Breakfast bird count

It is a gloriously sunny Easter Sunday morning with Ben Hiant wreathed in cloud, the sea calm and a procession of birds in front of the kitchen window. When I sat down with my morning coffee and croissant I thought a bird count, done in the time it took me to finish breakfast might be interesting.

Immediately around the house there were the usual finches, robins, a wren, thrushes and blackbirds. But along the shore a flotilla of Red breasted mergansers, further out a pair of Great northern divers then Greylag geese, mallard and a heron. It only takes me a couple of minutes to demolish a croissant so a pretty impressive  species count for Kilchoan Bay at eight in the morning. I can't stray far from home as we are only into day 5 of the lambing with another 12 or so days to go.