Redwings

We had more snow last night but, mercifully, not the low temperatures which the BBC had promised, the outside minimum on our thermometer being -3.5C. This picture shows a hill called The Mound on the OS map, just to the southwest of Golspie: surely it must have had a more poetic Gaelic name.

One of the pleasures after new snow is wandering round the garden to see what visitors we've had overnight. Whatever this was, it came into the back garden, made its way along the side of the house, checked out the bird feeding area at the front, and then left the garden by jumping over the front fence. The tracks are too big for a cat and unlikely to be a deer, so my guess is a fox.

There are plenty of these in the local woodland, both in and out of town, at the moment. They're redwings, winter visitors from Scandinavia related to our thrushes. They tend to go round in flocks, sometimes in very large numbers, but ours are in groups of about twenty, often accompanied by incomer blackbirds.

As one might expect of birds accustomed to the heavy snows of their homelands, the redwings seem to be experts at mining under he snow for food. In the flock we watched today each bird had its own 'workings' and was most loath to allow disturbance.

The wind has dropped completely but not the waves, which were splashing over sections of the promenade this morning.  Even in the sunshine the North Sea seems to show a grey and troubled face. Heavy waves and high tide....

....leave the resident redshanks with nothing to do except hang around, resting alternate legs, and wait for the tide to fall.