Travelling again – 10. Lindisfarne

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Berwick-on-Tweed, Covid, fritillary, goosander, kestrel, Lindisfarne, Lindisfarne Castle, Meadow pipit, Northern Marsh Orchid, pirri-pirri bur, poppy, scaup, small heath butterfly, stoat, swan, viper's bugloss

After a good night’s sleep, I looked out of the window of my Berwick-on-Tweed B’n’B’ bedroom, to see this.

My destination today, Thursday 17th June, was Shipley, in West Yorkshire, where I was to spend two nights with an old school friend (another Hazel) and her husband. My planned stop-off en route was just a few miles away, Holy Island, Lindisfarne. According to published information, the causeway to it would not be safe until 10.40, so I had plenty of time to kill. Having checked out after a good breakfast, I walked over to look at the sea.

Where there were literally hundreds of swans. No one picture could capture them all, and many were sailing (?) round to the other side of the harbour wall. I wondered whether this was in reaction to the tide falling.

I arrived at the Lindisfarne causeway around 10.30, expecting to have to wait, but that was not the case, and it was clear from the numbers in the car park that others knew that the published timings were set to cover only the extremes of safety.

But I stopped in a layby to take photos of the causeway first. I had never driven across a floodable causeway before, and was curious.

Once parked – quite a palaver in order to pay – I followed the crowds into the ‘village’ so that I could pick up the anti-clockwise circular path I intended to take. I’ll admit now that I did not have the plan with me and relied on just a brief look at this board. As a result I walked much further than I intended. But it was a lovely warm day – the only one in the whole of my time away – and a lovely setting, so apart from worries about time, that didn’t matter at all.

At the harbour, the ruined priory was to my right. Time did not allow further investigation.

The castle had been in view for most of the time, and indeed could be seen from all nearly over the island.

Not only did time mean I could not visit this National Trust property, but I should have had to book in advance because of Covid restrictions.

Some way further on, a kestrel was hovering overhead, and I followed its subsequent flight with my camera. I confess to being quite pleased with this picture.

I took a backward look at the castle.

Coming near to the shore, I wondered what these curious bumps were. A zoom on my camera revealed all.

A trio of goosanders

A spent a few minutes in the hide by this lake, but just before I got to it, …

I was thrilled not only to notice, but to get a photo of this stoat, as it stopped its scuttling for a second or two. (It could of course be a weasel; I did not see its definitive characteristic, the colour of the tip of its tail.)

Cygnets just a few days old

Scaup, I think, but I’m not sure

At this point I turned inland, but I went further than I intended, missing somehow where I should have turned south.

I should not have gone into these dunes.

Viper’s bugloss

I’m getting to recognise Northern Marsh Orchid – or am I?

Small heath

Starting to worry about time, I was feeling rather hot and beginning to feel hungry, and the castle and the priory seemed a long way off, but at least they were landmarks. I was definitely going south now.

I enjoyed, nevertheless, the lovely heathland flowers.

Presumably these are variety of tiny thyme, but they look more like a mass of seething mauve ants.

A fritillary of some sort

I saw so many meadow pipits

As I eventually emerged onto the road I saw both these lovely poppies and two people. “Is it far to the car park?” I asked, not really sure where I was. “Not very far at all’ they said – and I was very pleased that in fact it was barely 100 yards further on.

I can remember very little of the long drive to West Yorkshire. I just recall that I was very pleased to refresh myself before joining my hosts for an evening meal.

Travelling again – 9. RSPB Loch Leven

Tags

coot, dabchick, Grant Arms Hotel, greylag goose, lapwing, little grebe, Loch Leven, Queensferry Bridge, Steve Richards, tufted duck, viper's bugloss

It was with a distinct pang of regret that I left the Grant Arms Hotel after breakfast on Wednesday, 16th June. As during my previous stay in June 2019, I had felt so well looked after. For anyone who would like a holiday in the Cairngorms – not just for wildlife purposes – I cannot recommend it highly enough.

But it was time to make my way southwards. Indeed, I needed to descend (map-wise that is) through Scotland rather more speedily than I had travelled on my way ‘up’, as I wanted to spend a couple of hours at RSPB Loch Leven, given that it was so near to Kinross Services. So I took the faster A9 road, and stopped for no photos, much as I would have liked to. As the previous week, I plugged Steve Richards’s latest podcast into my ears, having downloaded it at the hotel, and was pleased to find that he had taken, not for the first time, one of my comments or questions to respond to. Moreover, he had mentioned my journey northwards. (And the following week he did the same again, this time referring to my journey southwards. He enjoys including personal references to his listeners who contact him.)

After stocking up on fuel and food provisions at Kinross Services, I made my way to Loch Leven, and spent a couple of hours there, in three hides, each quite close to the others. As I moved to, between, and from the hides, I enjoyed looking at the the wildflower meadows as much as I did at the birds.

Mainly greylag geese

Viper’s bugloss

Way in the distance I spotted one of my favourite birds, a lapwing, aka peewit from its call.

And then I noticed one ferreting around much closer to the hide.

It stayed quite a while. I moved to the next hide. As with the others, I had it to myself.

Two adult and two coot chicks

Mainly tufted ducks

Little grebe, aka dabchick

Dabchick with ?fish

There were several artificial ‘islands’ where birds could nest safely.

I took a final picture as I made my way back to my car afters two hours. I needed to move on.

Another enjoyable crossing via the Queensferry Bridge, though in rather faster moving traffic this time, and then I disobeyed my satnav’s instruction to avoid Edinburgh by using on the motorways surrounding the city to the south, and went instead across the top, parallel to the Forth, though sadly not actually seeing much of it. I had only visited Edinburgh once before, on a management course some 50 years previous (!) and I was pleased to see a little of it as I drove through in the very slow, sometimes stationary, traffic.

It was a lovely, but by now tiring, drive further along the Forth/North Sea coastline to Berwick-on-Tweed, where I was very happy to flop for the rest of the evening in my pre-booked B’n’B. It always amuses me when places give you a key to the front door, ‘for if you come in after 11 o’clock’. I wasn’t going anywhere after such a long day!