Early in the year, Ian was in touch to suggest trying for the Ring Billed Gull at Strathclyde Loch, near Motherwell on the weekend of 12/13 January. With no other plans in place and the chance of a bird I don't get to see too often it was a very quick yes and we arranged to try on the Saturday. Buses were replacing trains between Dundee and Perth which complicated things slightly but only in so far as taking me a little longer than usual to reach Perth. The weather forecast looked promising and with the option to also try for the Taiga Bean Geese at Slamannan and a Mandarin drake near Dollar I was raring to go.
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| Common Gull |
I headed out at around 0735 to catch the 0800 bus from the railway station. Unusually a Carrion Crow and a Robin started off the list for the day in the dark, with a Herring Gull added around 10 minutes later. Feral Pigeon was seen as I neared the station. Nothing was added from the bus and I met Ian at around 0835 at Perth railway station and off we went. Our first stop was to be at a small pool somewhere around Dollar. My first Roe Deer of the year was in a field with some Sheep and Jackdaw and Collared Dove were seen from the car before we eventually found a place to park to walk to the pools where the Mandarin had been seen on Friday.
A Jay flew off ahead of us as we walked down a muddy farm track partially blocked by piles of gravel and rubble. We soon found ourselves at what we hoped was the correct pool. A female Wigeon overflew. Mallard, Goldeneye and Mute Swan were seen but there was no sign of any Mandarin. We found our way to a second pool where we spooked a small flock of Teal but there didn't appear to be any sign of any Mandarin here either. Heading back to the car we added a Great Black Backed Gull and a Magpie.
Black Headed Gull was added on our way to crossing the Forth and a Shelduck and a Cormorant were seen in flight as we crossed the river. Some Pink Footed Geese were seen from the motorway as we headed for Slamannan with the sat-nav taking us round Falkirk rather than through the town. We added Buzzard, Fieldfare and Rook as we drove along some of the smaller roads around Slamannan searching for any sign of the Taiga Bean Geese. We did succeed in finding a field full of Pink Footed Geese a few miles east of Slamannan with a Pink-Footed sized Canada Goose in with them. This was identified later via Twitter as a Todd's Canada Goose (subspecies 'interior'), so maybe more likely an actual 'real' Canada Goose rather than from the UK population decsended from introduced birds.
A few Great Tits were found down a farm track as was a Pheasant. A Curlew flew over as we headed onwards towards Motherwell and Strathclyde Country Park. We arrived at the park around noon and I immediately picked up a year-tick - a
Lesser Black Backed Gull perched on a jetty along with a mix of other gulls including Common Gulls. We parked at a car park where the target bird had been seen regularly and got out for a look around. A Grey Heron flew by, and there were lots of Mallard, Greylag Geese, Herring Gulls, Black Headed Gulls and Common Gulls around. Scanning across the loch added Goldeneye, Goosander and rather a lot of Cormorants. A flock of Lapwings flew over.
There was however no sign of the Ring Billed Gull. We spoke to a nearby birder, Rod Miller, who told us the bird had been around a short while previously but had disappeared again. This was both good and bad news. The good being the bird was still around somewhere and bad that it wasn't around right then. A Pied Wagtail showed well in front of us. I tried tempting the gulls in with some bread which proved rather successful but the only bird that looked promising turned out to be a Common Gull. We had a walk along towards the jetties where we'd seen the Lesser Black Backed Gull earlier and found a flock of Long Tailed Tits feeding in the trees.
A pair of Siskins flew over giving us another bird for the day list but despite lots of searching through every gull we could see we were struggling to find the Ring Billed Gull. Eventually it started to drizzle which didn't help matters any. We wandered back and tried to tempt the gulls in again with more food but a bad tempered Mute Swan and a swarm of Greylags competed with Mallards and plenty of Black Headed Gulls. We tried another walk along to the end of the Loch. Ian got onto a bird that he thought was the Ring Billed Gull but I managed to knock the scope off the bird before I managed to look through and when I did I couldn't relocate the bird. We tried a few other spots including driving round to the far side but we failed to find the bird and headed for home.
Not the most successful day out as we missed out on 2 of the 3 target birds completely with only Ian getting the Gull. The bonus of the Todd's Canada Goose find was nice but as a subspecies it doesn't add anything to the year-list, though technically it is a lifer. We did find a rather pink-flushed Black Headed Gull and a very dark Argentatus Herring Gull that seemed to look dark enough to be a Yellow Legged Gull though perhaps a hybrid Lesser Black Backed Gull x Herring Gull is more likely given the shade of the wings/mantle.
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| Pink Footed Goose & Todd's Canada Goose |
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| Pink Footed Goose |
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| Pink Footed Goose & Todd's Canada Goose |
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| Pink Footed Goose & Todd's Canada Goose |
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| Great Black Backed Gull, Herring Gull & Common Gull |
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| Black Headed Gull & Common Gull |
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| Common Gull |
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| Goosander |
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| Cormorant |
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| Common Gull |
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| Lesser Black Backed Gull & Common Gull |
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| Lesser Black Backed Gull |
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| Common Gull |
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| Lesser Black Backed Gull, Herring Gull |
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| Lesser Black Backed Gull & Herring Gull |
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| Common Gull |
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| Common Gull |
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| Herring Gull |
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| Lapwing |
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| Long Tailed Tit |
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| Herring Gull |
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| Common Gull |
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| Herring Gull, Common Gull & Black Headed Gull |
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| Pied Wagtail |
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| Pied Wagtail |
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| Pied Wagtail |
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| Common Gull & Black Headed Gull |
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| Common Gull & Black Headed Gull |
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| Lesser Black Backed Gull, Common Gull, Black Headed Gull |
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| Black Headed Gull |
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| Common Gull |
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| Lesser Black Backed Gull |
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| Possible hybrid Lesser Black Backed Gull x Herring Gull (?) |
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| Common Gull & Possible hybrid Lesser Black Backed Gull x Herring Gull (?) |
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| Common Gull, Black Headed Gull, Jackdaw, Greylag Goose |
Species seen - Black Headed Gull, Buzzard, (Todd's) Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Collared Dove, Common Gull, Cormorant, Curlew, Fieldfare, Goldeneye, Goosander, Great Black Backed Gull, Great Tit, Grey Heron, Greylag Goose, Herring Gull, Jackdaw, Jay, Lapwing,
Lesser Black Backed Gull, Long Tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Mute Swan, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pink Footed Goose, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Rook, Shelduck, Siskin, Teal, Wigeon.
Mammals seen - Roe Deer.
