Grey Day at Littleferry

After a day of wall-to-wall sunshine yesterday we were back to more normal weather as we drove to Littleferry this morning to enjoy an almost deserted beach and a long walk at low tide. There was little of note in the way of birds along the shore - a few redshanks, about half as many oystercatchers, a handful of cormorants, some gulls - probably more of these than of all the rest put together - a lone widgeon and....

....small groups of eider diving for mussels: these are immature males.

Sadly, the threat of avian flu raised its head again: this guillemot was obviously sick as it allowed us to approach to within ten metres without reacting, and elsewhere along the beach we came across....

....these rather bloody remains of a pink-footed goose. There's nothing to prove that either of these deaths are flu-related but I take it as significant that guillemots and pink-footed geese are the species which have suffered the most.

Here's something a little more cheerful if mysterious, the tracks of a deer running down the beach before disappearing into sand smoothed by the sea. We've seen this at Littleferry before, suggesting that it's not uncommon for deer to wade out and then attempt to swim south across the mouth of Loch Fleet: I only hope that the beast reached the other shore safely as the currents of a falling tide here are strong.