Having spent most of Saturday either editing photos or typing up my blog post for Thursday's trip to Kinnordy, I hadn't given a great deal of thought as to where I would go birding on Sunday, only that I wouldn't waste the day sitting at home. A text message from Stuart Green of Angus Birdtours was a surprise, but as he was asking me if I fancied a spot of birding for the afternoon with him and a lift home at the end of it, I answered in the affirmative. Arrangements were made to meet him in Carnoustie near the golf course at 1230.
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| Grey Wagtail |
With buses a lot less frequent on Sundays I headed out at around 1040 to walk to Arbroath Road to catch the bus through, though I was feeling less than 100%. I would spend the 50-odd minutes before meeting Stuart seeing what else I could find. The local House Sparrows were noisily in their usual haunts when I headed out with one bird flying over me and up onto a roof. Feral Pigeons and Herring Gulls, somewhat predictably, were next. A pair of Goldfinches flew over as I headed down towards Arthurstone Terrace. A Blue Tit was seen in a tree opposite the bus stop.
From the bus I was able to add a few more species with Carrion Crow and Woodpigeon seen in Dundee then Black Headed Gull and Starling seen as the bus headed through Broughty Ferry towards Monifieth. A flock of Curlew were in the field next to Monifieth golf course practice ground. Rooks were in the field opposite the caravan park and a large flock of a few hundred Linnets flew around on the outskirts of Barry village. Jackdaws flew over as the bus headed through Carnoustie. I got off the bus at the eastern end of the town and headed for the beach.I stopped on the railway bridge to watch a Long Tailed Tit in a tree top behind me. A Blackbird was on a garden wall as I walked down to the grassy area by the beach.
At the beach I found the tide well out and there was a bit too much activity among the rocks and pools for the chances of seeing many birds to be high. There were Pied Wagtails catching sand flies among the seaweed piles on the beach, while offshore I could see a few Eider. A distant Cormorant was spotted out on the water. I wandered along the beach to Westhaven but a bunch of young kids collecting crabs (as pets!) among the rockpools were making so much noise yelling and shouting that there was little hope of seeing any waders nearby, though a Turnstone was spotted not too far away. A Rock Pipit flew off ahead of me. A female Grey Wagtail landed on a rock not too far away from me and I was able to get a few decent photos. A Redshank and a Dunlin flew off from the little bay when a couple with a dog wandered out to the edge of the sand. A Great Black Backed Gull stood out on a large rock offshore unworried by the dog at the water's edge.
I scanned out over the sea and found a couple of Divers. One was a Red Throated Diver with the bill held at the typical slight angle upwards. The other the bill was held straight out. There was a bit of heat distortion and this and the distance the birds were offshore meant that the photos I took weren't exactly helpful. Being back-lit meant that plumage patterns couldn't be made out either, especially on the camera screen in the sunshine. With Great Northern Divers having been seen by Stuart regularly I figured that the bird had to be a Great Northern Diver. Viewing the bird on the back of the camera in isolation and in the glare of the sunshine, that wasn't an obvious error - though the bill didn't look particularly chunky (I put it down to distortion at the time), but at home viewing the 2 birds side by side on a PC screen it clearly didn't look big enough to even be a smaller Great Northern Diver, being almost the same size as the "obvious" Red Throated Diver. Neither did anything else point towards it being a Black Throated Diver. It had to be a Red Throated Diver albeit one holding its bill at a far more horizontal angle than the more expected upwards angle, so a bit of a "schoolboy error" with my original ID, but now corrected.
Wandering back to meet Stuart I added Common Gull, Oystercatcher and a few Wigeon but overall it was rather quiet bird-wise, if not people-wise. I met Stuart as arranged and he told me the plan was to wander out along the edge of Barry Buddon, as the red flags weren't flying, to see what the tide would bring in and also any waders etc on the shoreline. Though the sea was mostly calm close in to shore, out near the 'bar', where the river meets the sea, it was rather choppy, though it became apparent that there was a large swell in the calmer areas too. Walking out we had a few Stonechats by the path but little else until we found a patch of Sea Buckthorn with a flock of maybe 15 Blue Tits feeding in the bushes.
We found a spot around half-way out and sat up the slope to get a better view out over the sea. Thjere were plenty of Red Throated Divers with Stuart counting over 80 using his scope. A few Long tailed Ducks were seen in flight and there were a few small groups of Common Scoters dotted around. A few gulls were seen flying by, and Stuart found a distant Little Gull and a also a Fulmar but as I hadn't bothered with my scope I missed out on both. We moved on to the beginnings of the sandy beach/end of the rock strewn shore defences. A Wren popped up among the rocks. Stuart found a pair of distant Slavonian Grebes that I eventually also managed to see using the camera instead of a scope (though my scope was in my bag).
Off to our right along the shoreline were a few Cormorants, 300 Grey Plover, a decent number of Knot and quite a lot of Dunlin and Sanderling though with the sun behind them they were in the wrong place for a photo. A few Shags were seen out on the water but despite lots of searching we failed to add anything else of interest out on the water. We were joined by Chris McGuigan and Andrea, who had been out for a walk. We allmoved along the beach to get a better look at the massed flocks of waders along the water's edge. The birds resisted the urge to fly off and we were rewarded with good views in the sunshine of the birds.
This made it relatively easy to scan through the flock for birds with rings. There were a few - 2 Dunlin with white leg rings (I had a brief view of one with what appeared to be a white/black/white ring on its tibia but failed to re-find it), a colour ringed Oystercatcher and a single metal ringed Oystercatcher, a Knot with a yellow flag and also a metal ringed Ringed Plover. The Sanderlings all appeared to be free of 'bling'. Stuart and Chris managed to read off most of the rings in full, though the birds tended to be just too distant for my photos to render enough detail in the metal ring codes.
Chris and Andrea headed off around 1600. It was another half an hour or so before Stuart and I followed on. There were few birds seen on the walk back, a pair of Kestrels being the best, though I did manage to see a Carrion Crow cough up a few pellets as it flew past. As we neared the car park, a small flock of Mallards flew past. We looked for Barn Owl on the way back to Dundee but although Stuart had a possible, I managed to miss it.
A pretty decent afternoon of mostly sitting around looking at birds, in sunshine for large chunks of the time (though it felt much more like February when the sun went behind the clouds). Only 38 species seen, but the waders gave us really good close views and the Grey Plover flock size (c.315 is apparently an Angus record for the species).
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| Pied Wagtail |
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| Redshank |
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| Red Throated Diver |
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| Grey Wagtail |
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| Pied Wagtail |
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| Wigeon |
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| Black Headed Gull & Common Gull |
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| Stonechat |
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| Stonechat |
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| Carrion Crow |
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| Red Throated Diver |
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| Cormorant |
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| Common Scoter |
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| Red Throated Diver |
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| Grey Plover, Knot, Dunlin, Sanderling & Great Black Backed Gull |
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| Grey Plover |
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| Red Throated Diver |
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| Herring Gull |
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| Herring Gull |
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| Slavonian Grebe |
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| Carrion Crow |
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| Grey Plover |
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| Grey Plover, Knot & Dunlin |
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| Dunlin, Ringed Plover & Grey Plover |
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| Dunlin, Sanderling & Ringed Plover |
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| Great Black Backed Gull |
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| Sanderling |
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| Oystercatcher |
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| Dunlin & Ringed Plover |
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| Dunlin |
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| Cormorant |
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| Cormorant |
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| Dunlin, Knot, Grey Plover & Oystercatcher |
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| Common Scoter |
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| Herring Gull |
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| Dunlin, Grey Plover & Knot |
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| Dunlin, Knot & Grey Plover |
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| Dunlin, Grey Plover & Knot |
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| Dunlin, Grey Plover & Knot |
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| Oystercatcher, Grey Plover, Dunlin, Sanderling & Ringed Plover |
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| Dunlin, Grey Plover & Knot |
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| Herring Gull |
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| Black Headed Gull |
Species seen - Blackbird, Black Headed Gull, Blue Tit, Carrion Crow, Common Gull, Common Scoter, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunlin, Eider, Goldfinch, Great Black Backed Gull, Grey Plover, Grey Wagtail, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Linnet, Long Tailed Duck, Long Tailed Tit, Mallard, Oystercatcher, Pied Wagtail, Redshank, Red Throated Diver, Feral Pigeon, Rock Pipit, Rook, Sanderling, Shag, Slavonian Grebe, Starling, Stonechat, Turnstone, Wigeon, Woodpigeon, Wren
