Christine's walking & birds blog

A trip to Keanchulish Estate brought four dunlin foraging in the tide-wrack - not my first of the year, but the earlier ones were winter-grey and these are showing a little colour.

My first swallow of the year zoomed around while I watched the dunlin, and I only tore myself away from my vantage point above the beach when the first raindrops fell. It's so nice to be able to walk in this estate again.

 The great northern diver was close in to shore as the tide fell at Ardmair.

At Badentarbat a whimbrel made its way along the beach and was lost to sight among the brown seaweed-covered rocks. A redshank was the only other wader present apart from the usual suspects.

The walk round at Achnahaird was enjoyable in the bright, cool weather, but brought nothing new. Stopping at the junction lay-by on the way out I heard then spotted two distant greenshanks; and as I drove on, a dark familiar shape caused me to stop in a passing place (echoes of yesterday) and jump out to grab a pic of a great skua - in fact, there were two bonxies, heading west in a leisurely fashion.

Yesterday: The Glascarnoch Dam was busy, with meadow pipits (12+), pied wagtails (3/4), wheatear (2), and a single chaffinch all zooming about. A pair of ravens had re-established territory, and a handful of sand martins hawked for insects in a strongish breeze. A pair of stonechats were along the track, and a grouse went flying high to the east.

Another photo shows a slight notch in the closed tail, which suggests black grouse. Driving away from the dam, I saw a raptor that looked all-dark flying between me and the loch, and going the same way. I was fairly sure it was an osprey, so I put my foot down (I think I actually reached sixty!) and made it to the next lay-by just in time to get one shot of the bird as it passed. And hooray, it was an osprey!

I pulled in to the Lael Forest Garden car park and walked across the road to view the River Broom, where a grey wagtail and a common sandpiper were foraging and bobbing on the rocks. On the sheep fields, a bunch of gulls turned out to be herring and lesser black-backs.     

This morning's low cloud and drizzle gave way to a blue sky and sunshine, and I went for a short walk to the golf-course spit, where I sat on the stones to keep out of the wind. The only waders I could see were two turnstone with three ringed plovers, and a pair of oystercatchers. Just before I got up to go, I heard a cuckoo from the other side of the loch, probably from the wooded gorge near the house; the bird cuckooed three times and then fell silent. Magical.

Walking back, I ventured up to the entrance of the allotment, where I've never been before. A scolding call from the undergrowth made me think "Blackcap!" and eventually he came out into the open and sang.

His head looked perfectly normal until I pressed the shutter - could be the effect of the wind. Several willow warblers and a chiffchaff were also singing. The one downside to the afternoon's birding was a little heaving heap ahead of me on the path as I walked along the river bank. It looked like two drake mallards having a fight; well, in a way they were, but as I got closer I could see that pinned underneath them was a hapless female. Both were trying to mate with her. As I approached, the ducks separated and the female was able to fly away. One male followed her, the other one flew onto the water. It would be nice to think she escaped their attentions, or paired up properly with another male. Nature's great - except when it isn't.       

Greger is housebound with a very bad cough. He's been urging me to go out birding as much as possible, and so far I've been staying close to home. Today, however, once I'd done the shopping, I drove out to the Coigach area. There was a dusting of new snow on the tops of the Coigach and Assynt hills, and the wind was chilly; but the sky was mostly blue and there was a fair bit of sunshine. Two golden plover on sodden ground near the dunes were my first for the year. I wish I could have produced a photo to do them justice, but I never get a crisp shot on green/yellow grassy ground (she says, as if she gets crisp shots the rest of the time).

I backtracked a bit and turned to walk through the middle of the dunes, so as not to disturb them. A couple of wheatears were on the machair.

The other side of the headland produced a displaying wheatear and three common scoter - and a dead guillemot on the wide grassy strip above the beach. Five whooper swans were on Loch Raa.

Driving back out to the main road I parked by the plantation and walked back to look at the snipe pool. Two bog bean plants were in bud.....

.....and as I snapped one of them, the call of a snipe came from the loch behind me. Some call it the "chipper", others the "chipping" call; either way it was really good to hear it again.

Further on, where the road widens out with a long passing place, I glanced over the short grass at the side of the road and remembered, a few years back, seeing a golden plover there. And wasn't that a plover standing against the water right now? 

Other birds noted: a pair of shelduck, a buzzard, skylarks, meadow pipits, and several willow warblers singing. I called in at Tesco for a few things I'd forgotten this morning, and got home to find Greger worse. I think it's bronchitis, which he's suffered from before. The good news is that he hasn't lost his appetite, and we broke our rule of alcohol at weekends only and had a couple of glasses of white wine with our dinner.

At high tide, in between showers, a very bright wagtail was feeding along the waterline on the river spit. I'm not sure if the line between the black nape and the silvery mantle is distinct enough (for a male, anyway); but the rump appears to be wholly grey and the flanks clean(ish). I think it's a white wagtail.

A redshank was also present. 

Yesterday: A willow warbler at last!

It was a little way up the quarry road, with the chiffchaff still singing nearby.

The lines (from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge) came to me as I spotted a long-tailed duck on the wind-ruffled water in Achnahaird Bay.

My first sand martins of the year! Two or three of them zooming around conifer tops at the bottom of the quarry road - and a chiffchaff still singing there, although distant. At Ardmair, a great northern diver was mooching about offshore.....