Gannets!

If we walk north along the coast path toward Dunrobin Castle we invariably spend a few minutes, or more, sitting on a bench just short of the castle. This view, taken this afternoon looking left from the bench, is filled with hidden stories.

To the left half a dozen swallows are feeding across the field of barley, zig-zagging low over the ripening grain. Many swallows have already left, as have the house martins and all the swifts. The swallows that remain can be seen collecting on the overhead wires, or on roofs, chattering, perhaps excited about the journey ahead.

The grassland which the path works its way through has not a single butterfly on it, even though the temperature is warm and the breeze light. Today we've seen only two butterflies, such brief visitors to our garden that I wasn't able to identify them. Walking round the garden this morning at 11am, with the temperature already 18C, I counted just six.... six insects, bees, hover flies and flies, on the flowers, yet the verbena, the michaelmas daisies, the lavender and more are in full flower.

To the right, along the sand, there's a large flock of oystercatchers, evidence of how successful this species is at the moment. With them, much more scattered along the sand, are almost as many redshanks, another species which has done well this year.

To the right the waters of the Moray Firth look as blue as the Caribbean. We sat and watched gulls flying back and forth and then suddenly realised that three of them had tipped over and plunged into the water. Gannets! There were only three of them but they were alive, healthy and fishing, and not dead on the beach.