Saturday, April 25, 2026
Greger spotted a wheatear as we set off across the dam on this spectacularly sunny day - and eventually we saw three males, flying around singing in attempts presumably to woo a single female.
Perhaps I'm beginning to "see" white wagtails everywhere and these are in fact pied - although it's interesting to note that 30 white wagtails were recorded on North Uist yesterday (Western Isles Wildlife website).
A cuckoo was heard in the distance, and a common sandpiper was uttering its rather peevish alarm call from the loch shore. At one point, a sudden loud flapping halted us in our tracks as a bird broke cover in the trees and flew low along the bank, mostly hidden by conifers. We thought grouse, but whether red or black it was impossible to say.
Back at home, I snapped a picture of a tree bumblebee - my first here, I think, although they were frequent visitors to our garden in Taplow.
Talking of which, two things have put me off gardening recently; the first was getting my hands on unseen cat poo while clearing out old dead stuff from beneath our pretty Spiraea bush. At least the owners of dogs can be fined for not clearing up after them, but cat owners - amazingly - aren't held responsible for where their pets relieve themselves - which is, more often than not, in other people's gardens. The other thing was - ticks. I've had three already this year, two tiny larvae (six legs instead of eight) which are supposed less of a threat, and one adult - which was already engorged with my blood by the time I realised it was there.
I also had a spooky moment recently when I went to the loo in the night. A couple of small noises from above made me look up, thinking an insect was trying to escape through the skylight. As I gazed up trying to see it, a pale, ghostly face suddenly appeared against the black sky - and instantly disappeared. It reappeared, this time with the addition of a neck as the cat craned to see me better. It looked as astonished to see me as I was to see it. House sparrows nest in our roof space, and no doubt it was after them. That's now one herring gull and one cat caught peeking at me through the skylight - the gull, when I was in the altogether. This animal voyeurism has to stop!
Friday, April 24, 2026
Yesterday: I walked the crag for the umpteenth time this year, hoping for a ring ouzel. The lovely calls of black-throated divers rose from the lochan below, and from the top of the trail I could just make out two individuals, preening and diving. This is not a breeding loch.
On other visits I noticed that the crowberry was in flower; but the flowers are extremely small and difficult to make out. There are a few in the photo, with long stamens(I think) sticking out, and a few buds.
22nd April: On a bright but windy day I took a walk along the beach at Ardmair and saw two wheatears and a possible white wagtail.
21st April: We walked up the quarry road (10+ willow warblers heard singing) and back over Ullapool Hill. There were still a few newts in the puddle on the high track, and when we arrived back at the car a sand martin flew over - not our first this year as we saw at least ten birds around the Ledmore nesting site on 14th April, but our first in Ullapool. We then called in at the garage for ice creams, and drove round to West Terrace to eat them. Having had quite enough of the wind during our walk we sat in the car - and as soon as we had unwrapped and started to eat our ice creams, a herring gull landed on the grass verge next to us. A second bird joined it. I thought they would walk about on the verge "worming" as they sometimes do here - but the first gull then flew up onto the bonnet and stared at us through the windscreen.
Have tourists parking along the road begun to feed the gulls so that they've come to see any car as a potential source of food - or did this gull just happen to cruise by and see us eating? It seems that herring gulls are growing more skilled at spotting food and bolder in their pursuit of it; but their attempts to snatch food from people eating outdoors is somewhat different from the deliberate attacks made on us when chicks are being protected in the breeding season.
Oh, and I still haven't seen a ring ouzel!
Monday, April 13, 2026
The element of surprise is important in my birding - that's the main reason I stopped twitching. I hadn't expected to see any terns today at Chanonry Point, so when a Sandwich tern flew past it was a perfect birding moment.....
.....especially when two others joined it. We then drove as usual to Udale Bay on the Cromarty Firth. After coffee and cake, I walked away from the lay-by and along the narrow verge to view the pink-foots in hopes of spotting a bean goose, for instance; a man followed me and asked if I'd seen the little ringed plover. It was news to me that a little ringed plover was present - and I said so, rather pointedly. After the man had walked away, I saw it - distant but quite visible - so I have no doubt that I would have got onto it eventually; but that element of surprise had been taken away. I was robbed!
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I do regret my short answers to this perfectly polite and probably nice man, but there seems to be nothing I can do about my reaction in such encounters - except to stay away from Udale. I had the uppity jitters all the way home and couldn't "come down" again for some time. Am I going completely bonkers? Will I turn into Donald Trump?
Thursday, April 09, 2026
The wind-whipped sea at Achnahaird held a pair of black-throated divers, a shag, two razorbills, and a distant Slavonian grebe.
As often happens in the Coigach area, I found myself disappointing sheep. If you drive past fairly quickly they take no notice of you - but because they were wandering across the road as well as grazing and browsing (the second, on gorse of all things!) I was forced to slow right down. This evidently gave them the idea that I was going to feed them because the first ones I edged past started to bleat. Others further along the road took this up as I reached them; and given how individual each bleat was, it made quite a cacophony. I wish I could post a clip from my dash-cam as it was very funny. Meanwhile, here are three sheep contentedly chewing the cud - at least I didn't disappoint them.
Across the headland, I drove down onto the grass and had started to eat my lunch when I caught sight of something on the beach that required further investigation.
This proved to be the carcass of a whale; the remains measured roughly 20ft, although they were very degraded and that probably doesn't mean much. This is presumably part of the spine.
Apparently, the carcass was first seen on March 29th and has been identified by Scottish Marine Animals Stranding Scheme as a sperm whale.
Yesterday: I walked out along the golf course and sat on the stony beach, watching the gulls clustering round a fishing boat. There was a sudden clamour and they all rose high into the sky; I scanned for a white-tailed eagle, but what I saw was a bonxie - maybe the same individual I spotted about a week ago from Ardmair - speeding in with some panache and circling the boat before settling on the water.
Once it had landed, the gulls calmed down and returned to the water themselves. Walking back past the duck pond, I heard what would have been my first willow warbler of the year singing - but I have an idea a chaffinch chased it away. I was luckier with a chiffchaff, singing nearby.
Sand martins, however, continue to remain unspotted.
Saturday, April 04, 2026
I've been distressed on behalf of all the tourists pouring into the area, given that apocalypse now (or Storm Dave) is apparently on the way - so I was pleasantly surprised this morning to open the curtains and see a blue sky, and hardly a breath of wind. We drove south to the Silverbridge/Longart Forest area for the umpteenth time lately, hoping that on this walk we would actually see a crossbill.
We only just managed to squeeze into the crowded car park, and then set off in sunshine - though gloved and hatted! For the third time this year, I was sure I heard a crossbill's quiet "gip" call from the canopy directly above us and in the same area. It was only later, and from a distance, that I finally spotted an orange male feeding in the top of a pine tree (photo much cropped).
We pulled into the wind farm road to have coffee and buns, and then got out to scan for black grouse - but nothing doing. A faint, fugitive call hung on the air for a nanosecond and left only silence. Then it came again - and it was getting closer. Realisation dawned - "Pink-footed geese!" and we looked up to see, high, high in the sky, about seventy birds flying north; these were followed by a second lot of c200.
Magical to see and hear! Around six o'clock this evening (just as the Met Office predicted), the precipitation began. I call it that because it was so mixed - rain, sometimes a bit of unconvincing snow, then sleet; the garden was soon just soaking wet, but sure enough the high ground was beginning to take on a whitish appearance. But not much wind so far. Anyway, glad the Easter weekend has had one good day.
Friday, April 03, 2026
It was horribly cold today so we had a lazy drive down the coast. The five black-throated divers were on Loch Ewe.
Yesterday, a dark bird way over on the other side of Loch Broom, spotted from Ardmair, was what I hoped it would be - my first great skua of the year.
While, back in the village, a less exciting tick was provided on the golf-course spit by two Canada geese.
Come to think of it, are they actually tickable, given as how they're foreign and all that? Oh well, they're on my list now.
Saturday, March 21, 2026
On a dull breezy day at Achnahaird, our first wheatear of the year was spotted by Greger.
The small loch by the farmhouse held 21 whooper swans; they were asleep with their necks bent back when we arrived, which made me fear avian flu; but when we drove out, they were awake and feeding okay. I grabbed a shot from the car and by chance caught both an adult and an immature.
Driving out of the area we spotted an immature white-tailed eagle.
Yesterday, a walk up the quarry road and back over Ullapool Hill gave me mating newts in their usual puddle. The strong wind was ruffling the water, but I kept this pic of a male palmate newt as it shows the webbing on its hind foot. In another puddle, there was frogspawn.
The day before that, my first grey wagtail of the year was flying up and down the Black Water River at Silverbridge.
I'd had a short walk in lovely weather on my way to the railway station at Garve. The previous day, Greger had taken the bus to Inverness, where he caught an Ember electric bus to Edinburgh. Thanks to our travel cards, he travelled free all the way! He spent the night in Edinburgh, but decided to come back by train; he'd also applied for a railcard and so got a discount. Garve is as close as the railway gets to Ullapool, hence my drive to pick him up. He'd enjoyed going on public transport for a change, and was impressed by the electric bus; his only moan about the whole trip was that, on returning to the hotel after a meal at All Bar One, there had been no Vera on the telly! (We stay at Premier Inns quite a lot, and there's always a Vera to watch on ITV3 - although generally, we fall asleep and miss the end.)
A recent trip to Aberdeen resulted in the purchase of a new Apple Mac. The geniuses couldn't repair the old one, but they managed to transfer everything on it to the spanking new one - so that's solved. The main bird interest of the trip was the huge number of herring gulls in every town we passed through - for instance Nairn, Forres, and Elgin. On fields between the towns there were loads more following ploughs or just loafing on the grass. They are becoming a bit of a problem - particularly when they nest on house roofs. The nest we watched from our back window last year has been cleared away and a large orange ball (buoy?) placed there to prevent a rebuilding this year. The two adult gulls still spend a lot of time on that particular chimney stack, and yesterday, one was standing there preening - right on top of the ball!
