something of the pleasure in seeing short-eared owls is taken away by the knowledge that there are others who would rather be looking at them down the barrel of a gun.

We spotted the raptor from the car, and Greger pulled into a passing place for a few minutes. We were looking into the sun so the bird looked all-dark, but as it was hovering above a loch it seemed likely to be an osprey!

This was confirmed when the silhouetted bird plunged down onto the water and then rose with a fish in its talons.

On a dazzling day at Achnahaird, I spotted what I thought were two curlews out on the salt-marsh; I was looking directly into the sun but one bird seemed quite a bit smaller than the other, and with a shorter bill. They flew down the beach, and a rapid stuttering call confirmed that one of the birds was a whimbrel. They soon returned, and I grabbed a record shot as they flew up the river.

The place was alive with meadow pipits and much lower numbers of skylarks. I still haven't seen any lapwings here yet. No wagtails looked white, and wheatears only reached single numbers - but I did see my first linnets of the year.

On the other side of the headland a large, peaceful crowd of gulls loafed just off-shore. Then all hell broke loose as they suddenly went up, shrieking and crying - and I scanned madly for an eagle. But it was a Bonxie that had disturbed them. I watched it fly over them and then double-back and go down onto the water - close to what looked like the body of an auk species.

It was all a long way out, but a clip of video I took shows the skua tearing off and swallowing chunks of the unfortunate auk. A rather dramatic way to see my first Bonxie of the year.

******* 

In the last few days I've also seen my first golden eagle of the year.

It was being chased by a raven initially, but eventually returned, soared for a while, and then drifted away - while the raven, which had also returned, now made a half-hearted vocal protest before subsiding.   

Beinn Liath Mhor a' Ghiubhais Li (seventh time)

Desperate to try a hill-walk for the first time this year and not at all sure I could manage it, I suggested an old favourite so that I at least knew what I was in for. Once again we used two cars, leaving Greger's at the near end of Loch Glascarnoch and driving on in mine to the wind-farm road for speedy, dry access to higher ground. A pair of mistle thrushes, several meadow pipits, and a skylark were seen on the way up the road; and a pair of teal flew down the hill, their green speculums evident through the bins. 

Eventually we had to leave the road and strike off across pathless, boggy moorland. Looking back we could see a white inversion layer, while ragged dark clouds above spattered the land with a few raindrops as if it wasn't wet enough already.


Greger however felt we should head down immediately from the lowest part, so we did; but the slopes became too steep to negotiate, so we had to traverse awkwardly until the gradient eased - by which time, we might as well have stayed on the top anyway. To be fair to Greger, he'd originally suggested making our way round the end of this hill to avoid climbing it altogether. So in a way, we were both right. Looking down to the road, (Loch Droma to the left).....

Sitting on the rocks at Rhue lighthouse I heard a faint confused sound growing slowly louder - and a skein of pink-footed geese (c120 individuals) flew over high heading north.

It was soon followed by a second skein (c160), here flying above Ben Mor Coigach. How lovely it would have been to be up on that snow-dusted ridge, watching them pass over!

Three more skeins (around 600 birds in all) flew over before I left, the air temporarily full of their companionable, slightly hysterical calls which, fading into silence, left a few tugged heartstrings behind them.

There wasn't a great deal to see otherwise; a pair of rock pipits buzzed about and two great northern divers fished close together. Out towards the Summer Isles, a couple of porpoises broke the calm surface and then vanished.

Two wheatears were spotted on croft fences on the drive back to the main road. A diversion along the recycling road brought the sight of an adult white-tailed sea eagle, soaring so high it wasn't visible to the naked eye. At home, I was too tired to go out again; I wish I still had the energy I had when we first moved here!