Somewhere over the rainbow

Thursday evening’s walk started unpromisingly. There had been heavy rain late afternoon, and although the sun was coming through we got a an early drenching along the banks of the Coquet as we left Rothbury. However, every cloud has a multi-coloured lining – or in our case a double-rainbow:

There were not many birds out at this stage, but our expert for the evening Martin Kitching encouraged us to listen out as the rain died away. We saw adult sand martins flying in and out of their nests on the opposite bank, and a couple of chicks appeared waiting for their dinner. Since you ask, yes, I did get my brown-ale pie from Rothbury bakery and, yes, it was delish.

The dominant song initially was the song thrush whose voice was carrying hundreds of yards from a line of distant trees. Apparently we heard various types of warbler, but I was too far back from Martin to catch what was being said. Our route saw us climbing quite quickly across field footpaths with great views of the Cheviots behind us.

A brilliant yellow-hammer posed for our field-glasses for a good five minutes to everyone’s delight.

It is an old one but a good one: Jon asked Martin to explain how to tell the difference between rooks and crows. “You can’t play chess with a crow” rejoined one of the company – proving that even birders have a sense of humour… of sorts. But Martin’s explanation was as follows: if you see a group of crows, then they are rooks; if you see a solitary rook, it’s a crow.

Passing a farm and its barns, we looked up to see swallows and their bairns – being re-fuelled in mid-air with incredible dexterity.

And the ginger sheep that Martin had been promising all walk for shepherd Jon to identify? It was actually a goat. But it did give Jon the chance to tell us more of his shepherding tales.

Returning via Sharpe's Folly and down the slope into Rothbury, the Office Walker and the Grey Bombshell’s joints were beginning to write letter’s of complaint. Would we be fit again in time for tomorrow’s adventures?

Pedometer: 10,651 (cumulative 63,811)