Blackcap and Diver

We've had a brief visit from a blackcap, this one a female so she has a brown cap. She tried to have a turn on the peanut feeders, which is perhaps a little surprising as the blackcap's main food is insects and berries, but the rampant chaffinches didn't give her a chance.

So she didn't stay long - the weather was miserable anyway - and we haven't seen her again, so we hope she's now on her way south to find somewhere a little more cheerful to spend her winter.

On a grey morning I tried to get a picture of the water birds on the little lochan along from the shop - Lochan nan Al. Most of them were wigeon which spend the winter here, and there was also a pair of mallard, but the bird that caught my eye was the one at left in the picture, which is a diver of some sort.

An attempt to get closer for a better picture failed when a small group of greylag geese which had been hiding along the shore took to the air in their usual, noisy fashion, frightening the other birds into instant flight.