A Bird Walk

Each walk we take seems to assume a particular personality so today's effort, along the road south from Golspie towards Littleferry, was a walk about birds. The first section of the road runs between the golf course and the fields of Culmaily farm, once a township shared by over fifty families but cleared early in the 19th century to make an extensive arable farm. Today, while some of the fields are ploughed ready for the year's crop, most are down to grass which is shared between cattle, sheep and, over the last week or so, a large flock of....

....greylag geese. These are the ones we've been seeing in great skeins over the town on their way north to feed in fields around Brora. They have now decided to dine at Culmaily farm.

On the golf course side of the road there is a stand of pines, one of which was full of small birds. This is the only one caught on camera, and she's a little unexpected for, if I have identified her correctly, this is a yellowhammer - and, according to the RSPB, there aren't supposed to be yellowhammers along this coast. We did, however, have plenty of this pretty bird on Ardnamurchan, and they're supposed to inhabit lands to the north and south of us.

 A little further on the single-track road plunges into forestry, and it was along this section that we were confronted by....

....over half-a-dozen coal tits. What surprised us was that, firstly, they stood their ground as we approached to within a few feet. Their interest was in....

....the beech leaves, to which they flew down and frantically turned them over, presumably in search of insects and invertebrates such as small slugs.

Secondly, this is the first time we have seen them in a flock. Usually, when they come to the garden feeders, they are either single or in pairs.

We walked on to where the road passes the banks of Loch Fleet. Another high tide meant that, once again, there were few waders to be seen, other than a couple of redshanks. By that time a sunny and increasingly warm day had begun to cloud over, so we turned for home.