Somehow this blog has made it to the 250th post. I'm not exactly sure how this has happened, although determination to stick with it, even when I have a backlog of 8 or so posts to catch up on, has played a major part. The more important thing that has kept me going is the fact that this blog does actually have an audience, and it is one which is steadily growing. For the 249 posts that precede this milestone the viewing figures are now over 29,000! So, once again a huge THANK YOU to you all.
Also a big thank you to all those who I've had the pleasure of birding with at one time or another - Nat, Steph, Jacqui, Gus & Alex, Rhona, Joan, Alice,Willie & Anne, Darell, Ian, Doug and not forgetting Harry, Eth & Paul, John, Mandy, Rab, Jimmy, Graham, Keith, Graham, Eric,Tony, John, Malc, Dave, Tommy, Eck, George, John, George, Alex, Bob, Jon, Rob & Alison, Steve, Wendy, Fiona, Mike, Adam, Stefan, Kim, Keith, Willie, Barry, Will, Harry, Sam, The Friends of Riverside Nature Park and everyone who has come along to any of the guided walks I've led at the park, plus the ADBC, FBC, RSPB and Dundee Naturalists (with apologies to anybody I've unintentionally missed out).
The past week has seen two personal bird related milestones, over and above this blog reaching 250 posts - Last week, my photo of a Shoveler at Kinnordy from last year won the Dundee Naturalists annual photographic competition for 2015 and just last night I gave my first ever 'talk' at a meeting of the Dundee West End Community Spirit Action Group which seemed to go rather well despite my initial trepidation, (and a laptop that wouldn't turn on the disk drive for the CD with the photos on for the visuals to be recognised. Thanks to some quick thinking by Natalie Mackland from the council we found a way around the problem and the show went ahead. Not really in a great hurry to do anything similar anytime soon, but at least I know now that I can do it.
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| Shoveler at Kinnordy (Dundee Nats photo competition winner 2015) |
Anyway, as this is blog post number 250 I figured I should do something a wee bit different to mark the occasion, so having racked my brains for ideas I finally settled on a wee personal birding highlights list. So here are Six of the Best birding days......
It was a bit of a challenge to whittle down the list of possibilities to just a half dozen and on a different day some of these possibly wouldn't feature, or perhaps they would but in a different order. So at least for now these are the six I've chosen. In reverse order........
6. 28/9/13 - Crail area (mostly Balcomie)I headed to Crail on a Saturday morning to try and find a Yellow Browed Warbler, having finally managed decent views and learned the call the previous autumn. Ideally I hoped to get a photo but I was more interested in finding one myself. Walking out from Crail, I succeeded finding one calling and flitting around in the roadside sycamores along the edge of the airfield. A good start. Mission accomplished already. I had intended to check out Kilminning to see if there were any migrant birds passing through in addition to the YBW. However, something made me decide to wander over to Balcomie instead.
This turned out to be a very good decision. I bumped into Will Cresswell and asked if there was anything around. He told me there had been a sighting of a possible Brown Shrike and they were still trying to refind it. I wasn't entirely sure what a Brown Shrike should look like other than it was probably brown and rather shrike-like but it would be a lifer so I joined in the search. I soon found myself talking to the finder, Tim Drew, who along with his brother (whose name escapes me) had seen the bird a short time earlier. As we searched Tim also mentioned he'd had a possible Buff Breasted Sandpiper with the Golden Plover flock that was around. Apparently it was a smaller bird tagging along with the Goldies. Another potential lifer.
Word had gone out about the Shrike and with it being a pretty big rarity soon others showed up to join the search. Any views were fleeting and inconclusive but eventually the bird was seen to fly into the cottage gardens that run perpendicular to the track at the bottom of the hill from the farm. By now one of the birders who had arrived was Ian Ford, the chairman of the Friends of Riverside Nature Park, who I knew from being a member of the committee at the time. Ian was in the stubble field behind the cottages and was waving his arms, so I hurried over to join him. He had seen the bird and pointed out where. It wasn't showing. As there were birders on 3 sides, if the bird broke cover it would be seen. A young/female Merlin was visible perched on the wires down from the cottages. Another good bird to get.
I chatted to Ian and mentioned the Buff Breasted Sandpiper possibility. This turned out to be a bit of a bogey bird for Ian. As we chatted the Golden Plover flock flew over. I started taking photos of bits of the flock, while Ian hunted for any smaller birds among them. He found a smaller bird at the tail end of the flock and I quickly got onto the bird and managed a few record shots. We shouted to others but we were a bit too far away to get anyone's attention properly so it went unseen by most. Looking at the photos which were of reasonable quality Ian felt fairly sure it was a Buff Breasted Sandpiper while I had no idea, other than it was clearly smaller than the Plovers. I ran across to show the photos to other experienced birders to see what they thought. Most were unsure or non-committal but the shrike decided to fly to behind the overgrown garden cottage. A mass exodus of birders hurried along the track between the farm buildings and the cottage.
We hurried to join the array of scopes pointed into the field. Once the bird was found in the field it flew up into a small bush where it gave reasonable views, before making regular forays into the field for small prey items. It was watched for quite a while and I even managed a few record shots despite the distance. Two lifers and a self found Yellow Browed Warbler. A pretty good day. 49 species seen
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| Brown Shrike |
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| Buff Breasted Sandpiper |
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| Buff Breasted Sandpiper |
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| Brown Shrike |
5. 28/9/08 - North West Fife
Back in 2008, my main interest was photography rather than birding, though birds were starting to feature more and more. In late August the first batch of White Tailed Eagles of the 5 year east coast re-introduction programme had been released somewhere in Fife. The assumption at the time was that it was Tentsmuir wher the birds had been released. However, it turned out this was not the case. I chanced upon a photo of one of the young birds while browsing flickr. I messaged the photographer, Barry Forbes, who was able to give directions to the particular road where he'd seen the bird from. He said he'd be going back there the following day for another look. We said we'd maybe see him there if we could find the right place.
The following day, my girlfriend (at the time) Mandy and I decided to try and find this small single track road and hopefully see an Eagle. We thought we were probably on the right road and when we found a car parked at a gate on the bend with a couple with cameras and binoculars we stopped to ask if they were who we thought they were. They were. We managed to squeeze Mandy's Ford Ka in alongside their car and got out to join them. There was no sign of any activity over the large sloping field or the large conifer plantations behind.
After a while I noticed that there was a track leading into the field. I suggested that it might be possible to walk into the field (it was a large grassy, non-crop field with no livestock in it). We drove down and managed to get the cars off the road. So as to not block the track should anyone need access the cars were driven through the gate where the track was wide enough for any farm vehicle to get past if it was necessary. The four of us walked up the hill into the field and stood and waited. A Buzzard glided over the trees. A few Jays were seen flying over a track between two parts of the plantation behind us. A Kestrel hovered over a different part of the field.
After a short while a large raptor glided into view. It was huge. It had to be a White Tailed Eagle. It was. It flew closer and actually circled above us. I snapped away. Flying barn door seemed to perfectly describe the huge parallel sided wings of the bird. A second bird flew into join the first, then a Buzzard which looked tiny alongside the much larger raptors. Then things got even better with a third and a fourth White Tailed Eagle joined the soaring birds above us. Unfortunately what I didn't realise was that the ISO on the camera hadn't been reset from my night time shots of the previous evening, so what could have been brilliant photos of a great encounter turned out to be just ok. Still, what a memory. The Eagles eventually drifted off again.
There were 4 big grins on show in the field and we had a Peregrine fly over to add even further to the raptor list. As we eventually gave up to walk back to the cars, I happened to look back and found a Sparrowhawk in the air just above us. 5 raptors, 1 of which was a lifer, in a day is always pretty good. This particular day it was very good.
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| White Tailed Eagles |
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| Sparrowhawk |
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| White Tailed Eagle |
Speaking of special days with raptors -
4. 11/9/15 Girdle Ness, Aberdeen
Red Footed Falcon. A lifer, and a pretty decent rarity at that, treating us as an inconvenience spoiling its view of potential food while hovering a few feet above us more than once and giving us an unforgettable experience. Full story on the blog post -
http://stonefactionbirding2014.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/fantastic-friday-11915.html
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| Red Footed Falcon |
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| Red Footed Falcon |
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| Red Footed Falcon |
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| Red Footed Falcon |
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| Red Footed Falcon |
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| Red Footed Falcon |
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| Red Footed Falcon |
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| Red Footed Falcon |
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| Red Footed Falcon |
3.
14/10/13 - Crail Area
The previous day while on an ADBC outing to look for rarities I had stumbled upon my best ever find. During an unplanned stop in Denburn Wood in Crail I had wandered ahead of the rest of the group and stumbled upon the rarest bird I've yet found - a Red Flanked Bluetail. Apart from the initial views however I hadn't really had a good long look at the bird and the photos I had managed were ok as record shots but ideally I wanted a better look and better photos.
I decided to head back to Crail early the next morning in the hope the Bluetail was still around. It was and the wood was full of birders. It was working a small stretch of the wood in a circuit, so the views were fairly regular even if the light conditions were not great. The local Robins however weren't too keen and kept chasing it. I chatted to a few of the others present, Willie Irvine, Mike Thrower and a few others. One or two handshakes and congratulations on finding the bird came my way. It was pure luck that I'd spotted the bird and recognised it, despite having chuckled at the headline on a recent Birdwatch magazine where it was suggested they could turn up almost anywhere. I wasn't expecting Fife or Angus to be one of those places, nor for myself to see one, let alone find one.
I spent most of the morning in the wood before deciding to head along to Kilminning to see if the weather that had brought in the Bluetail had brought in anything else of interest (a Pallas' Warbler had been seen in the wood on the Sunday afternoon too - I think I may have heard it but thought it was a YBW so didn't spend any time looking properly). A Mealy Redpoll was showing really well, picking seeds from a Rosebay Willowherb seedhead. A Yellow Browed Warbler was found. I chatted to bird photographer John McHale who I knew through his flickr account and we found a second Mealy Redpoll feeding down on the ground in the top square at the top end of Kilminning. A Blackcap and Chiffchaff were other fairly common migrants found as were the numerous Goldcrests we saw. Skylarks, Redwings and Mistle Thrushes all passed overhead, some heard only in the rather hazy sky, other seen dropping down to land among the trees to rest and eat.
Myself and John wandered up the drive at Balcomie to check the walled
garden. Just as we reached the wall on the right hand side we spotted a
grey bird perched on the corner. A Black Redstart, another good find.
When we headed back to Kilminning a flock of around 20 Bramblings
dropped into the sycamores beside us. A pretty good way to end a
brilliant day's birding. Only 42 species seen but definitely quality
over quantity.
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| Red Flanked Bluetail |
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| Black Redstart |
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| Mealy Redpoll |
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| Yellow Browed Warbler |
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| Red Flanked Bluetail |
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| Red Flanked Bluetail |
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| Red Flanked Bluetail |
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| Red Flanked Bluetail |
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| Red Flanked Bluetail |
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| Red Flanked Bluetail |
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| Mealy Redpoll |
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| Mealy Redpoll |
2. 25/7/11 - Fife Ness and Crail Area
The Crail area has been really good to me, with some really good 'finds' of my own (Red Backed Shrike, Hobby, Ring Ouzel, the aforementioned Red Flanked Bluetail, Black Redstart and Mealy Redpoll along with birds found by others such as Eastern Olivaceous Wabler, Red Breasted Flycatcher and Radde's Warbler, Pied Flycatchers, Redstarts, Lesser Whitethroats and the Brown Shrike and Buff Breasted Sandpiper mentioned earlier). The day out that is my second placed pick was a sea-watching day. My best find of my own while sea-watching at Fife Ness was a young Long Tailed Skua - a lifer and I even managed a nice photo which made it into Birding World magazine.
However, the day in question was slightly different. I had been out birding with my birding buddy, Joan on the Sunday when a text came in from Fife while we were at Arbroath Cliffs. A number of Storm Petrels had been seen from Crail. More were reported later from Fife Ness. Unfortunately there were none to be seen from the Angus coast where we were. Checking later at home it turned out there had been unprecedented numbers off Fife, Lothian and Northumberland that day. Having never seen the species I hoped that maybe one or two might linger overnight.
With the Monday being the Dundee local holiday I headed over to St Andrews by bus and then onto Crail. I walked down to Roome Bay to scan out across the water, just in case. I spotted a small dark bird fluttering around low over the water. Through the binoculars I could see it was black with a white rump. Apart from the flight style it looked a little like a House Martin. It was my first ever Storm Petrel. Mission accomplished and I'd just arrived. I decided to walk along the coastal path to Fife Ness to do some sea-watching from there. I stopped every 5 minutes or so to scan out across the water and almost every time I did so I managed to find another Storm Petrel. There were clearly lots of the birds moving past the stretch of the east coast.
There were the usual Gannets, Guillemots, Razorbills, Cormorants, Shags and gulls offshore as well plus Eiders, Kittiwakes, Arctic Terns, Common Terns, Sandwich Terns and Fulmars. Whitethroats, Yellowhammers and Linnets provided a soundtrack to my walk to Fife Ness. When I arrived I found myself a flat bit of rock to watch the birds moving past. There were loads to see, with Oystercatchers and Redshanks and Grey Heron all close by in addition to the birds out on and over the water. There were regular Storm Petrels still passing by, some lingering for a short while before moving on. I had at least 1 pair and a trio in addition to the singles.
As well as the Storm Petrels, I also had a few small groups of Manx
Shearwaters shearing their way by and much further out I watched a
single Sooty Shearwater heading northwards. The overcast grey sky made
the light almost perfect for seawatching with almost no heat haze to
spoil the view. The Sooty Shearwater was a lifer for me. A few Red
Throated Divers and Arctic Skua completed the sea-watching species list
on what was easily my most successful sea-watching day ever. I took
photos of the Storm Petrels despite their size and the distance from
shore. A few of these were used to illustrate an article on the Storm
Petrel movement from that few days in the SOC magazine and I had an
interesting chat on the phone to the editor when he was putting together
the article. 55 species seen on the day.
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| Storm Petrel & Gannet |
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| Arctic Skua & Guillemots |
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| Storm Petrel |
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| Sooty Shearwater & Guillemot |
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| Storm Petrel |
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| Storm Petrel |
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| Storm Petrel & Guillemot |
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| Manx Shearwater |
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| Storm Petrel |
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| Red Throated Diver |
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| Gannet |
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| Sandwich Tern |
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| Shag |
and (drum roll...................)
the number one best birding day is........
1. 31/8/14 - Riverside Nature Park, Dundee
Possibly rather surprisingly, my best birding day didn't feature any
real rarities though there were some pretty good birds (Spotted
Redshank, Ruff, Tree Pipit, Kingfisher and Jay) and I didn't even have to leave Dundee
at all.
With the previous best day total at Riverside Nature Park a really good 53 species (itself a good bit higher than most very good days at the park) I knew I was onto a pretty good total when I'd already seen 40 species by 1000 in the morning. I stuck around and kept listening and looking and the more I looked the more I saw. One of those days when things just 'click'. The day that tops the total seen that day (62) is going to have to be very special. A pretty magical day.
Full story here -
http://stonefactionbirding2014.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/record-breaker-31814.html
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| Jay |
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| Spotted Redshank |
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| Kingfisher |
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| Magpie |
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| Spotted Redshank |
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| Ruff |
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| Reed Bunting |
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| Tree Pipit |
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| Tree Pipit |
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| Great Tit |
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| Long Tailed Tit |
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| Willow Warbler |
So what will the next 250 posts bring? Who knows......I can guarantee there will be plenty of words, plenty of birds and plenty of pictures. I hope you enjoy them. Thanks for reading.
(Please feel free to share the links to these blogs on facebook/twitter etc to anyone that you think might be interested in reading them, or even just looking at the photos).
