Shore Birds

As a welcome break from hopelessly hunting squirrels we set off for Golspie beach this morning under a grey overcast and not a breath of wind.

Although the beach below the town's 'promenade' is a favourite with dog walkers some of the shore birds, perhaps those that will never learn, use it to rest and then look surprised and nervous when they're disturbed, of which this cormorant is a good example.

As we walked on towards the longer beach which runs from the town southwestwards towards Littleferry the cloud cover began to break up, allowing the sun to pick out the stretches of sand which have begun to return to a beach which was threatening to become entirely stoney. Along here we came across....

....a flock of seventeen ringed plovers - more than we've seen in a long time - in the company of a solitary sanderling - at right - which, just to emphasise its exclusivity, resolutely looked out to sea while all the plovers looked up the beach.

The only other inhabitants of this section of shoreline were a pair of oystercatchers which, while working the beach very close to the plovers, unlike the sanderling, seemed to prefer to keep to themselves.

Seventeen ringed plovers, two oystercatchers, a sanderling and a cormorant is a small tally for a two-mile stretch of shore.  This, and the almost total absence of dead marine life, such as fish, along the tideline, suggests a worrying barren-ness in the Dornoch and Moray Firths.

By the time we were walking back towards the town the sun had chased away the clouds, promising us yet another day of remarkably sunny weather and reminding us what a strange month February was, with snow and bitter cold being followed by midday temperatures rising towards 15C. Perhaps this and the paucity of shore birds are connected.