Spring Birds

There are increasing signs of spring in the air but, being so far north, we are having to come to terms with the fact that spring will be late but, hopefully, should happen quickly. One very pleasing indicator is the birdsong: the woods and thickets are full of noise, not least from some very vocal song thrushes.

The hundreds of greylags which were feeding in local fields seem to have gone - we saw a large skein flying north the other day. While it's about time they were moving to their summer breeding grounds in Iceland, we're told that more and more greylags are now breeding in Britain.

We have far too many crows here, perhaps encouraged by the lack of predators, including rooks, carrion crows, hoodies and jackdaws, but this bird, which looks like a member of the crow family, may be something a little special. It's small by crow standards, about the size of a jackdaw, but its white bib is unusual.

With spring in the air we're seeing more of the local buzzards. In the three months we've been in Golspie they are the only raptors we've seen except for a fleeting glimpse of a small raptor flying along the sea wall by the golf course and, the other day, a sparrowhawk flying low over the back garden, which caused consternation amongst our sparrow horde.

We don't often see these birds sitting, sunning themselves on the beach, and this one allowed us to get close enough for a good enough picture for an identification. Shags and cormorants are very similar but this is definitely a shag, so we assume the others we see along the coast are also shags.

Dunrobin Woods Broch

This track roughly follows the 130m contour through the woodland above Dunrobin Castle but if one takes a turn down the steep, overgrown bank to the right one comes across....

....a man-made mound, now largely covered in bracken. On its summit is the remains of a broch, a circular fortification which was one of several hundred built, exclusively in Scotland, during the Iron Age between roughly 500BC and 500AD, although some may have been inhabited until about 1000AD. Much of their history and purpose still remains disputed but what is not in doubt is that they were considerable engineering feats. The one in Dunrobin woods is relatively small compared to many others - its interior courtyard is something over 10m in diameter - but just the platform on which it is built would have taken many men weeks to construct.

The approach from the track is to the north side of the broch, where its main circular wall is best preserved. The height of broch walls varies considerably: this may have been its original height or it may have been much higher.

This view looks along the interior of the north side of the wall, which is about 2m thick. There are signs of a structure just inside the wall, in the centre of this picture.

Broch walls were thick because many of them contained an intramural chamber, that is, a cavity or passage which ran within the wall. This particularly interests me as Kilchoan's Mingary Castle was unusual as a mediaeval castle in having intramural walls.

The one in this broch is only visible in the west wall, above, where part of the wall has collapsed exposing it. In what little literature there is about this broch, the main entrance may have been here and this space may have been a guard cell just to the right of the entrance, a common feature in brochs.

Most of the rest of the circular wall is simply a mound of broken rock. This view is from the south wall across to the interior of the better-preserved north wall.

As with many brochs, this one would have had a good view before the forestry was planted, looking out to sea across the Moray Firth.

Brochs are most common in the NE of Scotland, in Orkney & Shetland, and on the outer Hebrides. There are three within easy walking distance of Golspie. This site is a scheduled monument.

A Wedge of Swans

A bitter southwesterly was cutting along the beach this morning when we set off for our daily walk. The thermometer may have been registering six but the wind chill made it feel like one, and neither of us managed to be fully warmed despite two hours of very brisk exercise.

It's always the same: winter seems at its worst towards its end, when one is so looking forward to some sunshine and warmth.

Mrs MW spotted these, a wedge of swans flying high over Beinn Bhraggie, calling to each other as they went.

Britain's three resident swans are bewicks, mutes and whoopers but I'm not able to identify them at this range. The mutes are resident year-round but the other two migrate to their breeding grounds in March, the bewicks to Siberia and the whoopers to Iceland. I hope they weren't either of these species as they were flying very determinedly in the wrong direction.

A Beinn Bhraggie Path

We've now walked most of the main tracks in the Beinn Bhraggie forestry so today we ventured onto one of the many paths, this one cutting straight uphill through the trees until it began....

....to come out of the older-established forestry into areas of new planting, a good proportion of which is mixed deciduous, which makes a welcome change. Much of the undergrowth here is heather, which promises to be spectacular come September.

With the sun out but with patches of snow still lying in hollows on the higher slopes we were looking for signs of spring and found one in the first frog of the year, sitting in a rather small puddle on a path frequented by mountain and trail bikes.

While the trees are only just beginning to show their first shoots, the brambles are seizing a head start. Just seeing these first fresh green leaves is a joy.

At this spot we saw what is only the second roe deer since we've been here. It stood very still about thirty metres from us and looked at us while I failed to deploy my camera. It may be that it uses this peaty pool to roll in.

From high on the side of Beinn Bhraggie we had good views northeastwards along the coast. Dunrobin Castle is visible at bottom right while the farm buildings towards the centre are the castle's home farm, Dunrobin Mains.

The Wanderer

Very occasionally we come across a track like this on the lower beach, usually where it's still a bit damp from the falling tide. It's less than a centimetre wide and usually starts suddenly, wanders randomly around, then ends as suddenly. We had no idea what made it until....

....we came across this little snail wending his way across what must, to such a tiny creature, have seemed like an endless desert.

I'm happy to be corrected but I think it's a common periwinkle, Littorina littorea, perhaps a young one. The species mostly feeds on algae, for which it grazes across rocks or mud, or on weed. I can't believe it was getting much sustenance from the sand, and it's very exposed, which probably explains why most of the other tracks we'd seen ended suddenly, perhaps when a seagull swooped down.

A Gull's Meal

This great black-backed gull had found something rather special on the beach and was very keen that our approach didn't spoil his meal....

....so he set about gobbling it down but....

...found that it was just a wee bit too much of a mouthful to cope with so....

....spat it out again.

However, he was still determined not to lose his meal so picked it up and took to the water, keeping a wary eye on us.

We left him to his meal but we've looked carefully at the pictures and still don't know what it was he was trying to eat.

March Snow

Golspie had snow during the night, not more than an inch but crisp and icy enough underfoot to keep the dog-walkers indoors first thing.

We gingerly made our way down to the beach and then set off briskly southwards towards Littleferry, meeting few people and....

....little in the way of bird life to remark upon, though it was good to see the first sanderlings for some time, just one pair, running back and forth into the waves.

Snow brings a bleakness to a landscape, be it a beach or....

....a golf course, the more so when, soon after we turned back, the sky greyed over and we walked home through a sleety rain.