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| Would anyone be at all surprised to hear that i've been watching Yellowhammers these last three days? Ah, but thats not all I've been watching! Today, early in the morning at Barras, a Quail sang on and off, scoring me an equaliser to Daves Quail in the " who can find the best bird on the field sites" competition ( and yes, i do realise i wasn't atually watching it, but I observed it using my ears, and it still counts!) Then this evening, Claire kindly rushed me and Dave out to the Loch of Skene, to see the Whiskered tern that had been reported there. We got on it pretty quickly, a lovely, very dark bellied bird, and thouroughly enjoyed watching it gracefully dipping over the surface of the water. Add to that a little sunshine, and an Osprey in the background, and then a curry, and I'm sure you'll understand why I'm feeling so good right know! | ||
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Back to the land based birdy work today, with the first job being a foraging watch on a pair of Yellowhammers up the way at Kinmuck. Before we'd even got out the car though, we'd clocked up the Quail that Dave had singing the other day. It was giving it laldy as they say up here, but we didn't hang around for long, as we knew we had no chance of seeing it! Excellent to hear it back again, and a quality year tick. So the hammers foraged, and we watched them, and that was that for Kinmuck, so we came back into town for a cup of tea and a bowl of soup. After such a civilised lunch, we decided to treat ourselves to a spot of birding inland. Our main target, a certain species of raptor, failed to show, so we made do with some good views of Common crossbill, about 30 in all, including a few stonking bright red birds. After that, we went down to Barras, where we did more yellowhammer based things, and got sunburned. Great days!! | ||
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| Much quieter today, with only small numbers of the commoner stuff, and very small numbers of skuas, a manxy, and puffins to brighten things up. A Swallow put in an appearance, from the south, just after lunchtime, but it remains the only passerine so far this trip. Only a couple of hours observation tomorrow, as I've an early check in......so maybe some birding in the afternoon. | ||
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A busy day, numbers wise, with loads of Fulmars, Kittis, and auks, but not a great deal of variety. I did get good views of a Manx shearwater, and several skuas harrassing the passing kittiwakes ( all great, apart from one dark phase arctic). Miss of the day came in the form of a dead bull, floating along with its legs in the air "like an upside down table". It gives an idea of how tedious this can be, that I actually wanted to see that! | ||
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Well, I've been very busy over the last few days with the visit of my parents, and all the cleaning that is usually associated with such a visit, so here, in summary, are the highlights of the last 3 days, birdwise. On Saturday, Dave and I went down to Girdle for a reasonably early seawatch, which lasted for about 5 minutes, before it became clear that we were going to see no birds, and get very wet in the process. We ventured out again for a couple of hours in the afternoon, up to the Ythan, where we struggled to come up with anything better than the Green winged teal on Cotehill loch. Not the most inspiring bird, but a useful year tick all the same My Mum and Dad arrived on Sunday, and, probably to Mums disappointment, wasted no time in heading up to the Ythan, for a quick look around. It was windy and showery, which always makes it a bit difficult, and we managed nothing more than the Green winged teal, this time on Miekle loch, with a couple of Gadwall for company. Monday was the day of the big day out....Great for Dad and I, but not so much fun for poor Mum, who spent a lot of time in the car! First stop was Strathbeg, where we picked up Arctic tern and Tree sparrow as year ticks for Dad, and a wonderful, pink bellied first summer Little gull, as a year tick for us both. Dad pointed out how similar to a tiny Short eared owl the bird was, flight pattern wise, which i will remember next time I'm trying to pick them out on a seawatch. Next stop was Rattray head, where I hogged the scope, and managed to pick up Black guillemot and Great northern diver, but Dad had to settle for a couple of Bonxies, and a fairly steady passage of the commoner stuff. We finally visited a couple of sites around the Ythan ( after a lunch stop in Cruden bay!), where all was rather quiet, as it has been for the last week or so. No Osprey, or waders, so we had to content ourselves with distant views of the King eider, as it slept on the bank of the Ythan, opposite the golf course. Not a bad way to end the day, I suppose, but when are the Temmincks stints going to start moving through? | ||
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It rained an awful lot today. Constant, medium heavy rain, all day long. This made observing Yellowhammers very difficult, as they weren't doing a great deal, and my nockies were soaking wet by mid morning! The undoubted highlight of the day came in the guise of a friendly Barras resident, who took pity on the two drenched fools in his field, and took us in for a cuppa. As we chatted about this and that, and windfarms, he plied us with what can only be described as modern day rock buns, loaded with fruits and sugar, that were thouroughly delicious. So thanks very much for that! I feel I must write the names of some of the birds present at Barras today, so here goes. Yellowhammer, Corn bunting, rain, Tree sparrow, Grey partridge, rainy rain. Oh, and Dave had a Whimbrel. In the rain. | ||
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I've got a little behind with this over the last few days, so here's a brief summary of whats been going on. On the 22nd, I went down to Girdleness, to find a load of JCBs digging up some of the allotments, and alot of the cover being removed. Apparently, people are using them for all sorts of unsavoury things such as drug taking, and spade theft. What the impact of this will be, migrant wise, remains to be seen, but if it means that crazy bastard wont be accusing me of taking his gardening kit from out of his shed any more, then dig away! Oh yes, birds........seawatching produced 7 Arctic and 1 Great skua north, but nothing else worth putting down here. The next day I was out with Dave, down to Barras, and among the farmland birds....including, as we were informed by one of the local farmers, Scotlands only Hedge warblers! We were busying about like bees, until news came through of a Red rumped swallow, on the Rattray road. Needless to say, we stopped our busying, and headed up there, only to find that we were a couple of hours too late. There was very little to compensate our dip ( it would have been a british tick for both of us) even though we made our way back to Aberdeen via various sites around the Ythan. An Osprey showed well from waulkmill, and a breeding plumage Sanderling was of note. Yesterday, we were around Kinmuck, doing the Yellowhammer thing. No luck finding nests, but a couple of new territories turned up. For some reason, Lesser redpolls were in evidence, song flighting all over the place, for the first time this year. In the evening, before heading into town, Claire and I went out to Daves place to see the Treecreepers nest in his gatepost (Claire is particularly fond of Treecreepers!) and it was great fun watching both mum and dad making visits with food, and seeing the young begging, as we peered into the nest! | ||
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A quick trip up to Donmouth today, where it was surprisingly cold and windy, but unsurprisingly quiet! The Greylag still lingers here, which makes me wonder about its origins, but other than that, the estuary held nothing of interest. At the mouth of the river, the tern flock had built up to in excess of four hundred birds. Of course, they were nearly all Commons and Sandwiches, but 6 Littles were of note. The large gathering of terns had attracted at least 4 Arctic skuas, 3 dark and 1 pale, who were keeping themselves very busy, chasing the terns and then themselves, every time a fish was caught. The biggest dip of the day, though, was when Claire had cracking, close up views of a Peregrine attacking a Herring gull, in the middle of town. Apparently, the gull was still flying around, while the Peregrine was tearing lumps out of it! | ||
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A new survey site! I could barely contain my excitement. Dave sent me here to scout out this new site, while he and his mum went round Kinmuck. The day started really well, as I had found a nest after about half an hour....watching birds diving into thick cover with heaps of grass in its bill is a dead give away! Things soon returned to form, though, with birds becoming very quiet as the day heated up, and i only saw a couple more hammers all morning. It all looked good for a long sit down and sunbathe, when from out of nowhere, the heavens opened, and rain stopped play. In the afternoon, we all went back up to Kinmuck, where I sat in the rain for two hours, looking at sod all. Not a lot to report from today, the best thing being a Peregrine over Goval, scattering the hirundines as it went over. A day of normal birding tomorrow, as Dave is away.........nooo yellowhammers.... | ||
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More yellowhammers, i'm afraid....but a good day, during which we found 3 nests, and roughly located a couple more. Not a lot else going on, but watching a Tree sparrow gathering nesting material was good fun. Can't really write much today as I'm suffering the affects of lasts nights excess! | ||
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Kinmuck is the other survey site we use in Daves Yellowhammer survey, and it was a good choice, as it is chock a block with the little buggers at the moment. The problem arises in trying to work out what they're actually doing.....there's an awful lot of hanging around going on, not a lot of singing, and lots of very conspicuous females.....which suggests that birds are paired, but not yet on eggs. Still, between us we've come up with another 20ish potential territories, so we're going to be very busy over the next few weeks! There are fewer "distractions" in the Kinmuck area ( no Corn buntings, fewer Tree sparrows and Grey partridges) but its still a great place to be. Loads of birdsong throughout the day, and more Skylarks than you could shake a stick at. It occaisionally turns up the odd surprise, such as last years Kingfisher, hundreds of yards from the nearest stream. Today turned up the slightly more likely, but no less enjoyable Whimbrel, on its way north. And bucketloads of rain. Back down to Barras in the morning, unless tonights partying gets the better of me...... | ||
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Dave was picking me up at 7, to begin our fieldwork. Well, his fieldwork. We will be studying Yellowhammers on farmland, and Dave will be thinking and writing all about it, for his phD. The study site is a wee place called Barras, just south of Stonehaven, and its jammed with farmland birds. I was having a great time, wandering round looking at the hammers, enjoying all the other accompanying species, such as Tree sparrows, Whitethroats, Sedge warblers, and Grey partridges. Add to that the great weather, and the constant presence of Hares, and singing Skylarks.Good stuff! It was about to get better. As we sat in the car, eating our sandwiches, I got a text with info about a Great reed warbler, at Forfar. Being only 30 miles north of here, we decided it would be foolish not to try for the bird, so we said goodbye to fieldwork, and zoomed off down the road. When we got to the site, we were astonished to find no other birders present. Geat reed warbler is a good bird! There should have been loads of people there. Still, we wandered round listening for the singing bird, and, after a while, located it in a tiny reedbed. I thought that this boded well, as the bird surely couldnt hide itself there for too long. How wrong I was! It was well over an hour before it finally showed itself, climbing up reeds, and sallying out over the water. The thing was huge, bulky, and long tailed, and really quite aggressive looking. More like a gargantuan reed warbler than a great one! Eventually, it took flight over the water, and disappeared into the reeds on the other side. All this in front of just 6 people! Maybe everyone was on the isle of May, looking at the Calandra lark. Which was just fine by me! | ||
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Well, all this was three days ago, so I'll keep it brief, mainly because I cant really remember much about what actually happened. I do recall a group of 8 Whimbrel passing Girdleness in the morning, taking the NE Scotland yearlist up to 150. In the afternoon, my good chum Dave arrived in town ( we will be doing lots of fieldwork together over the spring and summer), and we had a quick trip to Donmouth. It was its usual, under-performing self, but we did enjoy watching a Little tern bringing fish after fish to a female, being dwarfed by the Sandwich terns it was with. | ||
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A quick visit to the ness today was largely unproductive, both for migrants and out to sea. The battery had a rather awkward Chiffchaff that took ages to get anything on, and then sat on top of a bramble bush about 5 metres away! Apart from that, a couple of greenland Wheatears were present in the walled garden, but the Shore lark was gone. Thats it, really....... | ||
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Oh my god, a (half) day of work! How am I going to cope? Today saw me up in the air, doing an aerial survey of Aberdeen bay. Its not work, really, just birding from a slightly different angle! This is the first summer survey I've done, so I made a few easy additions to my "birds I've seen from a moving aeroplane" list, namely Sandwich and Common tern. The Red-legged partridge seen buzzing over a field was slightly less expected, but enjoyed all the same. Out over the sea, all the usual Aberdeen bay birds were seen, in all the expected numbers. A bottle-nosed dolphin put in an appearence close to the plane, but the Blackdog Scoter flock was a little too distant to pick out the Surfie that was seen there at lunchtime. After lunch, Claire and I visited "a site to the north of Aberdeen" to enjoy the sun away from all the people with the same idea. I stumbled upon a pair of Little ringed plovers, close to a site where they were present last year.....not a common bird up here, so a rather pleasant encounter, and a nice addition to the yearlist. Also present were loads of Sand martins, coming in very close to check us out, along with other common stuff far too dull to mention. We finished off with a quick trip to Donmouth, where the tide was very low, but apart from the usual tern congregation, it was a little slow, so we called it a day. Another lovely sunny day, with the wind still out of the south east.........rain tomorrow........please.......?? | ||
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First thing today was a trip up to the Don for the Garganey that was reported early this morning, which, it seems, hadn't moved for three hours, being exactly in the location described. My third site tick for Donmouth in a week.....such a shame I don't give a shit really, give me a girdleness tick any day! I had a quick look around the place, but it was very quiet, apart from over 150 terns on the sands at the mouth of the river.....mostly Commons, but a few Arctics, and a rather daunted looking Little. Out to sea, a Bonxie and an Arctic skua went north, as did a steady stream of Red throated divers. Down to the ness, then, with migrants in mind. Again, though, it was quiet. One or two things had been reported from the links early am, but having been such a lovely day, they probably cleared off pretty early. I should imagine this was the case at the ness as well. Luckily, the good old reliable Shore lark put in a performance, along with a couple of greenland Wheatears. Today may well be the last of the easterlies, boo hoo, just a little too early for a bluethroat but hope springs eternal and all that. Maybe we could get some with a little rain and cloud next week? | ||
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I eventually caught up with the Ythans rather handsome drake King eider today.....its been a wee while since the regular ythan King eider left us, so here's hoping that this one decides to stick around. It is probably the same bird that has been seen from Peterhead and Blackdog over the past few winters, so it might have been around for some time. The Ythan was quiet (apart from a zillion common eiders), but a late Pintail was of note. I bumped into Graham Clarke and friends, who were doing some survey work in the area, and we had a quick look at the foveran bushes, before travelling down to girdleness, to have (another) look at the Shore lark. This bird too, was rather handsome, and was sharing the walled garden with the usual crowd of wheatears, some of which were large, well coloured, upright, greenland birds. A quick check of the battery revealed nothing, so home it was. | ||
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Another late saturday night meant a long morning in bed, until the phone went, and I recieved a message saying that the Shore lark had been re-found down at Girdleness. Claire very kindly said she would take me down to see it, in return for sunday lunch and a wee bit of shopping. A little expensive, I know, especially for a Shore lark, but it was a cracking male, and well worth every second in Debenhams! It looked rather content as it picked between the 8 Wheatears and White wagtail also present in the walled garden. So, we did our thing around town ( where the Peregrine was in its usual place ), and, still having plenty of energy, went up to theYthan, to see if any of saturdays goodies were still around. The King eider was not at the mouth of the river, which was a pain in the arse, but good views of fishing Little tern among all the commoner stuff half made up for it. Inches point was the next port of call, but produced nothing of note, so we went north and tried Miekle loch. Miekle was also fairly quiet, but 3 Gadwall and a Ruddy duck were of interest, and, feeling a little let down by the whole thing, we decided to make the Tarty lay-by our last stop. This was to be the perfect end to a lovely, but less than exciting evening. On the road back to the estuary, Claires keen eyes picked out a stunning Barn owl, sitting on a roadside fencepost. We swung the car round, and the little poser happily sat for his photo to be taken, before flying alongside the car as we pulled off! Great stuff! The sun was setting as we sat in the lay-by, Claire spending an age talking to her Mum on the phone, giving me the chance to watch a few things going up the river to roost. An Osprey appeared on a distant fencepost, until the Crows drove it away, and waders included a group of 26 Bar-tailed godwits, and 4 Black tailed godwits. The scene was completed by displaying Lapwings and whistling Shelducks, which I must admit, was very pleasant indeed. This leaves my NE Scotland year list on 141, which is nothing more than average, but, a little effort could still turn out a respectable total | ||
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Another hot, hazy day with light SE winds. I had a wander down to girdleness, but it soon became clear that there wasn't much about. My heart wasn't in it really, so I had a half arsed look around, and went home A band of cloud, and rain arrived mid afternoon, and with it, some good birds....Spoonbill, and King eider on the Ythan, Roseate tern at Donmouth, and a Shore lark at the ness. Claire and I went down to look for the Shore lark, early in the evening, but it had already gone.....Other things had arrived, though, including a lot of Wheatear, and a Scando rock pipit. Best of all was a Fox, snooping around the battery, and posing in the murk for some distant photos......but i'd rather have a Shore lark any day! | ||
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Well, the early morning mist and rain held promise, so I decided to go all out and do both Donmouth, and Girdleness. Unfortunately, it quickly developed into an absolutely gorgeous day, which knocked any lingering hopes of scarce migrants quite firmly on the head. Donmouth was back to its usual, disappointing self, with nothing of any note at all, so I sped (on the bus!) down to the ness. It soon became clear that Girdleness was going to be a let down too, the only things worth mentioning being left-over female Blackcap and male White wagtail from yesterday. I strolled along to the lighthouse to have a seawatch, which, guess what, was crap, so I settled down to enjoy the sun for an hour or so. Which was nice! Locally, an Avocet was up at the Ythan this morning....... A very pleasant wander through the swarms of midges at Inchgarth reservoir was the ideal way to digest the friday night curry. There were a staggeringly average 18 Goosander on the water, and Chiffchaff, Yellowhammer, and a Whitethroat were among the evening singers. | ||
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