Winter wanderings

I'm sure that to many birders it is starting to feel like a very long winter. This is certainly the case in the Scottish Highlands with frequent bouts of gales interspersed with rain, hail, sleet and snow. The sun has rarely been seen and the short daylight hours provide scant opportunity to get in the field. Trying to photograph birds has been very frustrating with generally dreadful light levels. Despite the challenging conditions I have managed to scrape together a year list of 116 and also got to see a few decent birds including a couple of white-winged gulls, two tundra bean geese, a handful of snow buntings, a water pipit, a jacksnipe and a small flock of scaup- all pretty tame in a wider British context but very welcome birds in this part of the world at this time of the year. This morning at Ardmair I saw a couple of displaying ringed plovers and there was a mini fall of 4 pied wagtails and a meadow pipit- signs that birds are returning for the as yet very distant spring! 

Bean geese (tundra) at Ardmair

Iceland gull (Achnahaird)

distant Scaup at Alturlie point

wintery scene on Slioch overlooking loch Maree

Birdtrack ramble

Spring came and went, the migrants were thin on the ground and I found nothing in the NW to quicken the pulse, with 'local' star attractions limited to wood warbler, ring ouzel and osprey. Now tis 'summer', birds are becoming less vocal and are busy nesting or raising their broods. With a near 300 mile drive to twitch a blue-winged teal the only sort of twitch temptation, I decided to spend some time on a local patch and submit another bird track list. Highlights- well none really unless you count a greenshank, 2 twite and a couple of singing sedge warblers but I had four hours along the coast to the north of Ullapool and managed to record 37 species. I also got a few snaps and enjoyed some lovely scenery and dry, cool weather. All good stuff but worryingly I have yet to record a whitethroat NW of Inverness!

linnet

twite

Ardmair bay from the NNE

greenfinch

rock pipit

mallard & ducklings

The velvet touch

Poor weather has prevented me from travelling east to twitch a couple of interesting rarities and so I have spent time working the local area. At this time of the year I rely heavily on gulls, grebes and divers  and the occasional sea duck to brighten the short dark days. It was a real bonus to find two velvet scoters in Ardmair bay about 3 miles north of the village. Although not considered a great rarity, these birds are very uncommon along the NW coast. I trolled through my old field notebooks and realised that I have not recorded this species here for a good number of years! The session also turned up a slavonian grebe, 7 great northern divers, 1 black-throated diver, 3 little grebes and a few goosander and red-breasted mergansers. The velvet scoter were diving for crustaceans about 30 metres out from the shingle beach and by waiting for them both to dive I was able to walk down the shingle to get a couple of snaps even though the light was very poor. Nice birds for the local area!