We walked the track which leads north from the village towards Dunrobin Castle and John o' Groats this morning, with a light sea mist and a high, thin-cloud overcast which, when this picture was taken, was producing a few minutes of heavy droplets of rain. The tide was low which meant that, when we heard strange, haunting calls from out to sea, we could hardly....
....see the distant birds which were making them. However, the Merlin bird ID app was very firm: they were common loons which, I understand, are the same as our great northern divers. The flock was about thirty strong, and that they were common loons was confirmed by....
....this one, very distant shot which does show the right neck colours and patterns.
As I understand it, great northern divers, which are usually very solitary birds, do congregate together into small flocks like this for the spring and autumn migrations.
Having visited the castle's cafe we walked back through the woods where we found further evidence that this might be an exceptional year for fungi. Amongst others, we found....
....plenty of fly agarics, many rather chewed by snails, and....
....orange birch boletes and....
....parasol mushrooms and....
....conifer mazegills. - all these identifications coming with the usual warning that I am no expert at identifying fungi.
The autumn and early winter of 2020 here was the best we've had for fungi but this one might just match or surpass it. I do hope so.
No comments:
Post a Comment