Making use of our extra day (staying in the same cottage for two weeks we get a bonus Saturday in between) we headed over to Loch Buie, taking in Loch Spelve on the way there and back. Curlew and Common Sandpiper were in the scrub overlooking Spelve. At Loch Buie there is a flock of very tame Chaffinch, perching on car mirrors and windows waiting to be fed, even straight from the hand. Very little else around, plus very bright sun in the middle of the day.
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| Chaffinch on Gill's hand |
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| Spot the Curlew Competition |
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| Common Sandpiper |
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| Male Pheasant |
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| Lamb |
Heading back we took the turning to Croggan, which was fortuitous as we spotted a family of Otters playing and eating fish at the edge of the Loch (looks like mother and two offspring). Annoyingly they were mostly hidden behind a fringe of tall, red grasses at the edge, hence very poor photos. Trying to slide down to get closer was also difficult as the ground was waterlogged after heavy rain and with a stream running through the middle. Eventually the otters finished their meal and swam slowly up the loch to disappear forever around a bend, leaving us with a mixture of excitement and frustration.
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| Otters eating fish |
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| Otters |
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| Otters |
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| Juvenile Gull (with a faulty neck) |
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| Red Deer |
A house on the way to Croggan keeps, amongst many things, ducks and chickens, many of which make use of the natural bounty of the Loch, dabbling and scratching around in the seaweed.
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| Sea-Chicken |
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| Curlew |
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| Curlew |
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| Curlew exiting stage-right |
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| Willow Warbler |
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| Herring Gull with the angriest eye we've ever seen |
Back on the north side of Spelve we saw two Greylag Geese, hissing and posturing at some sheep. They seemed to take exception to them being there, eventually attacking a mother and lamb (the actual attack hidden behind a rock, naturally), driving them off. A lone sheep remained, settled down to chew cud, and no amount of hissing or aggression was going to shift it.
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| Greylag Goose |
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| Greylag Goose posturing |
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| Greylag bullies with the phlegmatic sheep that would not move |
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| Oystercatcher |
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| Oystercatcher |
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| Should've gone to spec savers! |
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