STONEFACTION BIRDING: 09/17/15

0207 : Fantastic Friday (11/9/15)

With a bit more time to play with, myself and Nat had planned to go a little further afield than just Fife or Angus for our 3rd day trip in a row. Plans were in place to head for Lothian, starting at Mire Loch, St Abbs in the hope of some migrants then working back along the coast to Aberlady and Musselburgh. With a bit of luck we would maybe run into some interesting migrants, or at the very least add Red Necked Grebe to my year-list, and Nat's life list. However, an email which arrived just before we were about to set off made me think.

Red Footed Falcon

One of the drawbacks of visiting Lothian on a Friday were the likelihood of running into 'rush-hour' traffic near Edinburgh. This wouldn't be ideal. A detour to another birding spot just off our route for a wee while might help, but it would also mean less time for further on in the day. Although, we had all day, fatigue and daylight need to be taken into consideration. The email set wheels in motion. A rarity which had turned up the previous day was still around, and showing well. We could be there in an hour or so and would not have to worry about rush hour traffic. It would be a lifer for both of us. A quick chat when Nat arrived to pick me up and then we were off. In the opposite direction to that originally intended. To Girdle Ness, Aberdeen in the hope of seeing a Red Footed Falcon.

The road to Aberdeen is never exactly alive with birds and Friday was no exception. A Herring Gull just as we were setting off got the list started for the day. Woodpigeon just outside Dundee followed, then Carrion Crow near Forfar. A Buzzard on a fence post somewhere near Brechin was next and we eventually passed a field with a mix of Rooks and Jackdaws in. Our first Swallows of the day were seen near Stonehaven. We had decided to pay Rigifa Pool on the outskirts of Cove a brief visit. Just in case there was anything good there (having had American Wigeon and Little Stint on our two previous visits this year). Most of the water had disappeared and 3 species of gulls stood around - Herring Gulls, Lesser Black Backed Gulls and Great Black Backed Gulls. A few Curlews flew off as we got out of the car, as did a flock of Tree Sparrows from the edge of the field to our right.

After a few minutes of making sure we had seen everything there was to see, we jumped back into the car and were on our way to hopefully see the falcon. We pulled into the car park overlooking Greyhope Bay. I knew the bird had been frequenting the golf course which was behind us, so as I got out of the car, I scanned along the skyline above a long patch of bracken along the brow of the hill. I picked up a bird hanging in the wind, more like a Buzzard than a Kestrel in its technique, but Kestrel sized but with a very visible white face. A quick photo to confirm and we had ourselves a lifer. Red Footed Falcon, as easy as that.

We crossed the road for a slightly closer view and watched the bird hunting along the edge of the bracken as it moved slowly in our direction. The golf course was very quiet at this time of morning, on a weekday and I spotted an opportunity for a slightly closer view by the edge of the rough just up a small slope from the road, behind a tee. So up we went. As we did so however, the local Carrion Crows decided to take exception to the Red Footed Falcon and began to harass it, with one bird in particular being more aggressive than the others. This crow chased the falcon off towards the blocks of flats on the edge of Torry. It disappeared out of sight behind the flats and we assumed that it was gone. We had seen it. We had photos, and even a short video clip. Mission accomplished.

There were other birds around on the practice area so we turned our attention to those. Pied Wagtails, Meadow Pipits and a Linnet or two gave us decent views and some photo opportunities. A Skylark flew over as did a few Black Headed Gulls. We were joined by another birder who looked a wee bit familiar. A quick question and confirmation was given that he was indeed Jimmy Mair, who I recognised from some of the Scottish birding groups on facebook. We broke the bad news about the falcon and stood around chatting for a wee while. Unlike most birders I see, even when I'm chatting I'm still birding, and will lift the binoculars to my eyes if the need arises even while carrying on a conversation. Thankfully, nobody has taken it personally so far. Especially when I find something good.

And find something good I did. The Red Footed Falcon was back. I got Nat and Jimmy onto the bird. A lifer for Jimmy too. The bird was working its way along the edge of the bracken again. This time there were a pair of golfers on the tee. I suggested that we see how the bird reacted to the golfers, and if there was no adverse reaction, we head up to the edge of the bracken and let the bird work its way towards us, hopefully giving us reasonably close views. A birder we had chatted to before Jimmy arrived had mentioned that he had taken a photo the previous day of the bird on the ground as a golfer walked past just a few feet away staring curiously at it as he did so. This sounded promising.

When the golfers eventually did tee off and walked down the fairway, the bird ignored them totally. With no other golfers following on, we crossed the fairway and tucked ourselves in just behind a slight bend in the vegetation. The bird would hover over a spot, around 15 feet or so up, then move a bit closer, sometimes dropping down to feed on a worm or grub or insect, before resuming the hover, move, hover sequence again. And all the time it was getting closer. The views were rather good, and we made the most of the decent light in the morning sunshine to take a lot of photos. The bird was now around the distance I thought we might have to make do with. Close enough for great views and decent enough photos.

However, the bird had other ideas and got even closer. Cue more clicking of shutters and happy sounds from happy birders. It surely couldn't get much better than this. A lifer showing this well, in good light. And then it got even better. While I was filming a short clip on my iphone to show how close the bird was, it decided it should maybe check out the area around us for something to eat and it flew along the line of the bracken and hovered directly above us! It then moved slightly over and we were treated to amazing views of the bird less than 10 or so feet away from us. It ignored us completely, concentrating on the ground.

By now another birder/photographer had joined us on the course, though he was stood in the middle of the fairway. Unfortunately for him, he was 'over-lensed', so he had to resort to photographing the bird with his phone when it chose to land close by to pick up some food. It soon resumed hunting and we were treated to further close and overhead views before we decided to leave the bird to its hunting and head back down to the car for a spot of sea-watching with big, wide, silly grins on our faces and an incredulous "did that really happen?" look on all our faces. What a bird!

We stopped at the car while Jimmy wandered off up to the foghorn to sea-watch while we had a quick snack. There were a few birds out in the bay - Common Scoters flew past, Eiders were on the water, Kittiwake and Arctic Tern indulged in a spot of fishing. Guillemot and Razorbills bobbed around in the swell. A small group of Wigeon headed northwards. We drove up the hill to the foghorn. The grassy area by the lighthouse held a small group of Rock Pipits including at least one colour-ringed bird. The temperature had dropped, the wind had picked up and grey clouds had replaced the blue skies and sunshine from earlier.

The foghorn offered little in the way of shelter from the wind sweeping in off the water and visibility varied from reasonable to not very far at all as a bit of a haar seemed to threaten to envelop us. Gulls, Fulmars, Gannets, Cormorants, Shags, Eiders and Kittiwakes passed offshore but we failed to pick up any Skuas or Shearwaters which was rather disappointing. Just as we were about to give up and head off elsewhere 2 Red Throated Divers flew south close in to shore. We said cheerio to Jimmy and headed along to the car park by the Torry Battery and had some lunch before deciding where to go next.

There were birds on the breakwater and we scanned through them. Cormorants, Oystercatchers, Redshanks and a Goosander were all roosting along with a few Turnstones. There were a couple of possible Purple Sandpipers hidden by the Redshanks. Common Gull, Sandwich Terns, and a few Teal were seen over the harbour mouth before we decided to try to find our way to Johnston Gardens where a Mandarin drake had been seen again recently. A navigational error resulted in getting stuck behind a wide load for a short while but the route we ended up on was possibly easier than the intended one. A few Mute Swans were seen frm the car on the banks of the Dee.

As we arrived at Johnston Gardens it started to rain a little. We walked into the small park where there seemed to be more birds around than on my previous couple of visits. The tame Blackbird wandered around near my feet. Blue Tits and Chaffinches were in the trees. A Collared Dove pair were on the path. An older man and his toddler grandchild were feeding the ducks, and with the Mallards and a single young Herring Gull came the drake Mandarin Duck. It was almost in full breeding plumage but not quite. Still, I took the opportunity to get some reasonably close photos. The bird was a little more wary of humans than the Mallards (and Blackbird) and the Robin that perched by my shoulder as I photographed the Mandarin, but was still associating with the Mallards when food was on offer. A pair of Moorhens skulked nearby.

From what I've since discovered the Mandarin here isn't ringed, unlike a similar bird at Peterhead and first showed up in 2011. Where it came from is unknown as far as I can gather, but the gardens do seem to be its liking. With Mandarins breeding at sites in the northeast of Scotland, there is no reason that the bird couldn't be a genuine 'wild' bird as opposed to an escapee from captivity. So, for that reason Mandarin Duck is going on my year-list. My list, my rules. If I do find out that it is an actual proven escapee/release then it will be removed again. Until then.....

We had received word that a Yellow Browed Warbler had turned up near Girdle Ness but decided not to fight against the Aberdeen traffic to try and see it, instead we would head out westwards to Loch of Skene then head south over the Cairn O'Mount and back into Angus. Unfortunately the weather decided to deteriorate further and we passed through a heavy shower of rain before we found the Loch, having seen next to no birds on the way there. It was a larger body of water than expected but we had no real idea where to park, so we skirted around to the south side where we found a farm gate we could view part of the Loch from, until the cows got in the way at least. What we could see out on the water were a number of waterfowl - Coots, Gadwall, Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, Mallard. A Pied Wagtail wandered around in the cow field while Swallows, House Martins and a late Sand Martin hawked around for insects stirred up by the cattle.

A Sparrowhawk was seen nearby and we headed south towards Banchory and the Falls of Feugh where we intended to see if there were any Salmon attempting to get up the waterfalls. A Great Tit greeted us at the car park and numerous Robins could be heard. At the falls a pair of Grey Herons watched and waited for any fish to loiter under their gaze for too long. One of the Herons seemed to have found a very productive spot for this and eventually flew off having gorged on at least 5 or 6 smaller fish. A Grey Wagtail flew in and landed on the rocks as we watched the fish leaping.

Having spent a while watching the fish and the fishing (Herons) we hit the road south towards the Cairn O'Mount. A trio of Buzzards circling above a wood gave us one of the few bird sightings we managed before we made it to the summit which unfortunately was socked in by cloud. We headed down the hill and back into some sort of visibility. We had a very lucky moment that didn't involve any birds when we almost, quite literally, bumped into a large articulated truck on a bend near the bottom of the hill. Thankfully, Nat's brakes and the lorry's brakes worked as advertised. A rather close call.

We crossed the A90 and headed for Montrose where we saw our first House Sparrows of the day and on to Auchmithie. Again, birds were in rather short supply, but Gannets offshore in the bay were circling around above a pod of Dolphins, some of which were breaching high out of the water, albeit distantly. Yet another nice wee bonus. A young girl who was visiting her Granny in the village tried to spot the Dolphins through our binoculars but wasn't able to use them properly so didn't manage to see them, but she now knows that she might see Dolphins if she's looking out to sea.

With the time now after 1800 and the light getting relatively poor we decided on a quick check of the shore and sea at Arbroath cliffs. There were decent numbers of birds moving offshore, though a Herring Gull which stood on the concrete seawall in front of the car kept getting in the way as we scanned. I did succeed in picking up a small flock of Manx Shearwaters and got Nat onto them before they disappeared behind the cliffs on their way north. A few minutes later I spotted another good bird as an Arctic Skua cruised past just off the end of the rocks. My third Skua species in just 3 days, and Nat's second ever. Our 5 second stop had lasted a good bit longer than that but had proven to be rather productive giving me another year-tick. On our way out of Arbroath and back to Dundee we added one final bird to our day list, a Kestrel hovering by the side of the dual carriageway.

A long, really enjoyable day with a brilliant morning, a decent early afternoon, quiet afternoon (bird-wise) and a nice wee early evening batch of sightings to round things off nicely. 63 species seen (3 year-ticks - in bold - of which one, the falcon, was a lifer).

Species seen - Arctic Skua, Arctic Tern, Blackbird, Black Headed Gull, Blue Tit, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Collared Dove, Common Gull, Common Scoter, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Eider, Fulmar, Gadwall, Gannet, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Goosander, Great Black Backed Gull, Great Tit, Grey Heron, Grey Wagtail, Guillemot, Herring Gull, House Martin, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Kittiwake, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Linnet, Magpie, Mallard, Mandarin Duck, Manx Shearwater, Meadow Pipit, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Pied Wagtail, Razorbill, Red Footed Falcon, Redshank, Red Throated Diver, Robin, Rock Pipit, Rook, Sand Martin, Sandwich Tern, Shag, Skylark, Sparrowhawk, Starling, Swallow, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Tufted Duck, Turnstone, Wigeon, Woodpigeon.