Monday, February 13, 2023
A sunny, calm day was a great relief after all the wind and rain, and I was drawn back to Ardmair. Tired of slogging along the pebbly beach (other people walk through the camp-site and stand at the end overlooking the spit, but I always feel that if I do this I'll get thrown out!) I walked round by the chalets and out onto the stone pier. At first I thought a couple of mini feeding frenzies were getting going, but they seemed to fizzle out quite quickly as if they were false alarms. However, the presence of at least three dolphins over by the fish farm confirmed that there were fish to be had.
I became mesmerised by the dolphins and spent ages trying to get decent pics; only when they moved further off did I look at the birds. A black-throated diver showing the beginnings of summer plumage came fairly close in to the pier.
But I failed to see the Med gull on this visit. Two days ago, a short walk in the village brought my first kittiwakes of the year; this adult on a heap of dredged(?) material on the works site.....
.....which I snapped with great difficulty between two sections of security fencing; and an immature bird out on the harbour. The day before that we'd been to Udale Bay and Cromarty, where new year birds were dunlin, teal, knot, bar-tailed godwit, and scaup (one solitary female of these); but pink-footed geese were absent. Never mind, our trip to Edinburgh had given us a sighting - at Perth services of all places! We'd pulled in to charge up the Tesla and were walking down to the shop for carryout Costa coffees (which, usually okay, were so vile that we threw them in the bin after a couple of sips) when a familiar pleasant racket made me look up to see a skein of pink-foots crossing the sky.