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| Little Egret |
Having spent the day at home on Sunday and drawn a blank on adding anything new to my #2026Dundee150 list on Monday, I really needed to add something to the list on Tuesday if I was to reach my target of 5 new additions to the list over the course of 5 days off work. With this in mind, I decided I might as well head eastwards to Broughty Ferry and Balmossie on Tuesday. The weather forecast was fairly decent though with still a hint of a cold wind. Although I had no solid target species, there were some possibilities, so I would have to hope that I could pick up at least one of those. By the time I got organised it was already 0750.
Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Blue Tit, Magpie and Feral Pigeon made for a rather slow start to the day's birding. Starling, Great Tit, Goldfinch, Jackdaw and Carrion Crow soon followed as I headed towards Albert Street. I decided not to go via Baxter Park for a change. Blackbird, Song Thrush, Dunnock and Chiffchaff were all found near the Frankenstein Steps. Coal Tit, Woodpigeon and Robin were new for the day along Broughty Ferry Road. I crossed the main road and then cut along the Docks Way cycle path where Wren, Buzzard, Pied Wagtail, Long-tailed Tit and Chaffinch were all found. Oystercatchers were roosting with gulls within the easternmost part of the docks.
Continuing out along the river, I was able to add Grey Heron, Mallard and Linnet. I bumped into another birder near the car park who turned out to be someone I know from the BlueSky social media site - Martin Dunstan. I'd actually met Martin in Western Cemetery while looking for butterflies with Lainy, but it was quite a while ago, so it only became apparent who he was when he mentioned something he'd actually recently posted online which rang a bell with me. He was squeezing in a little bit of birding on his way to work and we had a short chat before going our separate ways. The walk out along the river proved to be very quiet with only Redshank, Lesser Black-backed Gull and Greenfinch noted on the wander along to Douglas Terrace.
A single Mute Swan flew past downriver as I scanned out over the water hoping for something interesting. A Swallow zipped past me up the small slope and over the railway line northwards. A Meadow Pipit then flew over, though not quite as quickly as the Swallow had. Down on the shoreline I found a Turnstone (Martin having remarked earlier that he'd not seen one for a while), along with a Curlew. A skein of geese which headed inland were all Pink-footed Geese, despite the Merlin app 'identifying' a Greylag. Not for the first (or last) time, Merlin appeared to be hallucinating. A drake Eider was on the rocky islet at the castle and a singing Rock Pipit was wandering around on the mud and seaweed down in the harbour there.
Another skein of Pinkies overflew as I continued on eastwards towards Balmossie. Common Gull and Stock Dove were added before I spotted a Little Egret feeding in a large tidal pool down on the sand. With the tide already well out, I decided to head out past the Egret to get a properly lit photo or two. I would give the bird plenty of room so as not to flush it and this proved relatively successful, though the bird did relocate to another nearby pool at one point. Another Grey Heron and Redshank also gave decent views. I set up the scope near the burn outflow at Balmossie and scanned through all the birds I could see on the shore, as well as the ones I could see well out over the river.
This got me Great Black-backed Gull, Red-breasted Merganser, Goldeneye, Black-headed Gull, Bar-tailed Godwit, Cormorant, Wigeon and a Goosander. Better than those however was a distant Sandwich Tern diving for fish in Monifieth Bay - a welcome new bird for my #2026Dundee150 list. I then spent quite a while scanning and rescanning but my only subsequent addition was a Rook. An interesting looking raptor seen distantly crossing the Tay from the south proved to be 'just' a Buzzard. I detoured into the local nature reserve on my walk back westwards which got me a Peacock butterfly and a Sandpit Mining Bee (I think). The slow journey back along the Tay proved to be very disappointing overall and things were very quiet at the Holly Blue site too, though rather worryingly some of the vegetation had been partially 'tidied up'.
I cut up through Eastern Cemetery from the Stannergate which added Sparrowhawk, Grey Squirrel and Rabbit to the day's list while Swannie Ponds only managed to get me Coot and Tufted Duck. These took my list for the day to a relatively disappointing 53 species - though on the plus side, I did manage to get a single #2026Dundee150 bird (in bold). A trio of mammal species, as well as a butterfly and a non-bumblebee bee species, (that may or may not be correctly identified) made up the remainder of the rather underwhelming list for the day's efforts. Still, I suppose I can't really complain having managed to add a new species and given myself a reasonable chance of reaching my mini-target of 5 new species in 5 days.
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| Linnet |
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| Mute Swan |
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| Turnstone |
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| Curlew |
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| Redshank |
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| Eider |
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| Rock Pipit |
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| Pink-footed Goose |
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| Rock Pipit |
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| Pink-footed Goose |
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| Honey Bee? |
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| Stock Dove |
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| Little Egret |
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| Little Egret |
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| Grey Heron |
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| Sandwich Tern |
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| Common Gull |
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| Peacock |
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| Buzzard |
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| Sandpit Mining Bee? |
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| Grey Heron |
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| Grey Squirrel |
Birds - Bar-tailed Godwit, Black-headed Gull, Blackbird, Blue Tit, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Coal Tit, Common Gull, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunnock, Eider, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Goosander, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Tit, Greenfinch,
Grey Heron, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Lesser Black-backed
Gull, Linnet, Little Egret, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Meadow
Pipit, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Pied Wagtail, Pink-footed Goose, Red-breasted Merganser, Redshank, Robin, Feral Pigeon, Rock Pipit, Rook, Sandwich Tern, Song
Thrush, Sparrowhawk, Starling, Stock Dove, Swallow, Tufted Duck, Turnstone, Wigeon,
Woodpigeon, Wren.
Mammals - Grey Seal, Grey Squirrel, Rabbit.
Butterflies - Peacock.
Bees - Sandpit Mining Bee(?)
