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| Pied Wagtail |
For my birding on Sunday the 27th of April I decided on another early start with Broughty Ferry and Balmossie my destination(s) of choice. As things turned out it wasn't quite as early a start as I had hoped for, though leaving the house at 0650 is still pretty early for me on a Sunday morning. My expectations were on the low side but once again I was hoping I might find something feeding on the beach on the walk out, or perhaps find a pit-stopping wader or two, or maybe even a 'white-winged' gull amongst the roost at Balmossie. Nothing ventured and all that....
The trio of Feral Pigeon, House Sparrow and Herring Gull was a fairly typical start to the day's list, with Coal Tit, Starling, Blackbird, Goldfinch, Blue Tit and Magpie added over the next few minutes. There was a slight lull before things picked up again with Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Lesser Black Backed Gull and Dunnock being noted as I cut down towards Arbroath Road. Once again I had decided to head out along the Dock's Way cycle path and on my way there Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Bullfinch, Song Thrush, Chaffinch and Robin were all in the area around the "Frankenstein Steps". Things proved rather quiet along much of the cycle path though Linnet, Greenfinch, Wren, Buzzard and a very small baby Rabbit were all found there. Oystercatcher, Pied Wagtail and Whitethroat were added around the Stannergate end though a Grey Squirrel was a wee bit of a surprise in behind Alpha Projects.
The walk out along the river was as quiet as I had expected it to be though I did manage to find Cormorant, Rook, 3 squabbling Grey Herons and a Grey Seal. There were a few Turnstones seen near the lifeboat station and a pair of Eider were resting on the rocky islet by the castle. I set up the scope by the castle initially and scanned from there for a while, as things were relatively quiet with not too many people around just yet. Sandwich Tern, Common Gull, Black Headed Gull, a few Rock Pipits, a Curlew, some distant Shelduck over at Tayport and an unexpected but very distant Great Crested Grebe kept me occupied for a while. A few Swallows headed low upriver and I eventually found a pair of Red Breasted Mergansers over by Tayport. Mark had seen Gadwall there the previous day but I couldn't make out anything that looked like a potential Gadwall unfortunately.
As I was packing up, ready to walk out to Balmossie, a Siskin flew over - oddly quite a common occurence at the castle, for no obvious reason. On the walk out to Balmossie, I added Goosander and Wigeon to the list. Once I reached Balmossie, I sat and scanned through the rather low numbers of birds that were there. I did succeed in finding Great Black Backed Gull, Sand Martin, Redshank and an Osprey that sent the gulls skywards for a few minutes, with some of the birds from the daytime roost flying off elsewhere as a result. A pair of Shelduck flew in to join the birds by the burn mouth. A distant pair of Tufted Ducks were a bit of a surprise and I eventually managed to pick out Red Throated Diver among the handful of Eiders that were about. Another Osprey was seen very distantly heading east out from Tentsmuir Point. Mark messaged me to let me know that he now had 6 Gadwall over at Tayport. With more heat distortion, and with the tide almost fully in, my chances of success were even worse than earlier but I headed back to the castle anyway.
As expected, I failed to find anything remotely Gadwall-like, though I did have some sightings of the Bottlenose Dolphins as they hunted quite close in to the Broughty side of the river along near the Glass Pavilion. A lone Gannet flying upriver off Tayport was a very welcome #2025Dundee150 tick. The very same day, Lainy was watching many more Gannets in Aberdeenshire, at Troup Head, when she had the very good fortune to have a party of photo-bombing Orcas pass by below. A Guillemot was seen mid-channel around 1425 but overall things were rather quiet on the birds front, though a high flying Curlew calling loudly as it circled overhead was at least slightly interesting. I headed in the direction of home around 1515. I decided I might as well see if I could find any Holly Blue butterflies on the way back and despite the less than favourable conditions (the sun had gone behind the clouds and the wind had picked up a bit) I was successful with a couple of males seen. I had decent views of a couple of Turnstones a bit further on but finished the day's birding with a total of 53 species of birds (including a #2025Dundee150 addition - in bold), 1 of butterflies and 4 of mammals.
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| Rabbit |
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| Linnet |
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| Grey Heron |
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| Turnstone |
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| Grey Heron |
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| Eider |
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| Black Headed Gull |
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| Common Gull |
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| Oystercatcher |
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| Osprey |
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| Rock Pipit |
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| Bottlenose Dolphin |
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| Gannet |
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| Gannet |
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| Curlew |
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| Eider |
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| Holly Blue |
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| Holly Blue |
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| Starling |
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| Turnstone |
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| Eider |
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| Turnstone |
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| House Sparrow |
Birds - Black Headed Gull, Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Coal Tit, Common Gull, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunnock, Eider, Gannet, Goldfinch, Goosander, Great Black Backed Gull, Great Crested Grebe, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Grey Wagtail, Guillemot, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Linnet, Magpie, Osprey, Oystercatcher, Pied Wagtail, Red Breasted Merganser, Red Throated Diver, Redshank, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Rock Pipit, Rook, Sand Martin, Sandwich Tern, Shelduck, Siskin, Song Thrush, Starling, Swallow, Tufted Duck, Turnstone, Whitethroat, Wigeon, Woodpigeon, Wren.
Butterflies - Holly Blue.
Mammals - Bottlenose Dolphin, Grey Seal, Grey Squirrel, Rabbit.
