Unexciting Times

We spent a great deal of time this morning standing in a pine plantation hoping to see one of the local red squirrels. We started with considerable optimism, having just met a couple to whom we've talked before who said they had just seen one sitting having breakfast on one of the feeding boxes but, by the time we arrived, it had obviously finished its meal and retired to a convenient treetop to have a nap.

I don't mind being very still for considerable lengths of time in the hope of seeing elusive wildlife because, when one does spot something, it's exciting. However, to be exciting there have to be long periods which are not exciting. Today those periods were brightened by the local tits - great, blue and coal - which came along partly to pick up the food the squirrel had dropped and partly to scold us, and also by....

....a steady procession of geese flying north. 

A week or so ago we'd have frozen waiting for nothing to happen but this morning gave us blue skies and a temperature soaring above 10C, so we walked gently home along the beach below Dunrobin Castle where we sat on one of the benches and watched cormorants, oystercatchers, redshanks, various gulls, pied wagtails, and ringed plovers. The plovers are in the process of pairing up ready for nesting, but we do hope they have more success this year along these beaches than they did last, when most of their nests were either destroyed by dogs or humans, or abandoned by the parents.