Sea Coots

Today I took my dogs and my sore knees for a walk on the beach at Portballintrae. I know. We're supposed to stay at home, but mine was a mission of mercy as I was bringing half a dozen freshly laid eggs and a pot of homemade raspberry jam to an isolated old lady. Who would be Swisser.

Who frequently reminds me that she never reads my blog. So. Open season.

The walk was challenging. Longest I've been on since August last year when I went on a socially distanced walk with Zoe, Dr Leitrim Sister and Dmitri. I remember that walk well, the first one ever with Lulu the JRT and getting a picture of an interesting day-flying moth. I wish I could remember what it was.

Remembering has become a bit of a thing for me. Some events from half a century ago are vivid while others, more recent, can be cloudy. Like, where did I put the tinfoil and did I close the hens in? What is the name of that moth and what are those black and white birds? I know Bert told me but I cannot recall. My mind is all taken up with the birds I see from my window, the robins, a pair of wrens, blackbirds, chaffinches, blue tits, great tits, pied wagtails, magpies, pigeons, crows, greenfinches and today, a small flock of long-tailed tits that I had been waiting for.

Those unnamed birds were seen today on Portballintrae beach. I asked Swisser if she knew. She answered me an unasked question. I repeated the question.

Do you know what those birds are?

She said something vague about Covid.

You don't know, do you?

(She never admits to not knowing anything.)

Then she said,

They are coots.

I said,

They are not. Coots aren't seabirds. They like rivers and marshy places.

She said,

They're sea coots.

Later in the walk, we spotted a birds bobbing in the water and she pointed them out. She said.

There they are again. Sea coots.

It was a lovely walk. And they weren't sea coots. They were oystercatchers.