Saturday, August 22, 2026
The first birds we saw on our walk, between the dunes and the farm, were swooping house martins and swallows, and a young wheatear on the remains of a wall.
The brief call of a curlew drifted up from the machair, and as we made our way down Greger spotted three waders flying past. Two black-tailed godwits and a curlew were keeping company - although a bit later we would see a flock of nine curlews - possibly all juveniles.
We scanned the salt marsh, spotting several more wheatears, and turned onto the soft deep sand along the edge of the river.
The only small waders had been a couple of ringed plovers until, in an area of dried seaweed and holdfasts, a slight movement betrayed the presence of seven foraging sanderling.
We had been aware for some time of small bees flying past us across the beach, and although I couldn't manage to snap one, I caught three of them by chance here, at the top of the frame.
I've seen bees on the beach once before, and they had turned out to be Colletes bees (probably Colletes succinctus); so I knew I should look for their nests up on the cliffs on the far side of the beach. In fact, these bees were heading in that direction. Sure enough, there was a great deal of activity already, with males waiting outside the excavated nesting holes in the sand to mate with emerging females. This was a fairly substantial aggregation, but apparently they can be much bigger! I retreated carefully, fearful of treading on either the bees or the striped snails which speckle the ground here like tiny white flowers.
Across the headland, a lovely melancholy call from the choppy water alerted me to the presence of three black-throated divers - two adults and a juvenile.
Good to see proof of successful breeding!
// posted by Christine @ 1:22 PM 
