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Recent Sightings
Winter Sightings Summary 28 February 2009 We were away throughout October, November and early December but by all accounts we were in a better place for the weather. The west coast was hit in October by massive storms making sightings difficult. Winter maintenance on starquest allowed for some good close encounters with wildlife over in Badachro Bay. White tailed sea eagles were sighted on several occasions during December and January, some very close over Sheildaig Island, as they appeared to be sizing up the heron colony. Regular sightings of a female otter and her pup, I would guess at about 12 months old now, but still chirping and squeaking every time its mother dove under for a fish. On one occasion whilst working down on the engine I could hear loudish squeaking, and as I looked over the edge of the boat there was the otter pup rolling around in the channel wrack seaweed under the boat. Curlews, cormorants, greenshank, and hooded crows were all happily feeding around the shoreline whilst I polished and painted. A few good sightings of a little grebe fishing in the bay, they dive so frequently it’s always a challenge to get a good photo of them! A completely black crow was in amongst the hooded crows on a few days, something I have not seen for a while. January and February bought a cold snap but we were still able to do a couple of land based guided walks. A pair of sea eagles put on a spectacular display for our exited guests over Tournaig. We viewed pine martins at dusk around the Shieldaig Bay area along with a Slovenian grebe and a couple of red-throated divers which were showing nicely as we waited for sightings of otters. Snow buntings were sighted around Poolewe, and three reed buntings in with them gave us a real test of bird watching skills! Around eighteen waxwings arrived and spent a longer period this year feeding in and around the village, there did seem to be quite an abundance of berries on the holly and cotoneaster this winter. Redwings and fieldfares appeared this month, feeding on the berries. One bird that seems to have all but disappeared from the area is the starling, I have only been seeing small flocks of maybe six to eight in the past, but now very few with just the occasional solitary bird being recorded. Finally, during one of the land-based watches just in front of the youth hostel, we counted six great northern divers, three male eiders and a female lesser scaup. Click here to return to list of recent sightings |
