Christine's walking & birds blog

I ventured out in the cold to do some gardening this afternoon. For the last two or three days the sky and tree-tops have been full of winter thrushes, and it was nice to hear the "chat-chak-chak" of fieldfare as I worked, and sometimes the quieter "seep" of redwing. The berries around the village won't hold out much longer, so I expect every day to find they've moved on; even before they arrived, the rowan trees nearby had been plundered by blackbirds, song thrushes, and wood pigeons. The rowans in the grounds of the medical centre haven't been quite stripped yet - and I was surprised to see several rooks perched in them, feeding on the berries.

Eventually pausing in my labours to look up, I watched thrushes streaming across the sky until I spotted a smaller bird among them; surely not a hirundine?    

Beinn Liath Mhor a' Ghiubhais Li

Yes, it was back to this old favourite for my third and Greger's first hill-walk of the year. We walked fairly fast up the 2.5 km forest track and then stopped for a drink; we'd agreed that if either of us felt we couldn't do it, this was the point where we'd say so. We were both for going on - although we did find it hard work. Two bird sightings cheered the ascent. First, two red grouse erupted croaking from the long grass and glided swiftly downhill before I could get the camera out; and then a short, plaintive call betrayed the presence of a golden plover. I caught a glimpse of the plover as it flew across the rocky hillside and was just in time to grab a record shot before it, too, disappeared from view.

  

We reached the first cairn on the summit plateau without seeing ptarmigan, and had lunch looking over Loch Glascarncoch to Ben Wyvis. 

We soon chilled down and so didn't sit there for long. A raven flew over calling, and Greger took a rather nice photo of the Beinn Dearg group with his smartphone.

To Inverness today - resulting in both pain and pleasure. I enjoyed the drive from darkness into light across moorland and past mountains sprinkled with snow. Greger caught me up at the traffic lights by Loch Garve (he always accompanies me now that my car is so dodgy, so he can give me a lift home!) Sure enough, just as we finished lunch in Girvans the message came through that the car had failed its MOT and would cost nearly £2,000 to put right. I'd sort of expected it, but still - "Oh dear". The car has been left with them for a few weeks, and I'm still in turmoil as to whether I've done the right thing - or whether it would have been wiser to give up, and send it to the graveyard for knackered cars. :o(

Before we went to Girvans, Greger suggested a trip out to Alturlie. The tide was in, rain threatened, and altogether it didn't look promising. I got out and saw a redshank along the narrow strip of stony beach, standing against the water. That's rather a long slender bill, I thought. The wader took off and flew further along the shore; and a lovely call that I haven't heard for years - a clear, rising "chuvit!" - told me even before I noticed the lack of conspicuous white wing bars that this was a spotted redshank.  

I walked from home on this grey day with no sun; along the river path, round the spit, and through the camp-site. Along Old Moss Road, a reddish animal went bounding across the road - a sighting so brief that I couldn't tell if I was looking at a weasel or a squirrel. Probably the former.

From the camp-site I watched common dolphins making their way up the loch over near the opposite bank. By the time I reached the point at the end of West Shore Street, they had crossed the loch and were active below the Braes of Ullapool.

Eventually they made their way back down the loch, passing quite close to the point.

A moth looking like a dead leaf on the bungalow wall was snapped awkwardly through the bedroom window this morning; I've since identified it as an angle shades - although rather dark, so possibly a melanistic form.

The sunny weather after so much rain called me out to Achnahaird, where I found just one small flock of waders composed seemingly of c10 ringed plovers and just two sanderling. But hang on - wasn't there something smaller there?

A little stint - exactly what I'd been hoping for when we saw the Baird's sandpiper (?) back in September!

I haven't looked at the excellent highland birds.scot website for some time - mostly because I don't want to be tempted into twitching again. Yesterday I clicked on it and, in a masochistic sort of way, looked at reports for the last couple of weeks to see what goodies I'd missed! There was a sighting on September 23rd of a Baird's sandpiper at Achnahaird - which immediately got me looking back at my photos on a trip Greger and I made out there on the 20th. A feeding flock of dunlin, ringed plover, and sanderling kept us rooted to one spot for a while, as I scanned for something different. I thought I found it - a possible Baird's sandpiper, feeding near the sanderlings; but as ever, I lacked confidence in my ID skills, and as I didn't write a post for that day I forgot about the little wader, thinking it was just an odd-looking dunlin. I managed to get three photos.

They're poor images, but I think that, clicked-up, they show a straightish black bill, "scaly" upperparts, buffy breast, and wings that project beyond the tail. All good for Baird's - but then, I'm biased. (Later: I don't think this is a Baird's. The bill looks a mite too long, and the breast colour looks too solid. Just a coincidence, then, that another observer really did see one here on 23rd.)

The other thing that caught my eye was the report of a great shearwater "at Ullapool" on September 16th - the day of my sighting out on The Minch. Eh?! I could have stayed at home, saving myself the cost of a ferry ticket, and still seen a great shearwater! Well, that's birding for you.

We did a bit of very wet gardening on this changeable day of sunny spells and showers. The first sparrowhawk I've seen for some time flew over - escorted by a very vocal rook. A bit later, I was lucky to spot fifteen whooper swans flying high to the south just before they were lost against the sun.

At least, I assume they're whoopers, but I couldn't hear any calls to confirm ID. Never mind - I added them to my "one-mile-from-home" list anyway; more importantly they were a joy to watch as they passed over.