The weather has been pretty amazing, considering we were all expecting rain and gales. Bright starts to almost every day so far.This morning, it was not only bright but much warmer so I headed off down to the shoreline at the mouth of the estuary of the river Blanda, to check out the latest bird migration arrivals, just in case some Puffins had put in an appearance. In this lovely, quiet, unspoiled part of the world you cannot help but notice and be engaged by the huge variety of bird life that come here each summer to breed. Some of
them, like the 200 or so of Arctic Terns that arrived this morning have flown from the Antarctic to be here, a journey of around 12,000 miles which they will repeat, by returning there at the end of summer. They dive, flutter and squabble, dipping their bills and feet, deftly lifting fish from the water, true swallows of the sea. The tide was out and I could walk down to the waters edge where, minutes before a small flock of shore birds had been searching for food. I could not help but note the pattern of their foot prints intermingled with mine. A reminder that we all leave a mark on this planet no matter who we are or what we are about. In addition to the Arctic Terns, we have seen around 38 other different species of bird,
Raven to Redwing and Ptarmigan (Annette) and from our windows most notable and, it has to be said, most noisy, two pairs of Red Throated Divers and a large flock of bickering Black-tailed Godwits. Happy days!
Jennifer Jones
