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.
Three dunlin were with ringed plovers on the machair, and the bent-billed godwit I first saw here on March 21st was still around.
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.
Four Canada geese were an Achnahaird tick for me, and walking back to the car, I startled a snipe that had been close to the path; but I failed to see any golden plover or wheatears.
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).
It's possible that breeding is underway - crossbills are said to be discreet and wary while nesting, and it's certainly taken me an age to pin one down.
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.
Two Slavonian grebes were diving off Inverewe Garden.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
