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| Crossbill |
On Wednesday the weather forecast was actually looking pretty good. Unfortunately for me, I was expecting a parcel delivery meaning I would have to stay in all day. However, I worked out that it should be safe enough to head up to the top of Dundee Law for sunrise and spend roughly the next 90 minutes seeing if there were any migrants passing over on their way further north. Unfortunately if things turned out to be really good I would still have to give up and head for home around 0745 to ensure I was home for 0800. I was hoping that there was zero chance of my parcel being delivered before 0800. I suspected that even 0800 was likely to be a few hours too early but rather than tempt fate it was better to limit my time, just in case.
There was a bit of haze when I headed out. This didn't bode particularly well for there being too much on the move but as it was my only chance to get some birding in - unless my parcel arrived relatively early meaning I could get out somewhere again, I knew I had to make the best of the opportunity. A calling Great Tit was a relatively unusual start to the list for the morning. Oystercatcher, Lesser Black Backed Gull and Bullfinch were also noted on the walk up to the hill-top. A Chiffchaff was singing loudly from the trees at the north side of the hill. I set my small digital recorder going so I would have a recording if anything interesting happened to fly over.
A pair of Pied Wagtails kicked things off, heading north. Five Woodpigeons passed westwards before a Meadow Pipit put in an appearance. I heard a
Crossbill a minute or two later, which was a new bird for the year but I failed to see the bird. Woodpigeons were on the move and made up the bulk of the movements seen over the next 30 minutes. A Siskin was heard around 0650. Just after 0700 another Meadow Pipit went over. Visibility wasn't great in any direction which did mean that there were spells where nothing at all was seen, except for the Herring Gull, Magpies and Carrion Crows around the top of the hill. The singing Chiffchaff provided an almost constant soundtrack to my birding efforts.
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Pied Wagtail
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Meadow Pipit
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Herring Gull
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| Woodpigeon |
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Meadow Pipit
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I heard a Crossbill again around 0725 and once again failed to pick it out against the sky. However, it turned out to be perched on top of one of the conifers on the west side of the hill. I raised the camera to get a photo but before I could press the shutter button the bird flew down and out of sight behind the next tree. I had been beginning to doubt the identification of the previous call so I was pleased to confirm that the bird I had heard was actually a Crossbill. A skein of 20 or so Pink Footed Geese were just visible in the haze out to the east as they passed by northwards. Around five minutes later I finally managed to get a photo of the Crossbill in the top of a tree to the north, though it once again flew off out of sight rather quickly.
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Herring Gull
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Pink Footed Goose
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| Crossbill |
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| Crossbill |
A pair of Lesser Black Backed Gulls and a Feral Pigeon duo rounded off the movements for my 90 minutes of vis-migging on the hill. Although it hadn't been particularly productive species-wise or numbers-wise (just 26 species for the whole 2 hours out birding) it had added a new bird (in bold) to my year-list (number 122) and my Dundee 140 list (number 94) and put me in a better mood for waiting for my parcel to arrive - which was handy as FedEx managed to fail to deliver it at all on Wednesday despite their website and app both showing that it was on schedule to arrive before 1800, even while it showed as being at a depot in Bedford, meaning that my day off was more or less wasted. A Buzzard and Sparrowhawk were seen in the air at the same time from my living room as they upset the local Feral Pigeons and Herring Gulls later that morning.
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| Magpie |
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Lesser Black Backed Gull
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Birds - Blackbird, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Coal Tit,
Crossbill, Goldcrest, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Magpie, Meadow Pipit, Oystercatcher, Pied Wagtail, Pink Footed Goose, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Siskin, Starling, Woddpigeon, Wren.
