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Little Gull
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It has been a while since I have been able to get out birding with Susan. A brief trip out to Easthaven and a slight detour to twitch a Little Stint near Friockheim on the way home late last September being almost exactly 11 months ago. So when Susan got in touch to see if I fancied a spot of birding on Wednesday, it was an easy decision to say "yes". I suggested trying the Angus coast for Roseate and Black Terns and Susan agreed. We arranged for a 1000 start and thankfully the rather wet weather earlier in the morning had fizzled out by the time I left the house to head to our usual rendezvous spot.
Rooks and Curlew were the main highlights as we headed for Arbroath. We decided to start at Victoria Park and to work our way back from there with a stop at Westhaven, and possibly Easthaven too. When we reached the esplanade area at Victoria Park it was clear that the weather conditions had brought a LOT of birds closer in to shore than they might have been. There were easily thousands of birds to be searched through, both out on the water and strung out along the stony shoreline. It was difficult to know where to look and it didn't take long to build up a decent length list - Oystercatcher, Sandwich Tern, Rock Pipit, Cormorant, Kittiwake, Redshank, Gannet, Fulmar, Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Razorbill, Guillemot, Grey Heron, Linnet, Turnstone, Common Gull, Black Headed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black Backed Gull, Arctic Tern and Common Tern.
There were also numerous Little Gulls in a variety of plumages around, and we had a nice close flypast by a couple of juveniles. Around 40 minutes after arriving I managed somehow to find a young
Black Tern out over the sea and even more incredibly I managed to direct Susan onto the bird. House Martins and Swallows were passing by along with Pied Wagtails. Lainy messaged me to let me know there was a Black Tern showing nicely down on the beach near the kids' paddling pool area and that Adam and her were on their way to try to see it. Having already had one ourselves, albeit distantly, there was no rush to hurry round for a look. We managed to find an adult Mediterranean Gull among the other gulls in one of the roosting flocks on the shore.
We eventually set off for the harbour to check the high tide roost flocks for Roseate Tern but as we left Victoria Park I spotted some smaller birds roosting on rocks relatively close in, so I suggested we stop for a look. These turned out to be mostly Little Gulls and some terns and we spent a bit of time photographing these before eventually heading round to the harbour campervan free-for-all car park where we found Lainy and Adam. Thankfully, we managed to get parked next to them and Lainy pointed out the Black Tern down on the shore in front of us. We were able to add a few Goosander from here and I managed to find another Black Tern in the same group below us, with both birds in view at the same time. A Mediterranean Gull was also noted here. The weather brightened up a little with the visible horizon moving a few more miles further out to sea.
Lainy and Adam headed of for a look at Lunan Bay as we continued to scan the birds both nearby and further out. Movement down on the beach turned out to be a rather large Brown Rat wandering around, which did seem to upset a few of the local Rock Pipits. Despite lots of searching we failed to find any sign of any Skuas, Sabine's Gulls or even a Roseate Tern. With time increasingly against us, I suggested we head for Westhaven to check the terns there. We added a Buzzard from the road on the way to Easthaven where we made a short detour to check the beach there. Greenfinch was noted there but although there were plenty of birds around we decided that if we wanted Roseate Tern then Westhaven was the better option.
We scanned for a short while out over the rocks to the west where there were plenty of gulls and terns but drew a blank on anything remotely Roseate-like. Yet another Black Tern landed for about 15 seconds before relocating a bit further away. A juvenile Mediterranean Gull was sat on the rocks nearby. To the east there were 1000s of (mostly) gulls visible on the rocks so we set off for the Craigmill Burn mouth. Unfortunately we ran out of time and had to give up before we'd even scratched the surface of the gull flock numbers or even walked very far though we did manage to find a single Skylark which flew off towards the railway line. With Yellow Legged Gull, Caspian Gull and even an unseasonal Glaucous Gull being seen further up the coast since then among the many, many birds around at the coast in Angus and Aberdeenshire, it does make you wonder what we might have found had it been possible to be able to methodically search through all the birds we saw on Wednesday.
We ended the day's birding having seen a total of 46 species, 1 of which was new for my year-list (in bold). The Little Gulls in particular were nice to see up close though given the numbers of birds around it was really surprising that we didn't even see a hint of any Skua species, not even as a distant speck out on the horizon (though that horizon was missing for a large chunk of the morning's birding). Part of that is probably down to the damage that Avian Flu has done to the breeding Bonxies up north, in particular, though both those and Arctic Skuas are being seen elsewhere so it isn't a completely forlorn hope that I might yet catch one or both species over the Tay at some point soon. All in all, it was a good day out with Susan (and Lainy and Adam for a while too).
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Little Gull
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Ringed Plover
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Mixed Auks, Gulls, Terns etc
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Rock Pipit
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Black Headed Gull & Mediterranean Gull
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| Turnstone |
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Black Tern
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Little Gull, Common Tern, Black Tern & Arctic Tern
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Little Gull
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Little Gull & Black Tern
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Black Tern
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Sandwich Tern
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Arctic Tern
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Grey Heron
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Common Tern
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Little Gull, Black Headed Gull, Mediterranean Gull & Common Tern
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Brown Rat
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Mediterranean Gull
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Arctic Tern, Mediterranean Gull & Common Tern
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| Kittiwake |
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Black Tern
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Common Tern
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Mixed Gull flock (& others)
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Birds - Arctic Tern,
Black Tern, Blackbird, Black Headed Gull, Blue Tit, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Common Gull, Common Tern, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunlin, Eider, Fulmar, Gannet, Goldfinch, Goosander, Great Black Backed Gull, Greenfinch, Greenshank, Grey Heron, Guillmot, Herring Gull, House Martin, Jackdaw, Kittiwake, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Linnet, Little Gull, Mallard, Mediterranean Gull, Oystercatcher, Pied Wagtail, Razorbill, Redshank, Ringed Plover, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Rock Pipit, Rook, Sandwich Tern, Skylark, Starling, Swallow, Turnstone, Woodpigeon.
