I struggled to decide where to go on Wednesday, after I'd struggled to get myself out of bed. The choice was around the Crail area for Lapland Bunting, Twite and probably a few others, the Eden estuary from St Andrews to Guardbridge for White Tailed Eagles, Snow Buntings, Little Egrets etc or Tayport to Leuchars for Green Woodpecker, various waders and the Scoter flock etc. I was actually still weighing up these options as I headed for the bus station. A lot rested on whether I would make it to St Andrews bus station in time to catch the bus to Crail, or not. If so then Crail it was, if not then it would be the Eden. The Tentsmuir option was the least likely because I'd walked 14.6 miles on Monday and wasn't quite ready to do between 9 and 12 or so more just 2 days later.
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| Lapland Bunting |
Having struggled to get up out of bed when the alarm went off, it was almost 0900 when I headed out, rather than an hour earlier which would have been my preference. Herring Gull, Feral Pigeon and Blackbird were all seen on the way to the bus stop with a Woodpigeon seen from the bus as it headed down Dens Road as well as a Carrion Crow sitting in the Magpie's spot on the TV aerial of the tenement block between Arthurstone Terrace and Lyon Street. With the windows on the bus to St Andrews rather steamed up and dirty it was difficult to see much. I did manage to get Cormorant and a Black Headed Gull as the bus crossed the bridge and a couple of
Rooks at St Michaels. There were a couple of Jackdaws on chimneys in Leuchars but anything slightly smaller or less obvious was out of the question.
The windows on the bus to Crail were marginally better but only a mixed flock of Woodpigeon and Stock Dove by the road between Boarhills and Kingsbarns were noted. The bus driver had a bit of a strop because apparently the stop I rang the bell to get off is a request stop only and you have to ask first. The Traveline app showed it as served by the 95, so I rang the bell. Once he'd had his strop I got off and wandered along the track to Wormiston Farm. There were Redwings and Fieldfares in the field by the track though the low sun made it difficult to see them down in the stubble, though the distinctive calls of both certainly helped with the IDs.
There were Rooks in the trees around the big house and a Robin was seen. A Wren was heard but not looked for. I scanned over towards Balcomie from near the metal gate at the bend in the road, finding only a Buzzard perched on the phone mast. Continuing on down towards the farm, I added a few Linnets and a female
Pheasant in flight behind the farm buildings. John Nadin stopped to offer me a lift but as I was only a couple of minutes away from the top of the field, I declined the offer, in case I could add anything else. When I reached the stubble, I noticed John had already set off across the field. There seemed to be plenty of birds in the stubble, almost impossible to spot until they took flight. There were Goldfinches among the weedy area where they had been on my previous visit.
A
Reed Bunting was in the trees by the holiday cottage. More Linnets,
Skylarks, Meadow Pipits as well as
Yellowhammer were all seen as I slowly wandered across the field, trying to keep the low sun behind me. A Greenfinch was slightly more of a surprise though not totally unexpected. A
Grey Partridge flew off down the field. After twenty minutes of searching I was still around the top end of the field and John was near the bottom. I heard the distinctive call of a
Lapland Bunting, which I'd tried to memorise to make searching easier, and saw 2 birds flying up the field towards me. I managed to get a few photos fired off and thankfully 1 was pretty good, giving me my first Lapland Bunting photo. I signalled to John by waving my arms and when he did come back up the field it turned out the pair had flown over him first.
Another 2 birders were coming up the track from the other field where they had been scoping. The 4 of us decided to spread out and zig-zag down the field in the hope that we could find more Lapland Buntings. We did eventually succeed in flushing a single bird, but whether it was one of the earlier pair or a different one, we had no way of knowing. We had also managed to see a male
Kestrel and a few more Reed Buntings but with the time approaching noon, I wanted to try and find the Twite. They had been seen down at the beach by the 2 other birders so John and I headed down for a look. Another 3 Grey Partridges, then a single bird, flew off ahead of us. A
Corn Bunting was on the fence at the bottom of the field.
Scanning from the raised viewpoint by the end of the field we could see plenty of birds. Cormorants on the rocks, a mix of gulls including a
Great Black Backed Gull, a few Common Gulls and the rest Black Headed Gulls and Herring Gulls, as far as we could tell. Oystercatchers were roosting near the gulls. There was no sign of any Twite but as we walked along the shore I spotted a bird fly into a weedy patch. John had a look into the vegetation and the bird flew a short distance and called. A Dunnock. With no sign of any Twite ahead of us, John decided he was going to head back up to his car. I would head on along the shore to Fife Ness and see if sea-watching could magic up some new birds for the day and hopefully the year. There was little obvious offshore except a few Eider, so my expectations were rather low.
I found a Redshank on the beach and some Mallards and Wigeon offshore. A pair of
Curlews on the rocky shore and a single
Purple Sandpiper flying low over the water were nice additions to my year-list. Rock Pipit and Starling were added as I headed along to Balcomie Beach where I caught up with another pair of birders, and I stopped to chat. It turned out to be a married couple who are members of Fife Bird Club and I recognised the name Andy Pay from the text grapevine, and Andy recognised mine. Andy had found a Mediterranean Gull earlier among the gull flock feeding along the water's edge, flying up as a wave rolled in then dropping back to repeat the procedure over and over. There were a number of Rock Pipits and Meadow Pipits ahead of us. A drake Goldeneye landed nearby, and a flock of Turnstones were seen.
As we chatted I spotted out the corner of my eye some waders landing on the rocks. These turned out to be
Sanderling and Purple Sandpipers. A larger group of Purple Sandpipers flew past taking the ones we'd been watching with them as they headed west. A Shag was spotted further out on the water as we slowly wandered along Balcomie Beach. Andy and his wife, Helen were heading back to Crail for lunch. I decided I would have a seat and scan through the gulls to see if I could find the
Mediterranean Gull. As it happened it didn't take long. I found an adult bird among the Black Headed Gulls relatively close by and once I'd taken a few photos I hurried on towards Fife Ness.
I spotted a bird in flight well out over the sea but quite high, a front 3/4s view. My initial thought looking through binoculars was that it was probably a diver species, but photos showed it to be a
Shelduck. Another nice wee bonus. A drake Red Breasted Merganser flew off as I neared the tide inundated Stinky Pool. It was already 1320 before I sat down in the hide. There wasn't much moving out front but I scanned anyway. I found a
Red Throated Diver and a pair of Red Breasted Mergansers. Much further out I picked up a few
Kittiwakes and a
Guillemot on the water. A few gulls drifted past, and a Red Throated Diver popped up just off the rocks. There were a few Eiders slightly further out. A pair of auks were seen low over the water quite distantly. Photos showed them to be more Guillemots, though in breeding plumage already.
After around 30 minutes in the hide I still hadn't had anything to eat. Although it was quiet there were still enough birds to be seen and checked. As I was watching a Kittiwake coming in from the south a larger bird cut across in front of it. I expected it to be a larger gull but it turned out to be a
Gannet, the only one I saw (possibly a 4th year bird based on the "piano keys" plumage along the secondaries). With little more variety likely to be added I decided I should head back to Wormiston to try again for Twite. With a little luck I might also get more Lapland Bunting views. By now the beach was almost completely submerged with only a narrow strip available to walk along to stay out of the way of golf balls. I passed a male
Stonechat at Balcomie Beach and there were a few Dunlin with other waders at the far end.
As I neared the end of the golf course to head back up the hill to Wormiston Farm, I spotted a small group of birds fly a short distance away along the tops of the seaweed piles. I stopped to look, hoping that they would be
Twite. They were. I took a few photos and left them in peace and headed up to the field which was now empty of birders. The wires were full of Linnets and (surprisingly for January) a singing Corn Bunting. I zig-zagged my way back up the field but it was far quieter than before though there were still plenty of Skylarks and Meadow Pipits. No sign of any Lapland Buntings unfortunately though.
A Goldcrest was seen in the trees by the cottages, along with a couple of Yellowhammers. The Goldfinch flock zipped around above the weedy area. I checked my phone for the time of the next bus and discovered that it appeared to be almost 2 hours till the next one, which seemed odd, though given it is still the first week in January, not impossible. I tried to think how I was going to kill 2 hours in Crail, as it would be getting dark soon. As I crossed the track back towards Denburn Wood, I saw a bus heading into Crail - a bus that hadn't been listed on the app's list. I tried a different approach and found that there was actually a bus every hour, so I only had around 30 minutes to kill, which was a huge relief.
I headed down along the diagonal track across the fields and into Denburn Wood and stopped as I heard a
Great Spotted Woodpecker call from a tree ahead of and above me. It took seconds to spot the bird and I had another year-tick. A Robin was seen at the bottom end and a Wren was again heard but not seen. A
Collared Dove was on the chimney of a house opposite the bottom end of the Wood giving me yet another year-tick. A couple of Long Tailed Tits were seen in a tree behind the benches as I neared the main T-junction. I decided to head along the main street to catch the bus earlier than I would if I went to my usual stop. Another Fife birder spotted me from her car and we had a brief exchange of how our respective birding days had gone. A Pied Wagtail called from the edge of the roof behind her car. Nothing else was seen while waiting for the bus, and the light had all but gone making it difficult to see anything bird-shaped out of the dirty windows on either of the 2 buses back to Dundee.
All in all, a really good day's birding with a total of 57 species seen, of which 23 (in bold) were new for the year. I was pleased to get photos of the Lapland Bunting, even if only 1 is decent (a 2nd is almost usable) and the Twite showed nicely even if the light was poor with the sun hidden behind the slope at the time. The Mediterranean Gull was a nice bonus - I got a text from Andy as I was on my way home to say he'd found he'd actually seen 2 different Med Gulls, not just 1.
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| Rook |
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| Pheasant |
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| Yellowhammer |
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| Reed Bunting |
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| Skylark |
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| Grey Partridge |
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| Lapland Bunting |
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| Skylark |
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| Skylark |
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| Yellowhammer |
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| Grey Partridge |
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| Meadow Pipit |
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| Skylark |
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| Linnet |
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| Linnet |
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| Corn Bunting |
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| Rock Pipit |
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| Purple Sandpiper & Sanderling |
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| Purple Sandpiper |
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| Mediterranean Gull |
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| Shelduck |
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| Guillemot |
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| Red Breasted Merganser |
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| Red Throated Diver |
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| Guillemot |
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| Black Headed Gull |
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| Great Black Backed Gull |
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| Common Gull |
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| Guillemot |
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| Shag |
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| Kittiwake |
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| Gannet |
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| Kittiwake |
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| Common Gull |
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| Stonechat |
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| Goldeneye |
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| Turnstone & Redshank |
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| Wigeon |
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| Twite |
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| Twite |
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| Twite |
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| Corn Bunting & Linnet |
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| Linnet |
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| Twite (I think) |
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| Starling |
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| Rook & Jackdaw |
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| Skylark |
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| Meadow Pipit |
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| Goldfinch |
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| Goldfinch |
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| Great Spotted Woodpecker |
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| Starling |
Species seen - Blackbird, Black Headed Gull, Buzzard, Carrion Crow,
Collared Dove, Common Gull, Cormorant,
Corn Bunting,
Curlew, Dunlin, Dunnock, Eider, Fieldfare,
Gannet, Goldcrest, Goldeneye, Goldfinch,
Great Black Backed Gull, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Greenfinch,
Grey Partridge, Guillemot, Herring Gull, Jackdaw,
Kestrel, Kittiwake, Lapland Bunting, Linnet, Long Tailed Tit, Mallard, Meadow Pipit,
Mediterranean Gull, Oystercatcher,
Pheasant, Pied Wagtail,
Purple Sandpiper, Red Breasted Merganser, Redshank,
Red Throated Diver, Redwing,
Reed Bunting, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Rock Pipit,
Rook, Sanderling, Shag,
Shelduck, Skylark, Starling, Stock Dove,
Stonechat, Turnstone,
Twite, Wigeon, Woodpigeon,
Yellowhammer.
