Yesterday (29th) myself and my friend
Luke hiked up to the top of the Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve near
to Loch Maree. Good day out, weather was reasonable but wildlife was
almost non-existant. At the reserve itself all that was seen was several
meadow pipits and a robin in the Pine woods, pretty disappointing.
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| Half way up. |
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| Top of the reserve. |
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| View from the top. |
Today
(30th) I carried out a rather late WeBS survey. It was dry but
extremely windy which didn't make things easy. As usual at Loch Achilty
nothing much happening at all just 2 Mallard and plenty of flies and
midges. At Loch Kinellan the windy conditions had got even worse and at
first glance there didn't seem to be much on loch andi n the end just a
handful of the usual suspects.
This
time last year whilst completing the WeBS count also I came across a
pair of Whinchat at the Western side of the loch and I was hoping they
would return again this year. I made my way over to where I saw them
last year but things weren't easy with the wind. I stuck it out for half
an hour and then finally about 50m away a bird flew out of the rushes
and onto a low fence post. It was a male Whinchat and he tried to sing
before being blown off his perch and flew into the scrub where I wasn't
able to pick it up again. Walking back in between the gusts of wind I
picked up a song that I hadn't in quite a while. It was a Sedge Warbler
perched on the side of a willow also trying to sing in the wind.
Kinellan
Scrape was very busy with plenty of the usual suspects many of which
had young in tow. On the path around the scrape the orchids have come
through since my last visit adding a nice bit of colour.
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| Northern Marsh hybrid Orchid |
120. Sedge Warbler
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