Country diary

It's another cold day and in the wind are occasional icy drops of rain. I'd planned a long-overdue walk around the headland, but decided instead on a car tour of the local lochs, which are usually bustling with life at this time of the year. But not today. There doesn't seem to be anything ­happening at all on the first of them, and a scan of the far bank through my telescope finds only a dispirited-­looking pair of teal almost totally ­hidden in the grass. The second loch turns up just a jaunty little gang of tufted duck ­bobbing up and down on the surface chop. When the third produces only a few distant swans and half a dozen wigeon holed up in a sheltered inlet, I make a snap decision. Abandoning the lochs, I head for the sea and park a mile or so from the end of the road. Despite the wind and the eye-watering cold I'm going to walk the rest of the way. Down at the beach it's a grey-and-white world, but one full of energy and life. Waves run crashing and hissing up the coarse grey sand, leaving white foam ­patterns like crazy-lace agate on its gritty ­surface. White caps dot the silver-grey sea while, farther out, larger breakers smash into the skerries, flinging spray into the air. Fulmars ride the air in front of the cliffs. In a tumble of rocks at the beach's end I find a place to shelter from the wind and enjoy the spectacle. I haven't been there 30 seconds when right in front of me the smallest otter I've ever seen emerges from the sea and shakes itself like a dog, scattering water ­droplets from its pelt. I stand motionless, hardly breathing, ­expecting it to see or scent me and vanish into the foam as quickly as it appeared. Instead, paws crunching in the grit, it passes – almost close enough to touch – and trots off down the beach.