Dingieshowe

Bad weather and general late-winter lethargy have meant I haven't been out with the camera much. Today, though, I headed out to Deerness for a walk. Skylarks and a robin were singing, which cheered me, oystercatchers were displaying and a group of four hares were running around, all portents of spring. I walked from Lighthouses Corner to Barns of Ayre, then along the shore to the Point of Ayre. I watched a male hen harrier fly over to the island of Copinsay. It isn't far, but birds of prey like harriers don't really like flying over water- it doesn't provide the thermals they use to lift them and the bird seemed to make heavy weather of it, especially compared to the gulls and fulmars flying nearby.  I headed back along the shore of Newark Bay and past the stacks called Peerie Castle and Muckle Castle to Dingieshowe. This shot is taken north over over a bit of Taracliff Bay at Dingieshowe toward St. Peter's Pool. That's a fulmar wheeling past. There were lots of birds on the mudflats when I reached the far point- lots of snipe, wigeon, oystercatchers, redshank, ringed plover, turnstone, some dunlin and a single sanderling amongst others. Everything panicked when a peregrine falcon raced overhead.