Sometime in May or June I always like to get up to the Ythan estuary and Loch of Strathbeg in Aberdeenshire as they seem to attract a lot of interesting and sometimes rather rare birds. One of these is Elvis, the
King Eider drake, who has been coming back to the Ythan for a few years now. With Nat failing twice to see the female King Eider on the Forth, Elvis is a very photogenic substitute. With this in mind, and the return of the tern species to the colony on the Ythan at Newburgh, a trip up north and east was planned. When a Lesser Yellowlegs was reported at tea-time on Saturday night near the Ythan, a detour was factored into the rather loose plan. As a long day was likely we opted for an 0900 start.
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| Lesser Yellowlegs |
Off we went at the appointed time. As is often the case when headed up the A90 the birds were few and far between. Woodpigeon, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Herring Gull & Blackbird seen before we reached the northern edge of Dundee, then only a few more species over the next hour - Rook, Oystercatcher, Jackdaw, yellowhammer, Swallow, Starling and Buzzard. reaching Aberdeen we had a Swift fly over the car and added Blue Tit and Carrion Crow as we passed through the city. Not a huge haul of birds given the miles travelled.
An email from ABZ-rare birds came through, reporting that the Lesser Yellowlegs was still around, but was now on the Ythan opposite the 'fisherman's hut' upriver from the Waulkmill Hide. Thankfully i had come prepared with a copy of the excellent "Birding Guide to North-East Scotland" and also a Philips Aberdeenshire Street Atlas. I quickly found where we needed to be and we navigated our way there. We encountered a bit of rain, which hadn't been forecast, but this seemed to peter out just as we reached our destination. Getting out of the car with a metal tripod in hand I wasn't particularly keen on the loud rumble of thunder that greeted us. Hopefully it was going away from us.
We wandered down to the track, picking up a Wren along the way, to the small hut where two birders were scoping the other side of the river. A quick discussion followed and we were soon looking at a lifer for us both across the other side of the river. A
Lesser Yellowlegs in the company of a Greenshank. After watching and photographing the bird for a while I checked around for other birds on the estuary. There were Shelduck, Pink Footed Geese, Grey Heron, Greylag Geese, Black Headed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Mallards, Tufted Ducks and Redshanks while overhead Swallows, Sand Martins, Swifts and House Martins circled. As a reported Great White Egret just along the road at Cotehill Loch was still around we decided to head for that on our way to the mouth of the Ythan at Newburgh.
Skylark and Pheasant were seen on the way there and we didn't have to try too hard to see the large white shape of the
Great White Egret in the reeds on the far side of the Loch when we arrived. Another birder/photographer - who I recognised from the Red Footed Falcon twitch and a visit to Kinnordy, Walter Innes stopped his car for a brief chat. As we chatted, Nat shouted across that the Egret was flying. It flew to the near side of the Loch so once Walter had headed off we drove up the hill and quickly took a few photos of the bird in the reeds before we headed for Newburgh.
Crossing the river north of the town we could see plenty of Eiders in the water. We then encountered the rather odd sight of a drake Mallard stood on the apex of a roof. Arriving at the car park near the golf course, fingers were crossed that Elvis would be around, and that the Terns would be easy to see, unlike last year's visit when they stayed very distant across the river. Linnet, Dunnock and Meadow Pipit were seen as we walked through the gorse to the beach,, after stopping to photograph the local House Martins collecting mud for nest-building. As well as seals and Eiders and Sand Martins there were plenty of gulls and terns around.
We set up the scope to scan through the birds. It only took seconds to add
Common Terns,
Arctic Terns and Sandwich Terns to the list though
Little Terns did take slightly longer to find, but we eventually saw double figures of the diminutive little 'sea-swallows'. We moved along the beach to the tin shelter to scan from the slightly raised position overlooking the group of terns and gulls. This gave us a far better view and we soon managed to add a few more species to the list. A single Turnstone, a Red Breasted Merganser drake, a Mute Swan and a mixed flock of Ringed Plover and Dunlin. With time wearing on we decided we should probably move on again to Loch of Strathbeg.
Willow Warbler was added on the way back to the car, and during the journey we added another 4 species to the list for the day - Curlew, Common Gull, Collared Dove and Feral Pigeon. Arriving at the RSPB reserve we found that the visitor centre (and toilets) were closed due to refurbishement. This wasn't great news. We decided to walk to the hide overlooking the 'Low Ground'. Sedge Warbler, Reed Bunting, Chaffinch and Whitethroat being seen during the walk, the latter taking a fair bit of effort as it called from the bushes before eventually appearing in the open for a few seconds.
There didn't appear to be too much to see from the hide though with some searching birds were found, though always distantly. Lapwing, Stock Dove, Cormorant, Teal, Gadwall, Goldeneye and Wigeon. There was some discussion about a "dead" horse (identified as a cow by a rather vocal
English birder) which was abruptly halted when it stood up. We headed
back to the car park after a short while, adding Tree Sparrow and
Goldfinch, while Willow Warbler and better views of the Sedge Warbler
were also had. A few Terns could be seen over the roof of the buildings.
I decided to try and peer through a wooden slatted fence with a rather
limited view to see if there was anything of interest on the pools.
Along with some Tufted Ducks I spotted the rear end of an upended duck
that didn't seem familiar. When it surfaced the reason for the
unfamiliarity was revealed. A duck I don't see often. A nice drake
Garganey and another year-tick.
We headed round to the airfield hides but things were very quiet out on the Loch with only Great Crested Grebe added. House Sparrows were seen as we headed back to the main road to head back south. From the car I was able to see Gannets out over the sea flying along in strings. We decided to pay the cliffs at The Bullers Of Buchan a visit. A Pied Wagtail was in the car park. There were plenty of Kittiwakes and Guillemots on the cliffs as well as a few Razorbills, Fulmars and Shags. Two of the Kittiwakes were on very unfriendly terms with one grabbing the other by the bill and dragging it off the ledge and down into to the water at least 4 times. Out on the water, Nat spotted a single Puffin before we headed back to the car. Checking birdguides website we discovered that the Lesser Yellowlegs had relocated to the pool it had been discovered on. With the sun now shining and the likelihood that the pool in a field wasn't particularly large I figured we would get better views than we had earlier in the day.
Getting there however proved slightly problematical with a bridge appearing on my map that was no longer suitable for traffic, so we had to take a longer way round. Arriving at the correct road we discovered that it was more potholes than road as we drove along it. We could see the bird at the far end of the pool. I took photos from the window while Nat stood behind the car to take some. When a couple of walkers came down the road and the bird didn't flush we knew we were quite safe photographing the bird from the fenceline. By now the bird was working its way closer along the edge of the pool. I took some video and a lot of photos before the bird decided to double back on itself and headed away from us again. Happy with our lot we headed further down the track, finding that it was actually possible for the remainder to be more pot-holed than the first part. We did eventually reach something resembling road but it was quite slow progress to get there.
We headed back to the Ythan again to look for Elvis and maybe get some more tern pics with the light being rather nice. There was no sign of Elvis though we did get some nice views of the terns etc before we reluctantly had to call it a day at about 1945 and headed for home. Magpie was added on our way back through Aberdeen. About halfway home we discovered that Elvis had flown in just 15 minutes after we had left. Ah well, we will just have to go back again, maybe next month. There was another slightly later than ideal moment as we passed Forfar. An ADBC grapevine text about 2 Glossy Ibis at Montrose Basin came in. Had we stayed that little bit longer at the Ythan and seen Elvis we would have likely been in place to make a detour for these two. That's birding though.
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| Greenshank & Lesser Yellowlegs |
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| Great White Egret |
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| House Martin |
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| Sandwich Tern, Common Tern & Little Tern |
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| Eider |
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| Eider |
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| Sandwich Tern |
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| Little Tern |
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| Sandwich Tern |
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| Common Seal |
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| Stock Dove |
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| Buzzard |
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| Sedge Warbler |
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| Sedge Warbler |
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Tufted Duck & Garganey
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| Kittiwake |
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| Kittiwake |
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| Kittiwake |
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| Kittiwake |
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| Razorbill, Guillemot & Puffin |
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| Lesser Yellowlegs |
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| Lesser Yellowlegs |
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| Lesser Yellowlegs |
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| Lesser Yellowlegs |
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| Black Headed Gull, Dunlin, Eider & Oystercatcher |
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| Sandwich Tern & Little Tern |
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| Common Tern & Sandwich Tern |
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| Sandwich Tern & Eider |
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| Arctic Tern |
A long but very enjoyable and productive day with 74 species seen, including a lifer and 5 other year-ticks (in bold). Species seen -
Arctic Tern, Blackbird, Black Headed Gull, Blue Tit, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Collared Dove, Common Gull,
Common Tern, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunlin, Dunnock, Eider, Fulmar, Gadwall, Gannet,
Garganey, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Great Black Backed Gull, Great Crested Grebe,
Great White Egret, Greenshank, Grey Heron, Greylag Goose, Guillemot, Herring Gull, House Martin, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kittiwake, Lapwing, Lesser Black Backed Gull,
Lesser Yellowlegs, Linnet,
Little Tern, Magpie, Mallard, Meadow Pipit, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pink footed oose, Puffin, Razorbill, Red Breasted Merganser, Redshank, Reed Bunting, Ringed Plover, Feral Pigeon, Rook, sand Martin, Sandwich Tern, Sedge Warbler Shag, Shelduck, Skylark, Starling, Stock Dove, Swallow, Swift, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Tufted Duck, Turnstone, Whitethroat, Wigeon, Willow Warbler, Woodpigeon, Wren, Yellowhammer.
