Christine's walking & birds blog

A  little way off, a smallish dragonfly landed on a bare pine twig; and thinking I'd caught a flash of vivid green I clicked off a shot before it could fly.

Yep - it was the northern emerald I'd been hoping for, this time a male. I inched (centimetred?) my way towards it across an area of soggy sphagnum moss dotted with mounds where leggy heather grew and got a few more shots before the dragonfly flew off into the shadow of the trees.

Along the somewhat drier path on my walk back, an azure hawker took off from one stone and flew a short distance before landing on another.

Last year I mentioned in one of my posts that I had set myself "a daft goal" of seeing the azure and the northern emerald on the same day, albeit on different sides of the hill. I failed - until today, when luck came my way within an hour - and on the same side of the hill. It didn't feel daft at all!

Yesterday: Our latest "pelagic" was probably the warmest yet. Even I only put my hat on once, when the wind got up a bit. We spotted what must have been petrels as they were so tiny, but they were distant and we couldn't see a white rump so remain unsure. The best thing was seeing Manx shearwaters both in flight and (for the first time) settled on the water - there were at least ten of them, but again, they were distant.

In another very poor shot, what looks like a brown, cigar-shaped bird is flying from left to right - so probably a sooty shearwater.

Friday 22nd July: Greger wanted to add to his Munro tally and also fancied doing a hill-walk on his own. He chose Cairn Gorm (which I'd already been up many years ago) and I was happy meanwhile to go hunting for crested tits. He took a few shots with his smartphone: a roped-off section of the path with an appeal to dog-walkers; the summit cairn in cloud with a weather station beyond; Loch Morlich which I'm walking round; and extensive works being carried out on the funicular railway.

 

It was a pity the cloud was low the whole time, so he got no views from the summit; but I reckon he did the walk much faster alone! We met at the information centre, where he had coffee and cake and I had a cream tea - my first for ages. Very nice scone, could have done with a smidgeon more cream and jam. I'd failed to see any crested tits, but I enjoyed my walk and spotted a male crossbill, which treated me to a short burst of song.