Arctic Skua?

Given the choice of the many walks we have from our house I am always drawn to the one along the coast to the north of the village simply because it hosts more wildlife than any other in the area. To add to this, this morning's weather was superb, sunny, warm and windless, and the tide was perfect, rising after a low at 7.00 this morning.

Today's walk was nominated by the bird life. The common and black-headed gulls were concentrating on food floating on the water, something we've seen before without being able to identify what it is. In amongst the gulls, and along the shore, I spotted curlews, oystercatchers, black-backed and herring gulls, cormorants, redshanks and....

....bar-tailed godwits, four this time, suggesting they might stay with us. However, what interested me most were....

....the sandwich terns, both adults like this one and....

....juveniles. Some were diving into the water - something we've seen too little of recently - indicating they are finding food.

They'll be heading south shortly and we'll be missing their screeching cry along the beach.

Twice while I was watching the terns they were harassed by a medium-sized, dark but very agile gull, which selected one of the terns and chased it in a spectacular show of aerobatics, pursued by three or four very angry terns, all accompanied by much screaming. The action - presumably an attempt to get the tern to disgorge any food it had caught - was far too fast for me so....

....the only picture I got of the attacker was this, just enough to suggest that it was a skua, perhaps the dark variety of Arctic skua, a bird whose conservation status is red.

Below Bheinn Bhraggie

We spent much of this morning following one of the estate tracks up into the forestry on the lower slopes of Bheinn Bhraggie, returning along the winding mountain bike paths with their....

....views across the Dornoch Firth. It was good to encounter....

....old friends like the pink devil's-bit scabious, some of the flowers so pale they were almost white, and....

....noticing how all the signs of an imminent autumn are on show, with the rowans heavy with berries which was taken in the past as being a sign of a cold winter.

We had to contend with frequent showers but when the sun was allowed to show his face it was gloriously warm, and brought out two butterflies, red admirals and speckled woods, both preferring the sunnier woodland clearings.

As we'd noticed before, the relatively dry spell in the first part of August has been unkind to the fungi but there were a few to be found, including this flower-like gill (perhaps the rufous milkcap) and....

....a single pore, perhaps slippery Jack, with its wet-looking cap.

Red Admirals

When one thinks of Scottish heather at this time of year, when its flowering is at its most impressive, one thinks of it covering the hills. However, both ling and bell heather grow very happily in woodland, as in this coniferous forest near Littleferry. The only difference I've noticed is that bell heather seems to flower later in woodland than it does on the open heath, so it's currently in full flower at the same time as the ling.

The heathers seem to do best along the edges of woodland or open glades, where there's a little more light than in the main forestry. This spot from our walk today is a good example - but what we hadn't expected was to find that this....

....small area of ling was host to ten or more red admirals, all in mint-perfect condition.

Apparently, red admirals are migrants in to Britain each year from Europe and North Africa, feeding on a variety of flowers and laying eggs that hatch from July onwards. Some of the resulting butterflies do manage to overwinter - we've found red admirals in winter in a dark corner of our garden sheds - but most of them die.

Today's butterflies must have been from one hatching. Since red admiral caterpillars feed exclusively on nettles, somewhere near this spot there must be a large but well-chewed nettle patch.

A Silent Companion

I was sitting on our favourite bench along the path to the north of Golspie, shortly before it reaches Dunrobin Castle, when an elderly, very neatly-dressed gentleman approached and sat on an adjoining bench. Where he sat was less than five metres from me yet he avoided eye or any other form of contact.

At first I resented his intrusion then, as the minutes passed, I minded less and less. Our mutual silence was almost companionable.

After sitting silently for about ten minutes he rose and set off back the way he had come.

I've met him on the track before and on those occasions he did respond to my face-to-face greeting, perhaps a 'Hello!", yet the moment he did so, he looked away, as if he had engaged as much as he wanted.

I think I know why he appears so unfriendly: he may be deaf. One of the many problems of dealing with deafness is what you do when people you don't know speak to you. They expect a coherent response but very often you can't give it because you haven't understood them.

It makes for a desperately lonely and, at times, embarrassing existence - but then, that's what comes with deafness. It's as if a barrier has risen between you and the rest of humanity. There has been great progress in hearing aid technology, but it still cannot overcome the handicap.

It's not only humanity he can't hear. I was sitting listening to the wash of the waves, the calls of curlew, oystercatcher and redshank, and the whisper of the wind in the grass. He couldn't hear any of these sounds, couldn't allow them to give him the sort of peace of mind they offer me.

It must be like being locked in an invisible cell.

Along the Beach

I start every walk with the hope that we'll encounter at least one thing which is exciting, interesting, beautiful.... but our walks along the beach towards Dunrobin are, at present, rather marred at their start as we have to pass the very odiferous corpse of a fully-grown seal cooking in the sunshine followed by that of....

....a guillemot, this being particularly sad as we've been noticing a small flock of them offshore, the first for some time, but which may now have bird flu.

Recent rough weather has deposited mounds of weed along the high-tide mark, exploited by some slightly unexpected birds like this year's starlings as well as young pied wagtails and the usual selection of crows, gulls and waders.

At the far end of this walk is an open space which, each year until this one, has always had a resident group of ringlet butterflies. I think it's a bit late from them now but, while searching, I noticed....

....that one of the castle's notice boards had another use....

....as a basking spot for a very smart peacock butterfly, the first I've seen in some time.

Birds are an excellent early-warning system and this morning's commotion in the sea buckthorn at the back of the beach drew my attention to the top of the log to the left of this picture where....

....a sparrowhawk was looking for a late breakfast. He was so intent on this that I was able to creep to within ten metres of him at which point....

....he gave me a look which clearly said, "Back off!" - which, very gratefully, I did.

Insects

In our garden the verbena has been in flower for some time and has recently been joined by the....

....Michaelmas daisies. This lunchtime, with the temperature over 20C, sunshine, and a light wind, both species should have been busy with insects, yet all we saw were....

....the occasional bumblebee on both the verbena and....

....the daisies. They - two species only - were joined by a single, small hover fly and, briefly, a small tortoiseshell.

It was little different along the path at the back of the Dunrobin shore, though the main flowers that attract insects there are now past their best, so....

....the bees were making do with some rather tired ragwort and....

....the last few flowers on the thistles.

Where are the insects? Where are the red admirals, tortoiseshells and peacocks which used to love our garden at this time of year? Where are all the various hover fly species that used to crowd the verbena and Michaelmas daisies? Is this just in the Golspie area? I know I'm a terrible worrier but surely something is seriously wrong.

Foraging Along the Foreshore

Moving somewhere new, as we did three years ago when we came to Golspie, brings with it the bonus of the excitement of discovering all its wildlife. Some of it may be old friends, like the curlew you might be able to find in this photograph. However, the longer one stays in one place the less likely it is that one will bump into something new - but this did happen yesterday.

We've seen what we were told were bar-tailed godwits at a distance foraging round the edge of Loch Fleet but yesterday's sighting was the closest yet - though sadly it didn't hang around to introduce itself and make friends.

And here's another first from yesterday, a sight that was not uncommon on the west coast but is much less so here: a man collecting what the Scots call 'whelks' amongst the slippery rocks exposed at low tide. In fact this is a little confusing - the shellfish being collected is the English 'winkle'.

It's backbreaking work but a few years ago a full bag - one can be seen on the right of the picture - used to be worth over £100. The price varied with the seasons, rising as we approached Christmas, the main market being Mediterranean countries.

Gulls

We had a fairly strong easterly over the early part of the weekend which caused the cormorants some discomfiture and removed quantities of the sand from the beach below Dunrobin Castle, and it was here that....

....our walk was interrupted by the discovery of yet another young kittiwake squatting amongst the cobbles at the top of the beach. This is the third we've found like this, unwilling to stir even when we approached quite close. Previously we've assumed that it was sick but couldn't put it down to bird flu. However, since then, there have been reports - see BBC News, here - that kittiwakes are now amongst the most likely of sea birds to be suffering in the latest wave of flu.

A little further along the beach we spotted this small group of gulls which I think are black-headed gulls, four juveniles in their first-winter plumage and one adult. The adult lacks the characteristic black (actually dark brown) head as it's also in winter plumage.

Happily, they flew off as we approached.

Those Leather Boots

I have to accept as I grow older that there are some things I am unlikely ever to do again. So, while we still walk miles each day and do venture off the beaten track, we no longer take on a trek across very broken, steep or boggy ground. So it is with great sadness that my leather walking boots are redundant and on their way to the local charity shop, having been replaced by much lighter-weight boots.

In the years of walking on Ardnamurchan we found that nothing beat leather for keeping the water out, though we did try several man-made combinations of material.

One of many very happy memories is of parking up at the side of one of one of the peninsula's single-track roads, pulling on these boots, and setting off into the wonderful, open countryside of the Scottish Highlands. We often walked all day without seeing another soul, and these walks took us to....

....some spectacular places. This picture was taken from the summit of Creag an Airgid looking north towards Eigg, Rum and the Cuillins of Skye.

So, farewell to those adventures: I'm just so pleased to be able to hold close their memories.

Backies Fungi

We were back in the woodlands between the Golspie Glen and the crofting township of Backies yesterday looking for this fungus which we found a week ago and which one of our readers, DM, has kindly identified as possibly a wood blewit, but wanted a picture of it in its later stages to confirm the identification.  We found the place where it was growing but the recent dry weather has been cruel to the fungi so we're not sure whether this photo....

....of what might be the same fungus will help.

The walk was well worth it for the discovery of this fungus, almost certainly yellow stagshorn, which we've found before but which looked just like a flame igniting in the dry pine litter.

Another interesting find was this polypore, possibly a hoof fungus, which looks as if someone polishes it regularly but a sad sight was this....

....mature oak tree with an 'infestation' of what I think is....

....honey fungus.

Our walk wasn't solely to check on the local fungi: we were, once again, on the hunt for some of the excellent Backies croft eggs. Sadly, as we approached the cupboard in which they are available, a rival customer was just removing the last half-dozen. Never mind, this gives us an excuse for another visit to Backies.