Davaar House

... or from New Orleans to Kildalloig Bay

15.5C starting dry then smir set in by late morning. Heavier drizzle through the afternoon. Light SSE breeze then light SSW breeze later.

Grocery shopping over by mid morning.

Since it was wet we decided not to have another wet beach walk like last Sunday. Instead we drove along Kilkerran Road on the South shore of Campbeltown loch, parked at the Doirlinn car park at Kildalloig Bay and walked from there. Waterproofs on. Maeve the Deerhound came too. We walked a little over a mile past Davaar House, Kildalloig, Ballimenach, and almost to New Orleans then came back the same way along the single track road. There is a mile marker for the Kintyre Way near the car park and one where we turned round where the road leaves the coast just before New Orleans so we know how far we walked.

The roadside verges along this stretch are verdant at the moment, rich with wild flowers especially in the areas where the walls are of dry stone construction and rather primitive succulent plants seem to thrive with thick leaved ferns and pale flowered small leafed plants grow in abundance in the crevices of the walls and lovely pale pink and purple foxgloves and thistles rise through clouds of deep yellow buttercups, red campion, and cow parsley.

With the tide out and the water shallow near the shore there were lots of active birds.

Crows. All along the shore.
Terns. Hovering. Diving. Very shallow dives with tiny splashes seeming hardly to be in the water before they were back out and in the air gaining height quickly to look back down in search of their targets.
Cormorants. Some diving in quick smooth sinuous curves of movement from the surface of the sea. Some with wings held open wide to dry as they stood on the edge of the rocks.
Oystercatchers. Pottering about in the rocks and the seaweed. Some calling to others. Some on the wing.
Herring Gulls.
Common Gulls.
Greater Black Backed Gulls. Further out on the rocks.
Herons. A few spaced out along the shoreline with at one point a larger bird chasing a younger one from its territory. Swooping below it and rising up beneath in threat as they flew along slowly and elegantly until it drove it away out over the bay towards Davaar island.
Eider Ducks.
Mallard Ducks.
Shelducks. Firstly on the shore then paddling along in the shallows.
Common Sandpipers.
Ringed Plovers.
Martins. Over the fields just by the Doirlinn. Swooping and turning in aerobatic displays low over the grass seed heads and wild meadow flowers at breakneck speed.
Pied Wagtails. In the field with Hebridean sheep by the Doirlinn.
Curlews out on the shingle banks.
A lone Fulmar soaring along the inner shore of the bay.

... and not one single Gannet !

Seals were hauled out on the rocks further out in the water and being quite vocal as they heaved themselves to higher positions as the tide was starting to rise.

DMC-LX7 f/2.8 1/400 sec. ISO-80 9mm (35mm focal length 47mm)