Sunshine!

This morning, after nearly three weeks of grey skies and strong, cold easterly winds, the wind has backed into the northwest, the clouds have cleared and the sun has come out - so we took a gentle walk along the coastline towards Dunrobin Castle, spending time sitting on our favourite bench soaking up the sun and searching for wildlife.

There wasn't much to see. This boulder spit which is exposed at low tide is usually a prime hangout for the shore birds but all we saw and heard were a few cormorants, redshanks, crows and gulls. The paucity of birds isn't really surprising as this section of coast will have been very exposed to the easterly winds, so normal inhabitants like the curlews will have retreated inland to forage for worms in the farmers' fields.

There was one surprise: having hardly seen any of them this winter, a few rock doves were sitting on the boulders in their usual place near the cormorants - see earlier post here about these birds.

All along this coast there are men in big yellow machines dumping massive lumps of rock to repair the damaged sea defences. This one was just below the castle at a point where the waves now seem to inflict an annual toll of damage.

It's lovely to see the sun and watch the colours reappear in the landscape but , as always, there is a price to pay. The car this morning was crusted with ice and the forecast for the next week is for more frosts, sleet and snow.