Christine's walking & birds blog

Yesterday: I couldn't wait any longer to try my first hill-walk of the year, so I went to bed early the night before - and managed to miss the exciting match between England and France! I also missed Greger's cooked breakfast the following morning as I wanted to make an early start. 

Almost there.....

.....and because I knew I wasn't going on from this top, I spent some time studying the flora and fauna. Not much of the second - just a queen bumblebee (probably white-tailed) nectaring on heather.....

.....and a beetle which clearly didn't want my company....

.....and, given that it was the same size as the bumblebee, I didn't mind at all. There was Arctic bearberry (I think) everywhere, its berries a dark red; they'll be ripe when they turn black.

There was also quite a colony of lovely lilac orchids, which I think are either common spotted orchid or heath spotted-orchid. They and the strongly coloured bell heather were beautifully complemented by the rock.

Even at a distance, this small patch of grass stood out against the greenery; its stems and seed-heads were golden in the bright sunshine, but buffeted constantly by the wind (excuse for less-than-sharp pic).

This rosette of leaves is a bit of an ID mystery to me; I've narrowed it down to a species of fleabane, hawkweed, or willowherb - possibly. The "alpine" form of any of the three would be a good find, and I'll keep on researching it.

On the descent of the steep, often wet slopes, I thought that my left walking pole suddenly felt light - looked down, and realised half of it was missing. Oops - there it is, stuck in the ground behind me.

I made my way down with one-and-a-half poles; but Greger has since mended it for me, hooray! Meanwhile - this is probably a meadow grasshopper.

Birds were scarce today, with only meadow pipits on the hill itself. Other birds: a family of stonechats, a common gull flying along the loch, house martins wheeling and swooping over the dam, and several redpolls.

My stiff legs and aching lower back this morning reminded me that I'm not very fit at the moment - so I'm glad I did the walk, both because it was great to be up there again and because it was good training for our anticipated ascent of the usual Corbett once Greger is completely over his cold. 

There were a good number of water lobelia in the roadside pool, but a cool wind raking the high moors set them all dancing, making a sharp picture difficult.

It has to be said though that we are at last having a bit of a heatwave - though nothing like the temperatures seen recently in England. More in the 22-25ºC range for us. We know our place.

A blue-tailed damselfly was again present - presumably a male.

The edges of the pool are rough, with a high tangle of grass and heather to fight through; and everything I wanted to photograph seemed to be in the middle! One thing that was at the edge was something that was new to me - a backswimmer. My ancient Observer's Book of Pond Life calls it simply a water boatman, while the lesser water boatman is the one that swims the right way up.

At the far end of the pool was a second blue-tailed damselfly.

But now confusion creeps in - because from all I've read on this species, the above individual should be an immature male. However, this one flew a short way and then proceeded to lay eggs. More research needed.

There were lots of whirligig beetles on the surface of the water; and after quite a search I identified the creature below as a species of the Gerridae family (pond skaters, water striders, etc.) in its larval form.

Meanwhile, a couple of days ago, yet another wasp - head encrusted with pollen- was nectaring on the popular nettle-leaved bellflowers. This seems to be a potter or mason wasp, but they are a headache to identify so again, I'll read up on it later.

A dark giant horsefly landed on my car for a wash and brush-up, the touching eyes showing it was a male.

A few seconds later a female landed on the ground.

I read somewhere that this particular horsefly is no threat to humans, but further reading informed me that the female will bite people if she feels like it - and she seems to have pretty forbidding mouthparts, so I'll keep my distance in future.

At last - during another mini-safari in the garden - a bird! Okay, "only" a re-introduced white-tailed eagle, but I'd defy anyone to look up at the fuss the gulls were making, spot this in the sky, and not be impressed.

The eagle headed north, flying right over the bungalow as it went - the bungalow to which poor Greger has been confined for a week, suffering from a really horrible cold. So far, I haven't caught it. Fingers crossed.

It's grey and drizzly here today, with definitely no hint of a heatwave. Popping out to pick up Greger's medicine, I had a short walk round the camp-site and along West Shore Street (where the coastal rowing regatta is getting underway) and then drove to West Terrace - from where I saw some common dolphins, quite far out towards the Summer Isles.

The last two days however, have been warm and (mostly) sunny, so "mustn't grumble"! I went on a mini safari and collected six new species of insect for the garden. This striking wasp landed on the nettle-leaved bellflower in front of me; it's almost certainly an Ichneumon species, perhaps Ichneumon suspiciosus.

A few bits and pieces to see June out.....a visit to the pool near Achnahaird brought more water lobelia plants than last year, with some flowers out and more to come.

Last year there were fewer flowers but I was pleased to see emerald damselflies mating; this time, I caught a blue-tailed damselfly by chance and didn't know until I looked at the pictures back home. I saw my first blue-tailed at Rosehall in July 2020 - just after our rather severe lockdown ended.

The weather forecast was pretty dire, but I walked down to the ferry terminal anyway - and the rain obligingly held off until I'd bought my return ticket to Stornoway. I sat by the side windows in the front observation lounge until well past the Summer Isles, then braved the light showers up on deck. It made no difference - there was still nothing to see!

In the harbour at Stornoway there was at least MV Glen Sannox to provide some interest. 

This new ferry generally sails a route much further south, between Troon and the Isle of Arran, but is here in Stornoway to fill in for MV Loch Seaforth on Saturday while "essential maintenance" is carried out on the latter vessel. If you travel out from Ullapool at 10.30 am for a there-and-back you'll be on the Loch Seaforth as usual - but you'll travel back on the Glen Sannox. I wished then that I'd left my trip until Saturday - but looking closely at the outdoor seating areas on the Glen Sannox, I suspect that this ferry wasn't designed with birdwatchers in mind!

There is still work going on at the new Deep Water Terminal for cruise ships. Love this company name.

Back to sea - and things cheered up a little. The rain had stopped, but there was now a coldish wind from the south. I was standing at the north-facing rail on the upper deck when I turned to look across the ship - only to see a dark bird flying parallel with us on that side. I rushed across and grabbed a few shots of my first Arctic skua of the year; this was the only usable picture, and I'm surprised I managed that when I could hardly hold the camera still.

I wish I'd realised at the time that two terns flying on the far side of the bay at Achnahaird earlier today were not the usual commons, but Sandwich terns! I even mimicked the single "eerk" call - heard just before we were distracted by some distant birds on the water (which turned out to be "just" mergansers) - and still didn't twig.

A walk up the quarry road brought no wood warbler - but I did see my first spotted flycatcher of the year.

A sharp shower of rain made me seek shelter under the trees, after which I had a dry walk back down. It was very wet underfoot everywhere, with streams where there usually aren't streams, and waterlogged grassy areas where I've previously walked seeking dragonflies, butterflies, and lizards. An unpromising puddle in a gravelly ditch showed movement - at least seven palmate newts! A nice dark male showed the distinguishing marks of his species and sex (at least in the breeding season), i.e the webbed appearance of the hind feet and a filament end to the tail.