We had a cold night last night with the air temperature dropping to 2C. The wind went round into the southeast, and the week's heavy, squally showers have continued. But when we walked down to the shop this morning, it was in brilliant sunshine.
On Port Beag croft there's a small grove of rowan trees which are laden with berries, and now the trees are full of birds enjoying them.
Little wonder we've seen no song thrushes or blackbirds in our gardens, they're all gorging themselves on the berries. However, there are so many of these two species in the bushes that they must have invited their friends and relatives from miles around to join them.
They've been joined by some of the huge flocks of fieldfares and redwings which have arrived on West Ardnamurchan, and by....
....this large flock of resident starlings, pictured on the power lines by The Ferry Stores. Chaffinches too seem to be enjoying the feast.
The forecast for this morning wasn't too bad, so the family drove over to Sanna. We arrived to find line after line of rain showers moving across the sea to the west of us but, for most of the time we were on the beach, it stayed fine.
The grandchildren soon had the Diary recruited as labourer in some extensive engineering works, which involved damming one of the small streams which flow out across the sands. The operation went entirely to plan, and soon the water was backing up into the dunes. In fact, it was all so successful, and the water became so deep, that we began to worry that the rising waters might be flooding some of the Sanna residents out of their homes.
That's a good dam! Our family holiday in Portuairk always involves a good deal of dam building. The best bit is coming back the next day to find the tide has left a beautiful clear beach on which to start again!
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