Paul messaged me early in the week to let me know that he was available for a trip out on Wednesday to see what we could find. I had a dentist appointment at 0900 so we arranged for Paul to pick me up when I had finished at the dentist to then go and collect my birding gear from home. The plan for the day was to try for some of the more unusual birds that were hopefully still availble in Angus. Given the later start and the amount of potential targets as well as the spread of sites I wasn't overly confident we would add too many, but anything we did see that was new for me would likely be at a location that wasn't easy for me to reach without help.
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| Great Grey Shrike |
A flock of Long Tailed Tits flew across the road in front of us behind the Gallagher Retail Park. Our first planned stop was to be Backwater Reservoir where the Great Grey Shrike we had seen back in November was still lingering, though ranging over a very large area, making it a bit of a 'needle in a haystack' search. Our best bet would be to start where the bird had been reported the day before, along the west side of the reservoir and near a 'radio mast' (which I hadn't recalled ever having noticed before - though I had never ventured along the western side). The car park was quite busy and our suspicion was that most of the vehicles would be birders cars. We encountered a few birders who hadn't found the Shrike as they headed back to the car park.
Undeterred we decided to search for the Shrike anyway and after seeing a few Crossbills I spotted the
Great Grey Shrike up near the top of a relatively recently clear-felled area near a mobile phone mast. We had decent views of the bird as it perched on tree-stumps and branches in the winter sunshine. After a few minutes the bird flew down towards us and perched at the top of one of the few remaining tree trunks left standing giving us even better views, before it flew to another slightly further away. It then flew off again, looking like it was heading down towards the water, or perhaps across to the other side. We walked back to the car with our first target bird on the list successfully.
We then set off for a quick check at Lintrathen where again we found Crossbills but despite scanning through the birds out on the Loch there was nothing particularly unusual to be found, though numbers of Coots was quite high. Whooper Swans and a distant Red Kite were the main highlights at Loch of Kinnordy, though
Lapwings were a welcome year-tick for me. After around 35 minutes there we headed for Murton where Alex Shepherd had found a Green Winged Teal the day before. I eventually managed to find the bird in among the grass and Greylags to the north of the Stewart Hide but it was difficult to see well, though it did briefly venture onto the shore before returning to join the other Teal and Wigeon among the grasses. Again, the few photos taken were little more than record shots, but it was another good bird to get so early in the year.
Twite were our next target species, on the walk out to the Wigeon Hide at Montrose Basin. Unfortunately there was no sign of any of them around their usual haunt by the junction of paths to the hides. We decided to wander along to the Wigeon Hide to see if we could see the birds from there. As we entered the Sheep field a small group of finches lifted and flew past us. The last bird just slightly behind the silent group gave a rather
Twite-like call before following it with a definite Twite call, giving me my 4th year-tick of the day. From the hide we added Little Egret and a number of waders to the list and I had a chat to the Angus recorder, Jon Cook.
With the light fading we decided to stop off at the Lurgies where Greenshank, 2 Little Egrets and Little Grebe were noted as well as distant gulls and wildfowl before we called it a day and headed back down the road to Dundee and home. We managed to see a total of 58 species despite a lot of overlap of species at most of the sites, with 4 year-ticks (in bold) among them. All in all it was yet another good day's birding in what is already a very good, and very enjoyable start to my 2020 birding. Thanks again to Jacqui, Ian and Paul for making it a memorable opening 8 days to the year.
Species seen - Dundee to/and Backwater Reservoir - Carrion Crow, Herring Gull, Grey Wagtail, Feral Pigeon, Robin, Starling, Long Tailed Tit, Magpie, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Pink Footed Goose, Goldfinch, Common Gull, Pheasant, Buzzard, Mistle Thrush, Coal Tit, Cormorant, Dunnock, Common Crossbill, Great Grey Shrike.
Lintrathen and Kinnordy - Black Headed Gull, Coot, Goldeneye, Wigeon, Teal, Mute Swan, Mallard, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chaffinch, Greylag Goose, Goosander, Lapwing, Tufted Duck, Siskin, Whooper Swan, Red Kite, Reed Bunting, Wren, Rook.
Murton - Green Winged Teal, Gadwall, Redwing, Grey Heron.
Montrose Basin - Curlew, Twite, Shelduck, Oystercatcher, Knot, Dunlin, Little Egret, Greenshank, Little Grebe, Linnet, Redshank, Pintail.
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| Mistle Thrush |
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| Common Crossbill |
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| Common Crossbill |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Buzzard |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Great Grey Shrike |
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| Coot |
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| Cormorant |
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| Common Crossbill |
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| Long Tailed Tit |
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| Siskin |
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| Red Kite |
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| Lapwing & Mallard |
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| Lapwing |
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| Lapwing |
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| Green Winged Teal, Greylag Goose, Teal & Wigeon |
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| Greylag Goose, Green Winged Teal, Teal & Wigeon |
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| Green Winged Teal & Greylag Goose |
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| Oystercatcher, Carrion Crow, Wigeon, Dunlin, Knot & Curlew |
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| Little Egret |
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| Little Egret & Lapwing |
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| Little Grebe |
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| Pink Footed Goose & Herring Gull |
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| Greenshank |
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Wigeon, Teal, Redshank, Common Gull, Shelduck
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Species seen - Blackbird, Black Headed Gull, Blue Tit, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Common Crossbill, Common Gull, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunlin, Dunnock, Gadwall, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Goosander,
Great Grey Shrike, Great Tit, Greenshank,
Green Winged Teal, Grey Heron, Grey Wagtail, Greylag Goose, Herring Gull, Jackdaw, Knot,
Lapwing, Linnet, Little Egret, Little Grebe, Long Tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Mistle Thrush, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Pheasant, Pink Footed Goose, Pintail, Red Kite, Redshank, Redwing, Reed Bunting, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Rook, Shelduck, Siskin, Starling, Teal, Tufted Duck,
Twite, Whooper Swan, Wigeon, Woodpigeon, Wren.
