Christine's walking & birds blog

Saturday, March 21, 2026

On a dull breezy day at Achnahaird, our first wheatear of the year was spotted by Greger.

Skylarks and meadow pipits were also present. There was nothing else on the machair, and it wasn't until we walked down to the sea that we saw a few oystercatchers and a bar-tailed godwit - the latter with a broken, or deformed bill.

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!

// posted by Christine @ 11:00 AM 0 comments

Saturday, February 28, 2026

An absolutely beautiful day called me out, and I drove up to Knockan Crag; but I'd forgotten my Leki poles, and as I'm still a bit scared of slipping on wet grass and rocks I decided against walking the very steep geology trail. Driving back, I had a glimpse of a couple of birds on the narrow Loch Braigh nan Allt, lying next to the road but mostly hidden by a high bank. I pulled into a lay-by and walked back, but the birds had disappeared. Just to make sure, I clambered up onto the bank for a better view - and realised that I was standing on the remains of an old road, running parallel with the A835.

Looking south:

Looking north:

I found the old road on its bank useful for the walk back to my car, although it didn't go all the way. I like old roads, and discovering this one made up for the loss of the birds.

I thought I'd check Loch Cul Dromannan as well - where I found a nice goldeneye.

I'm having problems with computers. On the new Big Mac, PAGES hangs up when I try to get into it, so I can't access the lists I keep there. I also have a few lists on the old Big Mac; I can't just print these out as the printer only links to the new Big Mac - and I can't transfer them to the new computer because documents automatically go into PAGES - which keeps hanging up. And if we get rid of the old Big Mac, they'll be lost. So I've photographed the list of Scottish hill-walking birds from the screen and, as February is fairly empty, I'm going to park it here.

Quickly scanning the document, I noticed that I'd left out one memorable encounter - the adult dotterel with two chicks on Ben Wyvis in June 2019. Also, I've heard dotterel on two other hills but I can't recall when I did those particular walks - and my blog has become too sprawling to search through. Perhaps it's time to stop. Meanwhile: When I try to type something into the search bar, SAFARI hangs up. I can sign into my blog, but the moment I try to type something - SAFARI hangs up. With both this and PAGES, a Report box flashes up on the screen - and promptly disappears again, so it's impossible to report it! I have to write my blog on the old machine, but I can't get the sizing of the photos right, so I have to do that on the new one (PHOTOS is, so far, still working!), and transfer them to my blog on the old one on a memory stick. It's mad - the old Big Mac works better than the new one - except for being compatible with the printer. I give up.

// posted by Christine @ 10:27 AM 0 comments

Thursday, February 19, 2026

A very dozy purple sandpiper was on the golf-course spit just after high tide.

I managed to get a couple of shots as the other waders shuffled around, briefly waking the purple sandpiper - which also relocated slightly and then went straight back to sleep.

// posted by Christine @ 5:18 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

The strong southeasterly winds continue, and along West Shore Street two fugitives from the storms were seen - a stonechat foraging on both beach and road, and a red-breasted merganser.

The poor shot (excuse alert - into the sun and heaving sea!) of the merganser is interesting because it shows (probably) that its prey was a scorpion fish. The next moment the merganser had dived, as a trio of gulls swooped to pinch its meal. They didn't succeed, but I'm not sure if the merganser did either, as it resurfaced a few seconds later without the fish. A third year tick was obtained nearby as a wren hopped about among the tables opposite the Arch Inn.

// posted by Christine @ 4:12 AM 0 comments

Monday, January 12, 2026

Yesterday: A third trip up to the dam, with a partial thaw underway, brought only two birds - but they gave me a year tick, and, more interestingly, displayed some behaviour that I hadn't seen before. We spotted them as soon as we pulled into the still-crunchy lay-by - two birds flying and swooping round the control tower at great speed; I identified them as kestrels and commented that they must be two male birds, disputing territory.

One landed on a shelf halfway up the tower while the second bird made several dives at it in a seemingly aggressive manner - after which they both flew off and made a large circle over the valley below, returning to perch now and then in the treetops of the plantation. My poor picture at least proves that I was wrong - one was a female.

Back home I consulted Birds of the Western Palearctic, which says "Courtship often occurs well before breeding season, both sexes circling and chasing....male repeatedly diving at female in mock attacks". I have to confess that, down south, I found the kestrel a rather boring bird (familiarity breeding, not contempt exactly, just lack of interest); but this dazzling display changed my mind. It was also nice to discover that, despite appearances, it was all about bonding, not battle.

// posted by Christine @ 3:58 AM 0 comments

Friday, January 09, 2026

The coal tit was finding what looked like tiny larvae in the moss on the wall.

Just after I'd taken a photo along the iced-over loch, another small bird came flying high towards us out of the seemingly lifeless frozen scenery, calling repeatedly.

The call was a pleasing, falling "chyoo", similar to a reed bunting's call but less sharp and emphatic. Luckily for us it landed on the roof of the control tower, and I was thrilled to see it was a snow bunting.

The bunting didn't hang around but soon flew off in the direction of the road and the wind-farm.

We pulled into the Fannichs lay-by as we'd spotted red grouse near here yesterday. One was immediately visible....

.....and then a much closer one popped its head up above the bank of snow that had been heaped there by a snow-plough. There were about fifteen grouse altogether.

A buzzard was glimpsed from the car on the high moors, flying and gliding very low above the ground; and common dolphins were seen quite far up Loch Broom and also from West Terrace in the village. A nice outing on a very cold day!

Yesterday: A raven was calling and displaying above the dam, and as we walked back to the car we spotted a golden eagle - which was already flying away from us.

At the other end of the loch, a reed bunting flew from bush to bush, keeping low in the freezing weather; and several red grouse were seen in flight.

// posted by Christine @ 8:12 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, December 24, 2025

I didn't get to West Terrace until one o'clock, when I spotted a whale far out - and when I overheard someone saying that one or possibly two whales had been breaching in the loch this morning, I thought that was all I was going to see today. However, we were all in for a treat - and Greger drove up at just the right moment to see the action as well.