A temperature of -2C through much of last night left a white frost and frozen puddles along the track up into the woods below Beinn Bhraggie summit this morning, which couldn't have been good for....
....those optimistic frogs which had decided to start their families early this year; we wondered whether the paler eggs were those which had been most damaged by the cold.
We were particularly on the lookout for crossbills, a small colony of which seem to occupy the Scots pine plantation around the crossroads where the Golspie Tower track meets Queen's Drive. It's a good time to find them as they mate early in the year so are often to be seen calling from the tops of pine trees, which is exactly how....
....we spotted a bird that might have been one, though it was too far away for us to be certain of the identification.
Fortunately, we were able to get much closer to the next one, close enough to identify it as a crossbill and to see that it was a female.
We spent a good ten minutes watching it as it moved from one high vantage point to another but, sadly, at no point did we see another bird and, in particular, not the male which is a splendid russet red at this time of year. However, it did call constantly so, as soon as we were home, we listened to recordings of both the common and Scottish species - one of the few ways of telling them apart - and are quite convinced that this was a Scottish crossbill.
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