Christine's walking & birds blog

 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.