The birds certainly think that spring is here, despite the snow.  The rooks are paired off in the trees round Hatton and the snow draws attention to all the sticks they have dropped from nest building.  I thought I would try to catch some of the rooks nesting, but the best I could do today was a pair outside their top floor “flat” while the snow fell.

The jackdaws are quite happy to sit on the electricity wires and choose a chimney for their nest.

I am not much of a bird photographer but I thought I would still take my camera as Lily and I walked along the shore at Peterhead Bay.  At low tide you are guaranteed to see a selection of birds, but I do not really have the patience to take good bird photographs.   How glad I was when the eider ducks swam quite close to shore and I was able to take some pictures.  The males were in full breeding plumage and were showing off, lifting up their whole bodies, so it seemed, and breaking into loud “waup” noise.   Spring was certainly in the air.

I was delighted to see a few ducks and other shore birds, but a pale imitation in comparison to the display which I photographed in November at Udale Bay, near Jemimaville on the Cromarty Firth.

The other birds you are certain to see on the shore  are Oystercatchers.  They seem to be everywhere these days.  I remember watching them nest on the flat roofs of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when I worked there.  And one year there was a nest in the border, right by the front door of Aberdeen Crematorium.

The picture I usually get of the Oystercatchers is them taking off as I try to get closer.   That was what happened to me during a walk along the shore at Portmahomack in Easter Ross.

My most successful session of bird photography by far was in Shetland many years ago.  At first i got excited at puffins, but soon I was taking them for granted.  i remember sitting on the cliffs at Hermaness in Unst and looking round to see a puffin just a few feet away, posing for me.

I am no twitcher, but I do enjoy watching birds.  When we were in Fetlar for a day we decided to see if we could spot the Red-necked Phalarope.  Fetlar is the main breeding place for these delightful little waders.  I had read in Bobby Tulloch’s book about Shetland Birds that the best way to see them was to go to a certain layby beside a little loch, take out your sandwiches and wait.  Sure enough in just a few minutes they swam past, nearly close enough to touch and certainly photograph.   Now that is my sort of bird photography!

Shetland has been very much in my mind these past few days and not just because of the birds.  I have been reading Anne Cleeves’ Shetland Quartet.  I just managed to finish Red Bones a few hours before the screening of the BBC drama “Shetland” which was “based” on the book.   I was looking forward to seeing Whalsay where the book was set.  We had never managed to visit there on our trips to Shetland.  But I discovered that the producers had relocated the story to Bressay, which we had visited and where we were dive-bombed by Bonxies (Great Skuas) as we crossed the moors.  And that was not the only thing wrong with the film.  (Now it is time for a rant!).  They had got the characters wrong, they had totally rewritten the story, the dialogue was stilted, and the person who carried out the murders was different.  Still the Shetland scenery was lovely.