An Avian Miscellany

I have standards when it comes to photo quality so I apologise that this picture does not match up to them but it's here because it's good news - the first buzzard we've seen in the skies above Golspie in weeks and months. 'Good news', yes, but in a very limited way, for a year or so ago, not far from the spot where the picture was taken, I saw four buzzards calling and wheeling in the sky above me. That they are now so rare is a worry.

As must be evident to anyone following this blog, the local cormorants have taken a beating from the gales which have come marching in over the last few weeks. Some, like this one, have taken refuge in the rough grass of the links but....

....this one was making itself at home in the Golspie Burn. A little downstream from where this picture was taken, the burn is crowded with semi-tame mallard which gather at that spot because it's where the local children come to feed them. I wonder how the ducks would react to this bird vying for their crusts. 

This is a female chaffinch, a bird which, like the common house sparrow and the dunnock, goes into my catalogue as one of the lowly. Yet she's beautiful, and very accommodating, allowing me to approach unusually close to take her portrait.

A pair of great black-backed gulls is quite frequently to be seen from the coast path that runs towards Dunrobin Castle, and I do wonder whether it's the same one each time, for these gulls are much less common along the east coast of Scotland than they are along the northern and western coasts. They can be quite nasty bullies, stealing food off other birds, but I like the way they stick together.