Prophetic

Three days ago I wrote a short blogpost describing my Patch and included the following paragraph:

Contentiously (for some), I'm also happy to include species seen from the Patch, encompassing such things as birds flying around the bay or dolphins, ducks and seals seen swimming in the loch. I'm also happy to include heard-only species, examples being the Barn Owls, Whooper Swans and Whimbrel I sometimes hear calling at night.

I feel the need to clarify one small point. At the time of writing the above, I had never actually seen a dolphin in the loch. I've seen them about a mile further around the coast, though only in the open sea, and as such it was written more in hopeful anticipation than of any real expectation. I've seen/heard all the other things mentioned though.

Today my car has been fixed so I took it on a quick test drive, photographing a few things along the way.

Young Highland Coo and a bit of Portree Harbour

Happy with the repair, I returned to the hotel, stepped out of the car and immediately heard a splash. Looking up I saw several fins slowly moving through the water ahead of me. Holy crap, porpoises! Then one jumped. Holy double crap, dolphins!! I grabbed my binoculars and found myself eyeballing a pod of ten or so Common Dolphins, moving slowly up the loch no more than 50 or 60 metres offshore. I was probably 30 metres from the sea, meaning I was within 100 metres of these animals, probably the closest I've ever been to dolphins whilst standing on land. 

A sudden realisation hit me; my new camera was sat on the passenger seat. I quickly grabbed it from its bag, threw off the lens cap and took aim at the sea. The first few images show the top of the carpark hedge, just for context.

At this point they decided to turn around and head back out of the loch towards the open sea. I've cropped the following few images and I've brightened them up a smidge. Which is just about the uppermost limit of my editing capabilities anyway!

Common Dolphins doing precisely what Common Dolphins enjoy doing!

I don't think they were actively hunting fish. Hunting around trying to find fish, yes. Just a quick wander into the loch and back out again by the looks of it. And I was lucky enough to coincide with them as they swam past, jammy bugger that I am. 

Fast departing by now, the dolphins are inside the circled area

A couple of hours earlier, my good friend Mark Telfer messaged me saying that a Pallas's Warbler had just passed through his garden and that he was going to be grinning his head off for the rest of the week. I'd been wishing something exciting would move through my garden too, and now - in a way - it had. Stoked, proper stoked. Then I noticed the gravel underfoot and the dolphins were forgotten in an instant, like so much dross blowing in the wind. Behold..!

Colony of Nostoc commune at my feet

I believe that the only Nostoc to form large conjoined colonies like this is Nostoc commune, all of the others are much smaller. A Treecreeper began to call from the Ash trees behind me, becoming the third addition to my Patchlist whilst I was still stood there in the car park. What a fabulous few minutes that had been. I really do need to start learning how to use my camera though!