More Firsts for the Season

I spent some minutes this morning leaning on the rail of the footbridge across the Golspie Burn looking, mostly, for the dippers. We've seen no sign of them this winter - signs including their very distinctive white faeces deposited on the tops of some of the larger stones in the burn - and this is about the time they usually begin to put in an appearance. 

On a more positive note, I did see a first for the season, a brief sighting of a grey wagtail flipping around between the boulders, one of the birds which moves south every winter. Sadly, it was no more than a glimpse, so no photo.

This isn't really a first for this season as we've seen, and heard, several song thrushes already, but this one was in the small field just the other side of the burn and singing beautifully. What was odd was that he was buried deep in a low bush. It was as if he was practising his songs preparatory to venturing into the tops of the trees to commence the real thing.

Here are two firsts, the first dandelion and the first big hoverfly. It always seems that the first dandelion, like the first daisy the other day, is perfect.

Again, this isn't a first for the season but we've relatively few curlews around at the moment so I was please to get a photo of this one, particularly as it was so well camouflaged amid the seaweed-encrusted rocks exposed by the falling tide and, from the way its looking over its shoulder, well aware of my presence.

Sanderling

We had the pleasure of spending some time in the company of a small flock of sanderling this morning, watching them do what sanderling do - scamper to and fro feeding on whatever the waves were washing up onto the beach.

There must have been twenty or more of them in the flock which was probably on its way north towards the birds' breeding grounds in the Arctic. As with so many waders, sanderling are great travellers: one has been logged doing a 32,000km annual round trip.

With their black beaks and matching black legs, they're a very smart little bird, the males even smarter when their darker upper parts develop an orange courting plumage, though sadly we don't see that as by that time they're far to the north of us.

Sanderling are my favourite wader, partly because of their energetic, almost clockwork movement but also because they're relatively tolerant of close approach. We haven't seen many this winter so watching this flock was a special pleasure.

Littleferry Links

Most of the land at the back of the beach at Littleferry is a good example of the links habitat of the east coast of Scotland. The soil is formed from calcitic sands blown inshore and colonised by a wide range of plants as well as some rare insects, like the small blue butterfly. Sadly, many of these links habitats have been developed, most famously as golf courses but also for coniferous forestry.

Left to their own devices links habitats locally tend to be treeless but in one limited area at Littleferry there are a couple of knolls upon which stand a few conifers, the majority now dead. I have no idea why there should have been these mounds just here, nor why the trees should confine themselves to them, but the area has an atmosphere, an eeriness, as if they are not natural but man-made - which is perfectly possible as these beaches were exploited by our ancestors for their rich shellfish beds - evidenced by occasional middens - rubbish heaps - of broken shells and fish bones.

Today these dead and dying trees still have a use. Ropes have been hung from their branches to make swings for the pleasure of passing children.

Spring Sunshine

We're enjoying a perfect day with hardly a cloud in the sky and a gentle easterly breeze, so pleasant that, for the first time this year, we could walk along the coast path towards Dunrobin Castle this morning without coats. Do we dare hope that this is the beginning of spring rather than a winter hiccough?

The beach still shows the ravages of this winter's storms with most of its sand still absent except in small patches. So, for the first time, we could see that, while the jetty below our favourite bench may have had a rather rugged rock surface, the sides were formed of carefully-dressed stone. We've always assumed that this was the landing place used by the Sutherland family when they visited Dunrobin.

Just below the bench, where we sat for almost half-an-hour soaking up the sun, watching the view, and listening to the rhythm of the breaking waves, we found another first for the year, a perfect daisy.

More Spawn

We've had a couple of fairly sharp frosts since, almost a fortnight ago, we last walked up this track into the Beinn Buidhe forestry so we had expected to find the frogspawn we noticed then badly damaged - but were please to find....

....a pair of frogs at the nearer end of the pond doing a good job of topping up the supply. However, we didn't expect to see the....

....efforts going on at the top end where a mass of frogs were involved in a frog orgy, thrashing around in a thick soup of fleshly-laid spawn. There were more frogs in a small space than I have ever seen before, perhaps as many as thirty, organised into a rough circle with all of them looking outwards.

More Small Birds

We've continued to work hard to draw new birds into our garden with, despite the huge expense, limited success. It may well be that some very interesting birds have visited the feeders at the front but we may not have spotted them as most are on the opposite side of the road from the house. However, we have a couple of feeders on this side of the road, though still same distance from the house, which include a sunflower kernel feeder which many can't resist, and this brought us....

....the first siskins we've seen in ages. This is a bird I love as it isn't too shy and, particularly at this time of year, is very smartly dressed. It's also not that common.

Another visitor to the sunflower feeder has been an unusually acrobatic robin, the first I've met which can hold on to a feeder from which I have removed the perch - this to deter the house sparrows which, at our previous house, would have emptied the feeder in minutes.

The birds are focused on the spring mating season, the blue tits checking out the nest box we've put out for them in the back garden, while....

....the coal tits seem to have thrown all caution aside in their anxiety to be noticed.

Inyanga Holidays

Whenever we could during the three years we lived and worked in what was then Rhodesia, we would holiday in the Inyanga (now Nyanga) National Park, an area of unspoilt beauty spanning the mountains along the country's eastern border. The area was dominated by Mount Inyangani which rises to 2,500m, and was characterised by open, grassy slopes with occasional stands of trees.

I still have the map we took with us on those holidays. Our favourite place to stay was at the southeastern of the two Pungwe Falls cottages - circled - which....

....was tucked into a hillside on the far side of a ford across the river.

The Pungwe itself provided what we sought, excellent trout fishing. The park had originally been an estate owned by the founder of the country, Cecil Rhodes, and it was he who arranged for rainbow trout to be released into its rivers. The trout thrived and we....

....enjoyed both catching them and eating them, lightly fried in butter.

The Pungwe was a beautiful river but I preferred one of its tributaries, the Matenderere - arrowed on the map. It drained country which was so remote that we never saw another soul in all the times we fished the river. The word was said to mean 'the wanderer' so it seemed a natural choice as a name for the house we built in very similar surroundings at the western end of the Ardnamurchan peninsula in Argyllshire.

Those days seem very far off, and much has changed in the country now called Zimbabwe but I was very pleased to discover that fishing is still available in what is now Nyanga National Park.