Friday, September 15, 2023
Greger fancied a trip over east, so I suggested Chanonry Point. It was coming up to high tide and there were loads of birds around; auks resting on the water, gannets cruising overhead, a few turnstones on the jetty, and common terns making fishing forays. The trouble at this lovely spot is that one is apt to be distracted by dolphins - and we both clicked away as a couple of bottlenoses rode the bow wave of a large cargo ship making its way down the Moray Firth (Fort George in the background).
The top photo was taken by Greger, testing out the multiple-shooting feature of my new camera, while I snapped the lower one with my old camera. The Canon PowerShot SX70 HS isn't really all that different from the SX60 - except for the viewfinder, which is much improved. I've only ever used the multiple shooting on the old one once - and that was by mistake. I don't really like that machine-gun rattle (it's particularly irritating when someone else is doing it quite close to you!) but I'm coming to realise that it might be necessary in order to get halfway decent pics of fast-moving seabirds. Dunno.
Anyway, I wish I'd used it when I spotted, way up in the sky, some terns being harried by a dark slender form which was clearly a skua - and not a bonxie.
It would be nice to think it was a juvenile long-tailed skua but I suppose it was more likely to have been an Arctic. The other frustrating sighting was of a bird flying away low over the water which to me looked like a shearwater - a large one. I wasn't ready, the camera was on the wrong setting, and the few pics I grabbed were mostly from the back as it headed towards Fort George. The bird must have banked in front of that headland and perhaps stayed in the area, but I obviously lost it at that point as this is the last picture I took.
We drove on to Cromarty and parked at the Udale Bay lay-by. The place was teeming with geese - greylag, pink-footed, Canada, and one barnacle; so, quite a spectacle - but nothing special seen.
// posted by Christine @ 2:17 PM 
