From the Kitchen Garden: Avian Visitors from the North

Today we had our first real frost in the Torridon kitchen garden. We have had some really fine clear blue skies whenever the wind swings to the north and in recent weeks Nordic visitors have come on the wind; whooper swans on the small pools of water above the shoreline in Annat, woodcock at the roadsides caught in the car headlights. And streams of cackling fieldfares descending on the rowan berries. At times, all of the thrush tribe can be seen feeding in the Torridon rowan trees. Blackbirds, song thrush, mistle thrush and if you are lucky ring ouzel, our mountain thrush, can be seen. But the Nordic thrushes, fieldfare and redwing have been arriving in great numbers, drawn by the bright red berries among the skeleton branches of the trees. Fieldfares visit Scotland from October to March, 720,000 or so nomadic wanderers in search of mountainside and woodland hedgerow berries. On the road between Kinlochewe and Gairloch there are a large number of rowans and recently a chaotic tide of these grey and chestnut coloured birds in their hundreds has flowed from branch to branch. A real autumn spectacle.