On Sunday evening I received a message via Facebook from local bird photographer, Eric McCabe, letting me know that 2 Shorelarks had been found at Tentsmuir/Kinshaldy by an experienced birder. Once more details were added I let the Fife Recorder know. There were sightings of the birds again on Monday and Tuesday. With wet and wild weather forecast I was undecided whether to attempt to go for what would be a lifer, so I decided to make the decision on the day. I knew it would require at least a 3.5 mile walk to get to the birds, so I would need at least 90 minutes of daylight to play with, even without any time required to actually find the birds. With around 6 or so hours of daylight available at this time of year, there was a good chance of missing out even if the birds didn't vanish overnight.
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| Shorelark |
It was raining when I got up in the morning and the forecast was for more showers. There wasn't too much of a window of any sorts before 1300. However, the light begins to go at around 1300, or shortly after, at this time of year. I needed to make a decision, and if I decided to go it was likely I wasn't going to stay dry. I decided to go for it, and aimed to catch the Tayport bus at around 1100. Unsurprisingly, I didn't see too many birds between home and the bus station with only Feral Pigeon, Black Headed Gull and Herring Gull seen on the walk. Blackbird, Starling and Woodpigeon were seen from the bus as it passed through Tayport.
The sky looked increasingly threatening as the bus approached my destination. With strong winds from the west, it appeared I wasn't going to have to wait too long to find out just how wet I would get. A quick scan of the beach found Mallards, Carrion Crows, Oystercatchers, Redshanks, Shelduck and Curlew. There were other waders further out but I decided to head quickly for the forest and slightly more shelter than the beach offered. I had only gone a very short distance when the rain hit. I hurried on, getting rather wet (my non-waterproof camera bag taking the brunt of it - thankfully there are a couple of layers before the camera gets wet). The track through the forest didn't give too much extra protection from the rain, though it did cut out the wind to an extent. Birds were in very short supply with a few areas with numerous Goldcrests in the trees but not much else.
Near the end of the trees a Robin flew across the path and into cover, while a Coal Tit foraged around overhead with more Goldcrests. A Wren was spotted by a drainage ditch. The rain had eased so I wandered to the beach-edge path to scan the river and beach. There were Eiders well out on the Tay, a Common Gull landed at the edge of the exposed mud. A Bar Tailed Godwit and a Grey Plover wandered along the water's edge and were joined by a single Dunlin. I headed onwards "round the corner" heading south. I stopped to watch a few Goldcrests and Blue Tits in the trees about 5 minutes later. I could hear a 'tap tap' sound and I soon spotted a Great Spotted Woodpecker tapping away at a branch about 15 feet up. It didn't appear to have spotted me, but I headed on again.
I decided to head out to the trees where I often see Green Woodpeckers as the rain had now gone off. A Mistle Thrush settled in a treetop near the start of the small wood. Further on I chanced upon a group of mostly Blue Tits feeding on the ground. There were also Siskins in the trees and bushes beside them as well as a Chaffinch and a Goldfinch. At the southern end I stopped to check more finshes in the trees. These were almost all Linnets though there were also one or two Lesser Redpolls with them, but no Twite as far as I could see.
I headed out to the edge of the dunes for a quick check of the beach and sea. Cormorants were roosting well out while a Great Black Backed Gull was very obvious stood alone on the sand. There were a few more Herring, Common and Black Headed Gulls around but not any large flocks of anything, though there were a few small groups of Oystercatchers on the move. A couple of Reed Buntings lifted from the edge of the dunes. As I neared the large pool roughly where the Shorelarks had been seen I scanned ahead. There was a Redshank along the edge. A Goldeneye and 3 Red Breasted Mergansers were on the water. I heard geese and spotted two skeins inbound from out over the sea which turned out to be Pink Footed Geese.
As I needed to be out by the dunes, where I'd previously seen Snow Buntings I needed to navigate a route that avoided deeper water. I spotted relatively shallow water with a few patches of sand above the water just beyond the fence and headed to cross there. I had just crossed, managing to keep my feet mostly dry when I heard a shout from along to my right. I could see someone stood near the edge of the pool with a tripod set up in front of him. I crossed back and headed along to see who had shouted, hoping that they had the Shorelarks in view. It turned out to be Willie Irvine, but he hadn't yet seen the birds. We decided to cross to the dunes and see if we could find them.
Willie took the landward side of the dunes and I took the seaward side and we slowly wandered south but there was little obvious. After a few minutes I spotted 2 birds a few hundred metres to the south fly out over the dunes towards the sea. They looked quite long winged - lark-like, rather than finch-like, but when I switched to the camera to try to get a photo I lost sight of them and didn't see where they went. This was frustrating and Willie had failed to see the birds when I'd yelled to him to point them out. We decided to scan the beach just in case they had landed. I eventually spotted two small birds on the beach a few hundred metres away in an area of sand with water shaped hollows. I took a few photos and was exceedingly pleased to see the tell-tale yellow and black facial markings of
Shorelark. A nice lifer for me.
I managed to get Willie onto the birds and we decided to head down the beach for a slightly closer look. There was an area of shallow water between us and the birds but as we headed down the beah, a heavy rain shower hit us and the wind increased. The birds appeared to have vanished though while we were battered by the elements, so we retreated back to the edge of the dunes to sit out the rest of the shower in at least a bit of shelter. While sat there I scanned the sea, finding a single Common Scoter and a couple of Slavonian Grebes not too far offshore as well as a few Cormorants. Eiders were further out and there were a few small groups of Common Scoters on the wing as well.
Once the rain had again gone off, we chose to retrace our steps from the end of the dunes and to head for the area where I initially spotted the birds in flight to the south. We hadn't gone too far when I lost sight of Willie behind a larger dune. I thought I heard him shout, but wasn't certain, so I wandered in his direction anyway. When I reached him, he pointed out that I had actually managed to walk past the two Shorelarks feeding on the mud near the edge of the dunes!. They were so well camouflaged when their backs were to us, and they shuffled along very low to the ground making them even harder to spot. I re-positioned myself in the dunes near where I had passed them and snapped away. The sun had come out by now so I decided to get ahead of the birds apparent path and more at their level, so I ducked back up the dune and round about 20 metres or so to a point where I could see the birds shuffling along and watched them getting closer.
Willie had chosen a different angle by now also and had good views looking down onto the birds from above them in the dunes. One of them wandered in very close to the edge in front of Willie but my view was obscured by the long grass I was partially tucked in behind. The birds ignored us and the sound of camera shutters snapping away and we made the most of the opportunities afforded us before the birds decided to double back on themselves. The light had begun to go as well with the ISO on the camera having to be ramped back up to ISO1000 from the 400 I was using when the sun was shining. I headed back to near where I had been initially and hid in behind another small dune to wait for the birds to come along in front of me which they duly did a few minutes later. The temperature had dropped so I reluctantly popped on a pair of gloves for the last spell of watching these two great wee birds feeding in front of us.
We eventually decided we had enough photos of them and I asked Willie if I could mooch a lift back to civilisation from him (saving me at least 2 miles worth of walking!). Thankfully he said yes and we walked back to the car park at Kinshaldy through parts of the forest and along the edge of the dunes. We had views of Chaffinches from the car near the T-junction at the end of the access road but there wasn't too much else seen. Despite the sun having almost set, we headed to Guardbridge hide to see if we could see a few more species in the fading light.
Mallards, Lapwings, a few Golden Plovers, plenty of distant gulls and a flock of Curlews were all picked up quite quickly. Woodpigeons were coming into roost in the conifers opposite and a Buzzard mewed from a high branch in the same trees. A Starling perched atop another. Tree Sparrow, Chaffinch, Blue Tit and Coal Tit popped into the feeders while 4 Little Grebes were in the river in front of the hide. A few Cormorants headed inland and a Grey Heron flew across the river. At just before 1600 we called it a day and I headed for the bus and Willie headed for home after a successful shortest day's birding.
Only 44 species seen, but the crucial lifer (in bold) being the obvious highlight. I was certainly glad I'd decided to risk getting wet (and the bag has almost completely dried out now) and had made the effort to try for them. Fingers crossed that they don't get much disturbance from anyone, (the weather conditions meant there were few dog walkers around) and that they stick around for the winter. Although we didn't see the Snow Buntings they may still be around in the same rough area (we did have a flock of Linnets, and at least one Chaffinch, behind us at times). Sitting in the dunes as the birds fed and waiting on them coming to us certainly reaped dividends with the birds intent on feeding all the time we had them in sight after our initial sight of them out on the beach. Hopefully not the last year-tick of 2016 but if they are then it is a nice way to round of a 2016 that hasn't quite lived up to the early promise it showed.
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| Mistle Thrush |
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| Linnet & Lesser Redpoll |
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| Linnet |
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| Linnet |
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| Pink Footed Geese |
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| Shorelarks |
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| Shorelarks (uncropped) |
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| Slavonian Grebes & Common Scoter |
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| Linnet |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Shorelark |
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| Starling & Buzzard |
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| Lapwing & Golden Plover |
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| Curlew |
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| Little Grebe |
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Species seen - Bar Tailed Godwit, Blackbird, Black Headed Gull, Blue Tit, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Common Gull, Common Scoter, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunlin, Eider, Goldcrest, Golden Plover, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Great Black Backed Gull, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Grey Heron, Grey Plover, Herring Gull, Lapwing, Lesser Redpoll, Linnet, Little Grebe, Mallard, Mistle Thrush, Oystercatcher, Pink Footed Goose, Red Breasted Merganser, Redshank, Reed Bunting, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Shelduck, Shorelark, Siskin, Slavonian Grebe, Starling, Tree Sparrow, Woodpigeon, Wren.
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