Wednesday, May 15, 2024
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.
