On The Coast

Started the day looking for Black Grouse, with visibilty down to ten yards in mist this was seeming a rather poinless exercise. Not to mention the surreal appearance of a convoy of vintage cars crosssing the moorland at 7am. Talk about surreal, what the hell is a vintage car rally doing ploughing across a remote Highland moor at 7 O'Clock in the morning? Though I guess they might have been equally bemused by finding a group of wooly hatted folk all standing around in the mist with tripods in the middle of nowhere. We headed off home, amazingly stumbling across a lone Black-Cock lekking away right next to the road, not impressed at all no doubt that the stunning Hen he'd been hoping to attract turned out to be a  clunking 1930's Austin 7. Strange things happen on those misty moors.

Spent the day birding around the Moray coast between Spey Bay and Burghead, the clear skies of the Highlands replaced by damp cold sea mist on arrival at Spey Bay! A small group of Common Scoter and Long-Tailed Ducks remained close inshore, though hardly any compared to even last week. A fantastic summer plumage Knot joined the Dunlin and Ringed Plovers at Lossiemouth and the first Little Tern of the year seen over the dunes as the weather finally cleared to yet more glorious sunshine.

A trip to a small coastal freshwater loch proved fruitful to see a drake Garganey, and while checking out a local Tree Sparrow colony got great views of a Tawny Owl and chick peering out at us from a nearby Owl box. Corn Bunting were showing well along the road to Spey Bay, sadly one of the only regular places we now see these birds, and several Grey Partridges in nearby fields an indicator also of what a bit of well managed local set-aside can achieve.

Finally ended up at Burghead to search for the ever elusive King Eider, a possible sighting well out to sea was not confirmed by a better view so dipped yet again on that one.

10:03 PM - 3 May 2007 - post comment