Birds

We seem to have an abundance of sparrows up here this year. It's causing the odd punch-up on the bird feeders:







Though some species do manage to share it in peace:



Fortunately the hooded crow hasn't tried to hop on yet - he nearly breaks the fence, so I dread to think what he'd do to the feeder:



I'm trying to make more time for photography in my life, so yesterday morning I went down to the beach for an hour before breakfast, hoping to see the otter. This was the best picture I got during that time:



Not encouraging!! But today I went to the puffinry at Drumholistan and got some of my best pictures to date, which cheered me up no end:















I was amazed how close they let me get - apart from the first picture with just the puffin's head in it, these are uncropped photos.

Catching up (or What I Did On My Holidays)

Work is getting in the way of photography unfortunately, but here's a quick catch-up. Went on the Scullomie to Sletell ranger walk and saw this rather fine palmate newt:



Then it was off to Gairloch for a week with Mum and my cousin. Gairloch's very pretty:



And it was just my luck that after all the time I've spent looking for otters up here, the first time I get to photograph one is when it pops up in the bay in front of me as I'm having breakfast on holiday!



We saw some very dramatic weather at Red Point:



The astonishing Torridon mountain range:



The most photographed house on the Applecross peninsula:



Great Skua:



The intrepid explorers:

Curlews

Lots of them about at the moment. Spotted them at Lednagullin, Bighouse and West Murkle.

Sightings and this year's ranger walks

I'm going to try and record sightings here as well so that in years to come I have a record of what I've seen, when and where. So on Wednesday afternoon I was running on Melvich beach, slowed down to climb over the rocky section by the pier which I'd forgotten was there, and saw two wrens darting about in the rocks. They were nest building and didn't seem to mind my presence at all, I got within 8-10 feet of them.

The ranger walks are starting up again for the year and it's a good program. They're finally starting to charge for them, which I think is long overdue - previously it's been a voluntary donation, but our ranger generally forgot to ask at the end of a walk. This is what's on in my area this season that I want to go to:

Friday 7th May 12-3pm Scullomie to Sletell. Coastal hill walk to the abandoned post clearance settlement of Sletell. Lots of plants, hopefully displaying newts in pool.

Thursday 13th May 12-3pm Strathy Picts, Priests and pools. Walk to see the Pictish Priest's Stone, then on to the Rocking Stone (used to call the clan) and return via a lovely bog pool system. (I shall miss this one because I'll be on holiday with Mum and one of my cousins, but I did it last year - an excellent walk but over rough ground, so ankle-supporting boots definitely needed.)

Thursday 20th May 11am-2pm Invernaver. Wonderful wildflowers and archeology. Eat lunch in the remains of a Broch with stunning views. Return along one of the best beaches in Sutherland.

Friday 21st May 1-3pm Strathy Point Sea Watch. Look for whales and dolphins as part of Biodiversity Week. Telescopes provided, bring binoculars.

Tuesday 25th May 10am-3pm Ben Hutig. Stunning views, chance of golden eagle, ravens, moorland plants, returning along the top of Ben Hutig. (I did this 2 years ago, but the weather was so bad we came round the base of the Ben. It nearly killed me, but I'm a lot fitter now.)

Wednesday 26th May 2-5pm Armadale Burn. Enjoy a walk along this steep-sided river gorge, see masses of common primroses, other plants and archeology.

Tuesday 8th June 10am-2pm Watch Hill. Superb views over the Kyle of Tongue and beyond from Cnoc an Fhreiceadeain.

Saturday 12th June 12-2pm See the Point. Cliff top walk around Strathy Point headland. Sea caves, birds and superb show of sea pink. Possibly a whale, dolphin or porpoise.

Wednesday 16th June 2-5pm Portskerra to Melvich Dunes. Masses of coastal wildflowers and a bit of beachcoming for mermaids purses.

Wednesday 30th June 10.30am-12pm Puffin Watch. Join the ranger at the largest local puffin colony to view these popular clowns of the ocean. A telescope is provided, bring your binoculars and camears.

Friday 2nd July 12-2pm Strathy Point Sea Watch. Look for whales and dolphins at Strathy Point. Telescopes provided, bring binoculars.

Thursday 8th July 5-7pm Portskerra Sea Watch. Bring binoculars and look for whales, dolphins and porpoises with the ranger. Telescopes provided.

Friday 9th July 12-3pm Puffin Along to Melvich. View the puffins then enjoy a cliff top walk to Melvich Bay.

Thursday 22nd July 1-4pm Skerray's Stunning Coast. Lovely views across Torrisdale Bay and out to Island Nieve. High cliff top walk with great geology and plants.

Friday 23rd July 3-5pm Farr Bay and Bumblebees. Amble around Farr Bay with the ranger looking at plants and our bumblebee reserve. Hopefully see the rare great yellow bumblebee.

Wednesday 4th August 1-3pm Armadale Bay. Join the ranger on a bracing walk around Armadale Bay. Let's see if the dragon is roaring at the gloup.

Thursday 12th August 2-5pm Presentation and Sea Watch. Enjoy a digital presentation on whales/dolphins at Strathy Inn then out to Strathy Point for a guided sea watch.

Thursday 26th August 5-7pm Strathy Point Sea Watch. Early evening watch for whales, dolphins and porpoises. Telescopes provided, bring binoculars.

Tuesday 31st August 10am-1pm Talmine Treasures. Masses of beautiful plants including lesser butterfly orchids. Interesting geology and sea life en route to Port Vasgo.

Wednesday 1st September 12-3pm Armadale to Kirtomy. Fairly demanding hill walk passing the deserted settlement of Poulouriscaig and on to Kirtomy.

Saturday 11th September 11am-2pm Portskerra to Strathy Bay. Stunning hidden coastal walk with promontory fort and lime kilns. Fantastic views of the north coast.

Tuesday 14th September 10am-3pm Ben Arnaboll. Hill walk with fine views over Loch Hope and Loch Eriboll. Geology of the Moine, wildlife and a bit of recent history.

Saturday 2nd October 11am-2pm Scullomie to Strathan. Fantastic cliff top walk passing the abandoned post clearance settlement of Sletell.

Tuesday 5th October 10am-12pm Castle Bharraich. Interesting ruin, superb views over the Kyle of Tongue.

Saturday 9th October 11am-2pm The Borg to Dyke. Walk through the Dyke Forest and on to hill, west underfoot. Archeology and hopefully rutting deer.

Apologies for the radio silence

...but in the two months since I last posted, I've barely had time to pick up a camera unless it was to shoot pictures of beads.

I saw the otter again yesterday whilst walking the dogs - you guessed it, no camera. And, worse, the dogs chased it and caught up with it, though it swam off with no apparent injuries, a ginormous fish still firmly clamped in its mouth. Today I walked the dogs in the field and then went back down to the beach with my camera. No otter, but plenty of oystercatchers:





And it wouldn't be a beach birds set without a ringed plover in there somewhere!



I think this is a female wheatear - I'm checking with knowledgeable people:



On the way back up to the house I took the opportunity to photograph my favourite sheep. This is Polly, she belongs to my neighbours and is due to lamb any day now:



I'm beginning to love sheep portraits - should I be getting worried??

Yet more deer

In snow this time, courtesy of a car-shopping trip to Inverness.

More stags

Between Badanloch and the Garvault hotel this time.





One of these days I'll get up there in decent light...

WOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Four of my robin pictures have been accepted by Alamy!!!

Alamy is what I'd term a 'proper' stock agency, i.e. it pays contributors a decent rate rather than the few cents per picture the microstock agencies pay. Look in almost any women's glossy magazine in the UK and you'll probably see an alamy.com credit somewhere.

I don't actually care whether they sell or not - Alamy thinks I'm good enough. That's made my morning :o)

Adverse weather conditions

We've got snow. Lots of snow:



That was the track up to Polouriscaig this morning. I'd gone up in search of deer (much as I wanted to drive down the Strath and look for stags, I doubt my car would have made it up the drive!), but half way up the hill more snow clouds started rolling in and I had to turn back. I saw a fox, but didn't get my camera to my eye before it had legged it, so the only life I managed to capture on film was a rather chilly sheep:



I retreated to the garden and shot birds instead. My little robin is looking considerably less tatty:



Though he's somewhat put out by the presence of another two robins in the garden - they were having a bust-up on the shed roof when I got there, but they're so quick I couldn't catch it. He was eyeing up the feeders:



Now, I've always read that robins won't eat from bird feeders, they'll only eat off the ground. My robins obviously haven't read that book:





It's been a bumper day for chaffinches as well, I counted 12 at one point:



And the trusty RSPB bird identifier tells me this is a dunnock:



Something that looked remarkably like a blue tit landed on the shed roof at one point, but didn't stay long enough for me to get a proper look at it. It'll be the first one I've seen here if it was, so I shall keep my eyes peeled.

More snow due over the next couple of days, so more garden bird photos on their way, possibly!

When you're smiling...

Two posts in one day (don't get used to this!), but I've got some more pictures that I never got round to posting up.

There weren't as many seals around this time, the bay was calm so most of them were out at sea, but I did spend a while photographing these three - love the smiles:



Since the sandy side beach was totally empty, I went for a walk along it. Seals are curious creatures and I soon had an escort:



Or two...:



I think pupping is more or less over for the year. Now that I know what's where, I can hopefully get out and about more in October and November next year. I've heard about a pupping beach that may be closer than the one I was visiting, but I'm not sure how easy it is to get to.

The robin's been in a fight I think - he was looking very tatty:





Maybe the sparrows have been beating him up again:

Otterly fantastic

Sorry for abandoning you through November, but it's my busiest month and I barely got time to pick up my camera other than to photograph beads.

No pictures in this post either, but I wanted to report some progress in my quest to photograph otters. I have a veg patch with a view - it's in our bottom field, so it looks out over the bay. On Sunday morning I was happily getting on with digging it over (my neighbour kindly drove two tons of well-rotted manure down there for me over the summer and it needs to go on) when something caught my eye in the water. It was a flat calm day and the tide was high and there were two otters fishing in the shallows. I watched them for about half an hour.

After lunch today the sky was blue and all the work that really, really HAD to be done was done, so I went back to my manure-spreading. The veg patch is in the bottom corner of the field, next to our fence. There's a steep bank and our neighbour on the other side has fenced about 20 feet of flat ground off for vegetables before there's another, flatter, bank. In this flatter bank is a large rabbit hole, which the dogs always go and investigate when we're down there. Today I saw what I thought was a cat sitting in the grass beside it. My brain was telling me there was something odd about the shape of its head, so I looked again - and saw the second otter emerging from the hole! The first otter bounced off past the neighbour's gate and down to the beach and the second one disappeared back down the hole - so I think we may be on for cubs next year!

Early mornings

I was up at half past five this morning (though to be fair to the dogs their body clocks were saying half past six), so decided to make the trek over to John O'Groats to the grey seal beach.

Glad I did. Grey seal pups are one of the cutest creatures alive.





And the beach was just packed with seals:





They're by no means tame, but by staying low and moving slowly, you can get very close without spooking them:







The focus is a little bit off on this, damn it, but I couldn't resist keeping it:



And I never knew seals could boggle, but this one's eyes are almost out of its head!:



The males get very, very aggressive at this time of year, but there wasn't much fighting going on this morning, the worst of it was a bit of handbagging:



And how's this for a goofy grin?:



I spent about two hours there and would have stayed longer, despite the rain, if it wasn't for someone coming over the top of the dunes with a camera and marching straight up to the seals, who promptly disappeared into the water. 100+ seals all galumphing off a beach in under 2 minutes is an impressive sight though.