Christine's walking & birds blog

An incredibly strong wind and a shower of rain took some of the enjoyment out of a walk at Achnahaird today. In fact, I was surprised to see so many people on the beach. A mixed flock of a couple of hundred waders contained a few ringed plovers and at least 25 sanderling, with dunlin making up the numbers.

The waders flew several times, zooming round low and often landing closer to me than when they took to the air. A knot was less forgiving; but this was an adult bird, and perhaps they're more wary than juveniles. It was last seen heading up the beach so I hope it went down on the salt-marsh or river.

Across the headland, a bundle of white feathers floating on the rough sea near the shore could only be a gannet. I assumed it was dead, but the head suddenly came up and after a while the bird flapped its wings, took off, flew low over the water for a short distance - and went down again. It repeated this twice. Maybe the winds had defeated it for a while - or maybe it was a victim of avian flu. Two Bonxies were seen flying around, seemingly healthy - so far.