Easter Sunshine

The fine weather continues, with daytime highs of 8 to 9C and frosty nights.  This morning when we woke up there wasn't a single cloud in the sky - picture shows Lochan na Crannaig on the road to the Sonachan Hotel and Ardnamurchan Point Lighthouse, with a severely dehydrated Beinn ne h-Imeilte behind it.  Our lack of rainfall is shown in the figures - we've had 45mm in the last 45 days, that's a mean of 1mm per day - probably comparable to the Sahara.

For some of our local wildlife this is heaven.  A slight lack of rainfall doesn't worry the grey seals, but a daily dose of sunshine is just wonderful.  There are places around our coasts where you can always see a seal or two: these are in the wide bay to the north of Sanna, between the headlands Rubha an Duin Bhain and Rubha Carrach.

The cold-blooded fraternity are also beginning to appear.  This is a common lizard, but we're conscious when we're walking that, in the warm parts of the day, the first adders may be out and about.

In this fine weather, the early mornings are a great time to be out with a camera.  This fallow deer was seen near the Ardnamurchan Estate forestry beyond Caim.  She was with her young from last year, who didn't hang around to have a picture taken.

Some wildlife should be leaving us shortly.  Persistent readers with good memories will recall that we had an unusually large invasion of fieldfares and redwings back in October, blog entry here.  Some of the fieldfares and redwings stayed through the winter, and should soon be heading off north again.  The four redwings in this tree seemed sluggish and tired - this one was quite unwilling to move however close he was approached.

We still have a large flock of greylag geese around Ormsaigbeg, but they too should be heading away shortly.  This one was pictured beside the slipway near the Ferry Stores.

Meanwhile,  Yr.No, the best of the online forecasters, is promising us continuing fine weather until next Friday.