Christine's walking & birds blog

Achnahaird beach looked promising but could offer only a handful of dunlin and ringed plovers, with one greenshank feeding along the river. A brownish raptor flying swiftly over could have been a female merlin, but I'm not 100% sure; whatever it was, it scattered the waders. A long-tailed duck was in the bay.

A pair of common terns have been flying around the bay recently, but this tern might just be an Arctic.

It's difficult to believe that four days ago I was standing on the dusty quarry road watching a couple of narrow-bordered bee hawk-moths patrolling a bank of birdsfoot trefoil in warm sunshine.

Today it's grey and cold, and yesterday - when I went on probably my worst pelagic yet - wasn't much better. I did get a new bird for the year when a couple of fulmars went planing past, and I saw a large splash far behind when someone alerted me to the presence of a whale. But there was no nice man waiting on West Shore Street to give me a lift home, and I had to trudge up the hill and through the village in the rain. Greger's gone south to pick up his new passport from the Swedish embassy in London, and, on the way back, to call in at the Everything Electric (formerly Fully Charged) exhibition in Harrogate to find out even more about batteries (the man's battery-mad). This battery would be for storing power from solar panels, which he intends to have fitted to the roof of the bungalow later this year.   

On the one hand, I could cadge a lift into Inverness with Greger to do some much-needed clothes shopping; on the other, I could drive out to Achnahaird again on this gorgeous day and do some much-needed birding. No contest.

I didn't really expect to see the curlew sandpipers again, so it wasn't too much of a disappointment when I couldn't re-find them. There seemed to be fewer waders than yesterday, and the best birds were a vigorously bathing long-tailed duck (male) on the far side of the bay, and a pair of common terns fishing. (Forgot to report in yesterday's post a Canada goose with greylags. Also, two Canada geese were recently on the river bank in Ullapool.)

The incoming tide had already covered the narrow strip of sand at Badentarbat, but there were a couple of dunlin picking about in the seaweed. Then I noticed a bird with them that had bright white underparts with no black belly-patch, and there was my first sanderling of the year. To mark the occasion, it had donned its best blue legs.

It could be a good day for a visit to Achnahaird, I thought, as rain during the night might have brought some waders in. Making my way past the dunes I could see lots of scurrying dots on the machair ahead, and judged them to be almost all dunlin and ringed plover.  But a paler bird with no black belly-patch caught my eye, and I began to wonder if it was a curlew sandpiper. A second bird joined it and they fed together ravenously, and sometimes in a rather ungainly fashion - presumably because of their long legs.

Another warm and sunny day - although it was also extremely windy. In the morning I walked the river spit and then the length of the dog-walking field (for the umpteenth time this spring) but nothing new was seen or heard. After lunch I drove north to the Keanchulish Estate - and as I got out of the car, I was thrilled to hear the reeling of a grasshopper warbler start up from the bog myrtle beyond the fence. Magical!

Several willow warblers were singing, a buzzard cruised across the hillside, and a cuckoo was heard but not seen.

Yesterday: A sedge warbler was singing in the village, down by the loch.

It'll be interesting to see if we get whitethroat - I don't recalling seeing them last year. Meanwhile, I'm in disbelief that I've somehow missed pink-footed geese this year. I think I've seen them on their migration north every other spring we've lived here. I fear they're all gone now. :o( 

 Beinn Liath Mhor a' Ghiubhais Li

Greger felt well enough to resume his Spanish class today, so I decided to go up this Corbett for the tenth time. Seems a bit mad, but the hill is a good bet for finding ptarmigan - and I also wanted to see if I could still get up a hill (and back down, of course). A wheatear, a golden plover, and several meadow pipits were seen in the distance on the ascent. It was a warm sunny day and very hard going, but I finally reached the summit shelter and collapsed in it to eat my lunch and drink loads of water (some Fannichs in the background).

There was a strong wind blowing from the east, which decided me against walking further along the ridge. I scanned the plateau in vain and then set off back down, determined to zig-zag across the slope in my bid to see ptarmigan. A flash of white in one of the boulder fields (ramparts?) caught my eye - but I couldn't get the camera out quickly enough as a mountain hare loped off down the hill and out of sight. I sat down for a drink just before the rocks came to an end, giving way to wet grass and sparse heather. The view to the north looked as though plantations of conifers had sprouted - but they were just cloud shadows, moving swiftly across the landscape.