Having chosen not to attempt to find the Glaucous Gull at Westhaven due to a lack of reporting the previous Sunday despite the bird having been seen by the local RSPB outing and at least one ADBC member, myself and Nat decided to try for the bird on our mid-week outing with the bird having been reported on the Monday and Tuesday. A grapevine service can only put out information fed into it, and especially when folk are acting upon an alert in the first place it is surely only common courtesy to report the continuing presence of the bird(s) in question. Not everyone can drop everything and head off to see a bird the minute it is reported, so follow-up messages confirming the bird's continuing presence on subsequent days are welcome to those without the means to get there on the first day. That it doesn't seem to always quite happen like that any longer is more than a little disappointing.
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| Glaucous Gull |
Anyway, a 0900 start was planned and we were off to Westhaven having seen Herring Gull, Jackdaw, Feral Pigeon and Woodpigeon before we got underway. On our way out of Dundee we added Starling, Black Headed Gull and Carrion Crow with Buzzard and Collared Dove. Arriving at Westhaven we could see a number of birds from the car park - Cormorant, Great Black Backed Gull and Common Gulls perched atop the wooden poles with Redshanks and Oystercatchers on the beach, and Turnstones among the rocks. A few roosting Grey Herons could also be seen out on the rocks. Curlew and Mallard soon joined them on the list as we set off along the beach.
The first Rock Pipits of the day flew up from the seaweed where they had been picking around for insects, calling as they went. Ahead of us near the mouth of the Craigmill burn we could see the gull roost so we stopped to scan for our target bird. Black Headed and Common Gulls could be seen in the foreground. Towering above them, stood on a low rock was the unmistakable shape of the
Glaucous Gull. I let Nat see if she could pick the bird out, which she did easily and we continued closer. A gentleman with a dog on a lead coming up behind us saw us scanning and photographing and stopped to ask us what we were looking for. We told him about the gull and he said that rather than potentially disturb the bird he would walk his dog in the opposite direction. We thanked him for doing so. A considerate and responsible dog walker. Quite possibly a rarer sight than a Glaucous Gull, but a very welcome one. I sent a text to the Angus Grapevine reporting the continued presence of the bird.
Offshore we picked up a few Wigeon feeding just beyond the rocks and I found a Grey Plover stood alone apparently trying to look inconspicuous. We had seen a large skein of geese heading inland as we walked along the beach and what was probably the same group must have been disturbed from the fields to the east and flew back towards us allowing us to identify them as Pink Footed Geese. We sat for a while photographing the Glaucous Gull before it flew off along the beach towards Westhaven. Having only previously seen the species distantly and getting a very poor record shot I was determined to make up for that by getting as many decent photos as possible. A small group of Eiders were seen offshore and as we walked back along the beach a Pied Wagtail put in an appearance.
The Glaucous Gull was stood on a seaweed covered rock by the edge of the water so we went up the banking to give the bird a bit of space, it having been flushed off the seal corpse by a dog walker passing. We stopped and managed to get some nice full frame shots of the bird. I suspected if we positioned ourselves a bit further along the beach and sat still that the bird would return to the seal, which thankfully it did after a minute or so, allowing us good views. I edged a little closer, carefully watching the bird's behaviour so as not to 'spook' it needlessly. I took up a position overlooking the bird and seal corpse up on the banking and we watched the bird feeding for a few more minutes before yet another dog flushed it.
It eventually returned to the corpse and we were treated to more prolonged views before - you guessed it, it was flushed again by dog walkers. By now a few young Great Black Backed Gulls had taken an interest in the seal corpse and there was a bit of a tussle when the Glaucous Gull walked up to one and suddenly grabbed it by the bill. A few seconds later after some twisting and flapping the Great Black Backed hurried off. A few Purple Sandpipers landed on a rock offshore. We decided to leave the gull to its meal and headed back towards the car. We added a small flock of Sanderlings on the shore before the customary flushing by a dog. We decided to head along the coast to Arbroath next.
A Blackbird was seen in the town and Ringed Plovers were on the shore near the cliffs but it was otherwise rather quiet so we headed up to Keptie Pond. It was mostly frozen but we added Coots, Moorhen and Tufted Duck to the day list. A short visit to the harbour area gave us good views of a single Turnstone down on the pebble beach at the eastern end and various gulls perched on boats, as well as a Rock Pipit perched much higher than usual on the radio antenna of a fishing boat. Elliot reedbeds was our next stop. A Robin was near the car park and a flock of gulls was on the beach but there were no other birds seen at all, with no sign of any divers offshore. I did spot a young Kittiwake with a Black Headed Gull but we decided to cut our losses and head inland to try and find a White Fronted Goose that had been seen the previous few days near Whigstreet south of Forfar. Unfortunately for us there was no sign of any geese though we did add Kestrel and Pheasant to our list.
We decided to pop into Forfar Loch for a visit rather than finishing up early. A pair of geese with gulls on the grass behind the leisure centre were
Greylags. In the trees near the car park we added Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Goldfinch. Out on the water we could see
Gadwall, Goldeneye and Little Grebe among the usual mixture. A single Magpie flew by and House Sparrows and Coal Tit were added as we headed back to the car having bumped into Bob McCurley and Jon Cook who let us know there wasn't much to be gained by walking any further with most of the loch frozen apart from the eastern end.
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| Rock Pipit |
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| Grey Heron |
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| Great Black Backed Gull |
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| Curlew |
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| Grey Plover |
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| Pink Footed Geese |
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| Glaucous Gull |
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| Wigeon |
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| Glaucous Gull |
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| Glaucous Gull |
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| Glaucous Gull |
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| Glaucous Gull |
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| Purple Sandpiper |
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| Glaucous Gull & Great Black Backed Gull |
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| Glaucous Gull |
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| Glaucous Gull |
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| Purple Sandpiper |
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| Grey Heron & Mallard |
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| Redshank, Oystercatcher, Turnstone & Curlew |
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| Cormorant |
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| Sanderling, Tunstone, Redshank, Oystercatcher, Black Headed Gull, Mallard & Herring Gull | |
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| Turnstone |
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| Great Black Backed Gull |
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| Herring Gull |
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| Great Black Baked Gull |
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| Rock Pipit |
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| Black Headed Gull & Kittiwake |
48 species seen with 3 new species for the year (in bold) - Blackbird, Black Headed Gull, Blue Tit, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Common Gull, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Eider,
Gadwall,
Glaucous Gull, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Great Black Backed Gull, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Grey Plover,
Greylag Goose, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Kittiwake, Little Grebe, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pink Footed Goose, Purple Sandpiper, Redshank, Ringed Plover, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Rock Pipit, Sanderling, Starling, Tufted Duck, Turnstone, Wigeon, Woodpigeon.
