STONEFACTION BIRDING: 12/17/15

0235 : Misty Midweek (16/12/15)

I think it is probably safe to say that December is probably my least favourite month. Short daylight hours, long hours of darkness and cold, often wet, days aplenty. Coupled with little in the way of 'new' birds to see for the yearlist, and often poor light for photography, there can be quite a struggle to get out of a warm bed to venture out birding. January, although similar, at least has the benefit of the same birds being 'new' again and lengthening daylight. However, having only made it out birding once this December, I wanted to try and get out and about somewhere with Nat for one of the last of our mid-week outings for 2015. The weather looked quite mild but there was a bit of mist and fog forecast.

Whooper Swan

Nat arranged to pick me up at 0900 and as I was leaving the house I spotted a flock of Feral Pigeons perched on the roofs opposite. Outside, it was rather misty and grey but thankfully not cold. A Herring Gull was added as I got into the car to join Nat. We discussed our options. With little wind and plenty mist around we settled on our original plan - to head inland to Loch of Lintrathen to try again to see if we could find the reported Great Grey Shrike which had been seen earlier in the week again. We weren't hopeful that the visibility would be particularly great but as Great Grey Shrikes do tend to perch in highly visible places the weather shouldn't hinder us too much, as long as the bird was actually hunting.

Needless to say there wasn't too much to be seen as we traveled out in the direction of Alyth. Carrion Crow, Jackdaws, Rooks and a few Pheasants plus a few Mute Swans in a field were all we had to show for the miles traveled. We also saw a possible Collared Dove, but the light was so poor that we couldn't completely rule out a skinny-ish Woodpigeon, so neither went onto the list. A Blackbird and a Goldfinch were seen as we neared the loch, having missed the correct junction owing to the combination of the reduced visibility and the unfamiliar direction of our approach. We finally arrived at Loch of Lintrathen just before 1000. As expected, it was rather misty, though away from the loch itself it wasn't too bad, all things considered.

We could hear birds calling from the trees just inside the gate. A bit of scanning found a few Coal Tits. A small flock of Bullfinches overflew. A single Great Tit foraged around in a conifer nearby. A party of Long Tailed Tits flitted around among the weeds and small conifers, while a pair of Goldcrests chased each other around. A Chaffinch called from the top of a tall-ish tree. A Reed Bunting shared a small bush with another Chaffinch. A Blue Tit called from another bush and a Dunnock flew across the track in front of us. We stopped and scanned every few steps but drew a blank, though Nat caught sight of a pale bird flapping furiously at one point, but thought it might have been a pigeon. There is also the possibility it may have been the bird we were looking for, but the view was a fraction of a second and it was out of sight.

Further on, we found our first Robin of the day. From in the trees we walked down to the edge of the water to check the visibility to ascertain whether there was any point in continuing along to the hide. A solitary Goldeneye female was all we could see out on the water. We could hear plenty activity hidden by the mist, mostly Mallards and Wigeon calling. We decided to wander to the hide anyway. The visibility from the raised hide wasn't much better at first, though we did soon add a Cormorant flying by and a small group of Mallards. The thickness of the mist varied by the minute and we did succeed in spotting a few other species when the mist thinned. There were plenty Wigeon and Goldeneye plus a few Tufted Ducks. Nat spotted a Little Grebe relatively close to the hide. Among the Wigeon we found a single Coot.

After 30 minutes of peering through the mist we decided to head back along the track to the car to check another possible location for the Shrike. A Wren sang loudly and was spotted by Nat as we walked back along the track by the drainage ditch. Despite further scanning there was still no sign of the Shrike. We had a walk up the road so that we had a better view of the area to the south of the track which offered a few possible perches, but again we drew a blank. We did hear Redwings calling and I found them perched up in a tree behind a house, down a farm track.

We drove a short distance towards the southwest 'corner' of the Loch to check the conifer plantations. There were 3 tracks leading up through the trees, all 3 being rather muddy and with running water to negotiate too. The first one led a very short distance to a locked gate. We saw plenty Chaffinches and a distant Mistle Thrush from here but little else. We missed out the middle track as a dog walking business was in the process of leaving, so we took the option of choosing to come back to that one if necessary and instead headed for the furthest away of the 3 tracks.

There were huge numbers of finches moving in a clockwise direction as we pulled up. The birds we managed to identify were all Chaffinches, and there were easily at least 300 or 400 birds seen. A small party of bullfinches dropped into a tree nearby and from the plantation a larger brown bird took flight. It took a second or two to realise what it was and as it flew off towards the Loch we had clear views which showed it to be a Woodcock. A nice find but there was still no Shrike to be seen. Nat spotted a perched Buzzard. We heard a calling Jay but failed to see it. The third track gave us nothing new so we drove back to our initial starting point to have lunch before another check of the first search area along the hide track.

Again there was no sign of the elusive Shrike, but we did manage to add Lesser Redpoll to our list. Reed Buntings and Bullfinches as well as Long Tailed Tits and a Goldcrest all showed relatively well. The light levels dropped rather quickly and at one point I thought it was about to rain. We debated where to go next and took a chance on heading to Backwater Reservoir. A Buzzard by the road in a dead tree was the only bird seen on the way there. We managed to get all the way along to the car park and back without any birds at all being seen and as we crossed back along the top of the dam we heard a calling Pied Wagtail but we couldn't see it. There was very little of the surface of the reservoir visible from the road so we drew a blank on water birds here also. There are plenty days when there are hardly any birds to be seen here even when the sun shines so although we drew a blank it was worth taking the detour.

With a maximum of about 90 minutes of usable daylight left we decided against another search for the Shrike instead choosing to head for what was likely to be a misty Loch of Kinnordy. We added House Sparrow to the list as we passed through Kingoldrum. Greylags were in a few spots beore we reached the empty car park at Kinnordy. From the gullery hide we saw lost of mist and initially no birds. There were some grey shapes on the bogbean islands. These turned out to be Snipe. There were about a dozen of the birds huddled up doing nothing. A drake Goosander swam into view. 10 minutes or so later a raptor suddenly appeared above the islands and I snapped away. I was hoping it might be the Hen Harrier that had been seen here recently but it was only a Sparrowhawk. The Snipe collectively scarpered and the Sparrowhawk went hungry.

The mist eventually began to lift and we were able to add Teal and a pair of Whooper Swans to the list. There were also a few Mute Swans around on the loch as well as Goldeneye. A few Greylags flew by calling loudly. We decided to check the view from the other hides. The walk to the swamp hide gave us views of a small group of Woodpigeons landing in the trees above the path. There was nothing to add from the hide, though Nat saw what might have been the Bittern but the mist meant that she couldn't be certain, so after a short visit we headed finally to the east hide. A Moorhen was feeding below the feeders but there were no Bramblings around.

We had good views of the reserve at last as the mist began to clear, as the wind seemed to pick up slightly as the temperature dropped. The light was fading fast however, so the increase in visibility was offset by the decrease in light levels anyway. Greylags and Whooper Swans gave us decent enough views as they flew around, while out on the water there seemed to be decent numbers of Goldeneye and a few Mallards. Around 1530 we called it a day and headed back to the car, stopping at the feeders for a minute and adding one final species to the list, in the shape of a Great Spotted Woodpecker drumming high up in one of the feeder trees, before flying off.

Despite the poor visibility we ended the day on a reasonable total of 43 species and the mild temperatures made it feel very unlike December which was definitely a plus.

Species seen - Blackbird, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Coot, Cormorant, Dunnock, Goldcrest, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Goosander, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Greylag Goose, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Lesser Redpoll, Little Grebe, Long Tailed Tit, Mallard, Mistle Thrush, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Redwing, Reed Bunting, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Rook, Snipe, Sparrowhawk, Teal, Tufted Duck, Whooper Swan, Wigeon, Woodcock, Woodpigeon, Wren.