Friday, February 28, 2025

Having spotted a sparrowhawk from the bedroom window this morning, I grabbed the camera and rushed outside. There was no sign now of the hawk, but scanning the ridge of Ullapool Hill I saw a distant golden eagle, flying south - and took a record shot of that instead.


Later at Ardmair, things looked quiet at low tide and as it was also quite windy I got back in the car. Something caught my eye - something brown moving swiftly along below the lay-by, on the grassy bank leading down to the beach. It was a red-legged partridge, running past my car about a metre away. It flew across to the sheep fields where it was joined by a second individual - both looking perilously conspicuous (at least through bins - with the naked eye, they could hardly be seen).

  

Like pheasants, red-legged partridges disappeared from my lists a long time ago as both are non-native species, introduced into the UK for the purpose of "sport". In fact, the Keanchulish Estate isn't far away, and on their website they offer "fast Partridges...driven off cliffs to the guns below on the beach....". Well, how jolly sporting. 

Back home, I decided to do some "gardening" - i.e. slashing at a huge buddleia so that the oil delivery man can get to the tank next week! Given the sparrowhawk and the eagle of the morning, I hung my camera on the handle of our old lawnmower that's waiting to go to the tip - just in case something else turned up. 

The clamour of gulls was distant at first - probably from the harbour - but it grew louder, and looking in that direction I had a glimpse through branches of something big. Grabbing the camera I walked out into the open to see two white-tailed eagles making their way unhurriedly towards me. Unlike the sparrowhawk, they didn't quite go over the bungalow or even the garden - but they were pretty close. 



Some might consider the white-tailed eagle to be as "untickable" as the partridges - but at least they were once native to this country; and they've been reintroduced by people who care about wild birds, as opposed to those whose only wish where birds are concerned is to blast them to smithereens. Again, some argue against the reintroduction of raptors when the numbers of many passerines for example are in severe decline - and perhaps they have a point. Meanwhile, today, still in the middle of birding doldrums, I enjoyed seeing both the runaway partridges and the two eagles, the latter magnificently oblivious to the shrieking protests of gulls and corvids as they circled over the village and then flew slowly off to the north. 

// posted by Christine @ 10:57 AM 0 comments

Saturday, February 22, 2025

My first greenshank of the year was seen in Dundonell, feeding at the end of Little Loch Broom with three redshanks.


Otherwise, birds were mostly absent on our drive south. From one of the high lay-bys at First Coast, in a maddening wind and a heavy shower, I spotted something flying low across the water that looked very much like a shearwater. A few days ago, my first redpolls of the year (two) were in a flock of goldfinches and siskins in the plantations up at the Braes - feeding in larches.

// posted by Christine @ 9:54 AM 0 comments

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Once again, a clear night-sky resulted in a sharp morning frost, followed by a day of unbroken sunshine.  It was bitterly cold. Greger suggested a trip out to Achnahaird - our first visit there this year - and on our drive round the area we flushed a flock of twite. They soon landed again and proceeded to forage on the sheep-grazed turf beneath the viewpoint - a site often favoured by twite.

 


They landed so close to the car that I had to zoom out - and even then I failed to get sharp pictures. They were constantly on the move, while grass in my experience always presents a muddled background. Plus, I'm just not a very good photographer!

Another picture shows twenty-two individuals, but there were probably at least thirty altogether. They were a lovely surprise, giving me one of two new birds for the year - the other being a kestrel, hunting over the beach at Badentarbat. 

We spent the last two days of January in Aberdeen, where Greger needed to consult one of the "Genius Bar" in the Apple Store about the Apple watch I bought him for his 70th birthday, which had stopped linking with his smartphone - or something. We took a short walk at Nigg Bay, where we saw bottlenose dolphins (frequent visitors, apparently) and we also revisited the splendid esplanade to the north of the city, where you can park at the side of the very wide road for nothing.  From here we saw a raft of common scoter and several long-tailed ducks. (These, however, were always distant, and it was satisfying a week later to spot a local and slightly closer common scoter at Ardmair - February 7th). Meanwhile, one of the geniuses had updated the watch and all was well. Before setting off for home, we drove to the charging area, plugged the car in, and walked over to Ikea - where we stocked up on some cakes to take home and also had a very nice bowl each of tomato and basil soup, including roll and butter - the damage being just over £5 for the two.


// posted by Christine @ 10:16 AM 0 comments

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