Thursday, May 15, 2025
A warm dusty walk up the quarry road as far as the river brought sightings of narrow-bordered bee hawk-moths - a single one at the top of the road and two at the bottom, near the lower quarry (or sorting yard).
A green hairstreak butterfly was a first for the quarry road. At one point I heard the sudden softish but explosive call of a female cuckoo - often described as "bubbling", though to me it sounds a bit like "wi-wi-wi-wick". I didn't see the bird, although later I would glimpse a cuckoo in swift and silent flight across the river gorge.
Yesterday: Walking round the side of the dunes at Achnahaird we noticed the five whimbrel at the same time - and too late not to put them to flight. They skimmed the tops of the dunes and seemed to dip down again, so I don't think they went far.
We'd crossed the machair where the pink tufts of thrift were just breaking through and seen nothing, when a flock of small waders went careering past, low down, towards the sea. Where had they come from?! I hoped they would land, but they kept on going. Greger last saw them banking round the headland towards Garvie Bay, and they didn't return. Tantalising. At Badentarbat there were ringed plovers, oystercatchers, one unseen dunlin, one great skua, and a pair of common sandpipers.
I've finally identified the fly on the rock, seen during our hill-walk three days ago, as a deer warble fly (Hypoderma diana). It's from the same family as the bot fly, which is more commonly known as deer nasal bot; but the warble fly lays its eggs on the back of the animal rather than in the nose. Warble fly is a notifiable disease, in cattle at least (info and photos on naturalist.org and Flickr.com).
// posted by Christine @ 2:06 PM 
