Christine's walking & birds blog

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.

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.

Yesterday: What a strange pelagic! To begin with, the lady in the terminal warned me that there could be disruption with the 17.30 sailing from Ullapool. I couldn't really see how that would affect us - unless it meant that the disruption would begin in Stornoway - so I bought the tickets anyway, and then regretted that I hadn't waited to consult Greger, who had diverted to Tesco to buy a newspaper. It wouldn't normally be too much of a hardship to get a B&B in Stornoway for the night should we get stuck, but it would mean he would miss his Spanish lesson the following day. Anyway, when he arrived, he said it was okay. Next, we were informed that the passenger gangway was undergoing repairs (the Stornoway one has been out of action for two or three years), so we would have to exit the terminal building again, and walk round to enter via the car deck.

A white-winger on the dockside was probably the viking gull, and a small bird that flew over us and seemed to land somewhere on the ferry was possibly a house sparrow. The weather as we set sail down Loch Broom was wonderful; warm and sunny, with a relatively calm sea and good visibility. Trouble was, there was nothing much to see (well, apart from various military vessels on the horizon, taking part in NATO manoeuvres). As we neared Stornoway, the wind got up quite suddenly, and I decided I could safely eat my lunch. Needless to say, I then spotted a Manx shearwater - but couldn't do anything sensible with my camera as I had my hands and mouth full of bacon sandwich.

At Stornoway, there was a shorter wait than usual to get off via the car deck, probably thanks to less traffic. The vehicle queues waiting to board also seemed sort of shrunken - just two large trucks, and only small campervans (no "great whites"). Back on board, the difference from the morning trip was immediately obvious. The wind was quite strong, and it was now cold enough to warrant hat and gloves. I was surprised to see two small birds fly over me towards the rear of the boat - and keep going! Were they house sparrows? And where were they going? Somewhere in the Minch an announcement came that the Coastguard would be doing one of its training exercises - and my heart sank. No hope of birds while that was going on! Still, it's quite exciting, and some passengers came out from the indoor seating areas to watch two men be winched separately down onto the vehicle deck before one "rescued" the other by taking him up in a special harness.

Towards the end of the trip it was getting impossible to hold bins still in the wind, never mind camera, and I went down to have a hot chocolate before going back up for the slightly more sheltered waters of the Summer Isles and Loch Broom. About fifteen minutes from Ullapool, Greger said "What are they?" and pointed to a small flock of brownish birds flying low over the waves straight into the strong south-easterly wind. "Waders of some sort," I replied, clicking off a few photos as we overtook them. There were eleven of them, and it struck me eventually that they were golden plovers.

Coming into Ullapool, we foot passengers gathered towards the rear of the ferry to exit via the vehicle deck - once all the vehicles were off, of course. The member of staff who was good-humouredly marshalling us was approached by someone dangling her car keys - she couldn't get through the door onto the car deck, on the other side of the ferry. Greger and I looked at one another. Why on earth was she trying to access the car deck now? They routinely call drivers to return to their vehicles before the ferry even docks - and now it had docked, and they were already off-loading. Anyway, the man returned with the lady (apparently she was right, the door had been locked) and having seen her down the stairs on our side, he then returned and had just begun to engage in some banter with one or two passengers when one of the chaps who load the vehicles appeared at the top of the stairs. He said something to our man who then called out "Any more car drivers?" and four people stood up from the rear observation lounge - from where, through the lounge windows, they should have been able to see the vehicles leaving the ferry just below them! They looked surprised. "Black Audi?" queried our man. They looked even more surprised, but nodded. The man escorted them to the stairs and then returned, muttering "We'll get there in the end!" to much laughter.

Presumably the potential disruption was because the strong winds had been forecast - but whether the ferry did sail back to Stornoway this evening, I've no idea.

An early distant minke whale was spotted in Annat Bay from the ferry on this unpromising drizzly morning - and the first good bird was a dark-phase Arctic skua, flying low over the water.  There were several groups on board and I could only get rail room facing south; I turned now and then to scan the sea to the north and at last saw loads of shearwaters! I managed to squeeze in on the end of the group - but what with the restricted room, the strongish wind, and the swift flight of the birds, my pics weren't much cop (well, nothing unusual there).

The shearwaters seemed to be mostly sooties with a few Manxies - or so I thought at the time.....

Yesterday: A white-winger was spotted then lost in Loch Broom, as the ferry returned to Ullapool after a windy, sunny pelagic. I shot hopefully into the gathering of gulls - and managed to catch it.

It looks fairly large, but appearances are deceptive - especially with such a rubbish photo; and let's face it, this wouldn't be the first time that a pelagic has ended for me with a sighting of that perennial nuisance, the viking gull.

After more research I've decided to record the bee spotted on our little local hill more than a week ago as a heath bumblebee (Bombus jonellus). In the info found online, the heath bumblebee is often described as being noticeably fluffy - which certainly fits the individual seen nectaring on the top of the hill in the heather.  When Greger and I went up the hill again three days ago, we got a glimpse of something like it but I couldn't get a decent shot. However, there was compensation in a hoverfly that wasn't familiar, which I've finally identified as Eriozona syrphoides (common name bear syrph or bear fly).

I found it on the website skyeinfocus.co.uk and even then almost plumped for one or two similar but wrong species (in other genera) - until I thought "Ah. That could be it!" I must admit I'd never heard of the genus before. Armed with a name, I found further confirmation in Steven Falk's images on Flickr, and others.

As for the broken-belted bumblebee that I might or might not have seen towards the end of my hill-walk on August 30th - well, I'm not so sure. It could be a white-tailed with the central yellow hairs worn away (the lemony yellow of the bands pointing to white-tailed rather than red) while my bee certainly doesn't have the neat look of a broken-belted on the assyntwildlife website. Oh well, at least I've learned about a new bumblebee species, even if I haven't seen one yet. From what I can gather, they are rather scarce.

Meanwhile, things are livening up in Loch Broom, with feeding frenzies of gulls and gannets occurring towards high tide over the last few days. Dolphins and whales might be possible, but if I'm to spot any special gulls, I'll need them to come closer to shore. As I came away from the very windy golf-course spit, I saw this female black darter, zipping around near the allotments.

On the spit itself, just before high tide, were a few common gulls, a handful of oystercatchers, and a dozen ringed plovers; while two adult turnstone were also sheltering from the weather with ten or eleven juveniles.