With no plans in place for the weekend, it was good timing to receive a message from Ian on Friday evening asking if I fancied a day out in Fife on Saturday. Of course I did. Arrangements were made for an 0800 pick-up and a selection of possibilities of both locations and birds was worked out. Whinchats at Out Head and Kilminning were both on my wanted list, as were Skuas and Shearwaters off Fife Ness as well as Whimbrel and Golden Plover. Other birds such as Garden Warbler, Yellow Wagtail and Grasshopper Warbler were less likely but not impossible depending on our route and the time available to us to be able to squeeze in locations a little bit further away.
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| Arctic Skua |
I was quite tired and was struggling to focus properly which did make birding from the car trickier than normal as we headed first for Out Head at St Andrews. Swift, Collared Dove, Buzzard and House Martin were the best birds seen on the way there. We wandered out along past the small paddock areas looking for Whinchat but we drew a blank though Stonechat, Linnet, Skylark and a succession of passing Swallows, Sand Martin and House Martins were all spotted. Offshore Gannet and Sandwich Tern were seen in the bay. I spotted a dark bird off to the west above the golf course and was surprised to see iit was a Skua. It circled round and headed in our direction giving us decent views of an adult dark phase
Arctic Skua. The first year-tick of the day and a nice bonus at our first stop.
A single Knot, a good view of a Whitethroat and a few Sedge Warblers taking food to youngsters went some way to making up for the lack of Whinchat but we couldn't really be too disappointed given the Arctic Skua views. We set off for Crail around 0955. We drove out along the road towards Anstruther first in the hope of chancing upon a Yellow Wagtail but again we were out of luck. Crail was busier than I've ever seen it, with people seemingly everywhere. Thankfully things were a bit quieter at Kilminning. We headed along the track by the green shed towards the golf couse checking the oat field for Whinchat but again we drew a blank.
When we reached the gate a bird on the closest green at the golf course caught our attention. It didn't look at all familiar, having a very upright stance, long pale legs and a long tail which dragged on the ground. It was relatively dark (mostly) front and back, though with a white-ish throat patch. I quickly rattled off a few record shots. Unfortunately with seawatching on the agenda I'd chosen to bring my old D300S with me which is great at picking out birds against the sea but is only 12.3MP rather than around 20MP of the D500 which I normally use. I then tried to wrestle my scope out of the bag to get a better look at the strange bird but it flew off out of sight as a trio of golfers approached the green.
Looking at the photos I'd grabbed didn't really help with working out an ID. The light made it difficult to see the screen anyway but the lack of resolution also made things more difficulat than normal. It appeared the bird had white eye stripes and also a crown stripe. The stance was very much "large pipit"-like, or even Mistle Thrush but the markings suggested a Bunting or an American Sparrow but nothing seemed to fit. We had a quick search of the area around the green when the golfers moved on but drew a blank. As we were unsure of what we'd seen I took some photos with my phone and posted them on the Fife Birding WhatsApp chat group with a brief description.
We then had a wander around to see if we could find any other birders to get another opinion on the photos and possibly recruit more eyes for relocating the bird. We did find another pair of Fife birders but the photos weren't good enough to throw up any really obvious conclusions. A Peregrine flew over. We then decided to have another look for the Whinchats, this time at the top end of the field before trying again for the mystery bird. With luck we would be joined by others and hopefully get an eventual ID. We managed to get distant, fairly hazy, views of at least 4
Whinchats in the field before we headed back down to the gate where Willie Irvine had arrived, along with his wife, Anne.
Willie had managed to see the bird when he arrived but it had flown off again and he too was struggling to put a name to it. He also saw the bird in flight with a Yellowhammer and thought it was a little larger and flew slightly differently. Over the next 2 hours or so, Ian and I failed to see the bird again and I scanned out over the sea a few times picking up a few birds including another Arctic Skua, and a distant bird that flew like a Storm Petrel but was too far out to be certain, even with the scope. A Tree Pipit flew over, giving me a visual on what had been a heard-only year-tick on the previous 2 days. A Corn Bunting sang from a nearby tree and a few groups of Common Scoters (16, 6 and 4) flew by northwards.
Around 1430, after some further discussion on WhatsApp had firmed up the ID of our bird as a somewhat odd Yellowhammer (which was the likeliest explanation we had arrived at too - markings matched a Bunting species best and with Yellowhammers around - though so were Corn Bunting and Reed Bunting - it seemed the closest 'fit' - though the 'feel' and actions of the bird seemd very unlike any Yellowhammer any of the 3 of us had encountered before). Ian and I decided to head down to Fife Ness for a spot of sea-watching for half an hour. The area was very busy with family groups and picnics but we sat out on the rocks away from the people. There were lots of Gannets moving offshore but most birds were quite distant. I eventually picked up a single
Manx Shearwater going north and Ian managed to get onto the bird as well. Around 1515, we called it a day and headed back to Dundee where Ian dropped me off at home. A relatively successful day out with 55 species of bird, (including 3 more year-ticks in bold), 4 of butterfly and 1 mammal seen.
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Arctic Skua
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| Arctic Skua |
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Arctic Skua
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Arctic Skua
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Sand Martin
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Meadow Pipit
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Whitethroat
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Pied Wagtail
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Skylark
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Linnet
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Starling
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Sedge Warbler
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Cormorant
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Yellowhammer
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Yellowhammer
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Yellowhammer
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Yellowhammer
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Yellowhammer
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Yellowhammer
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Peregrine
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Sedge Warbler
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Grey Heron
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Linnet
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House Sparrow
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Ringed Plover
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Gannet
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Gannet
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Cormorant
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Oystercatcher
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Shag
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Species seen -
Arctic Skua, Arctic Tern, Black Headed Gull, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Collared Dove, Common Gull, Common Scoter, Cormorant, Corn Bunting, Curlew, Dunnock, Eider, Fulmar, Gannet, Goldfinch, Great Black Backed Gull, Grey Heron, Guillemot, Herring Gull, House Martin, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kittiwake, Knot, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Linnet, Magpie, Mallard,
Manx Shearwater, Meadow Pipit, Oystercatcher, Peregrine, Pied Wagtail, Puffin, Razorbill, Reed Bunting, Ringed Plover, Feral Pigeon, Rook, Sand Martin, Sandwich Tern, Sedge Warbler, Shag, Skylark, Starling, Stonechat, Swallow, Swift, Tree Pipit, Tree Sparrow,
Whinchat, Whitethroat, Wren, Yellowhammer.
Butterflies seen - Green Veined White, Meadow Brown, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell.
Mammals seen - Roe Deer.
