Review of the (busy) year, 2009

Possibly a little premature, but here goes....

My oh my…. looking back has made me realise what a busy year it’s been.


January and February were typical fare, with trips to the ness dominant, and so few real birds around that I had to resort to sinensis cormorants, and the ‘eiders with sails’, that seem to have been gracing these pages of late as well. The yellow legged gull was very nice though, and quite unexpected.

Things kicked off rather suddenly in March, with a couple of foreign trips. First up was a package tour to Tunisia, quickly followed by a conference ‘In Brugge’. Tunisia was fun and frustration in equal measure. We were resort based, and the local birding scene was limited to early morning trips around the golf course, or seawatching off the balcony. The golf course became my ‘patch from patch’ and the small rewards offered glamour wise were compensated by the changing nature of the birdlife, indicating the northward migration of spring birds. At the beginning of the week, abietinus sounding chiffchaffs were everywhere, and by the end, these had cleared out and been replaced by scores of hideously variable yellow wagtails…blue headed, Spanish, grey headed, and one stonking, glossy capped black headed wagtail, which was arguably bird of the trip for me. Other goodies on the golf course were a couple of red-rumped swallows, and my only ‘tunisian’ chaffinch – or whatever it’s calling itself these days.

Frustration for the most part came on a two day desert trip that was one of those adventures for the unadventurous organised by the package company. I should not complain, as I saw some long wanted birds and got a few lifers….but I mainly got terrible views of things from a moving bus. My birding opportunities were grabbed at various organised stops, or whenever the driver fancied a coffee. Success ranged from a coffee stop that produced a linnet, to a coffee stop that produced Desert and thekla larks, a trumpeter finch, and an in flight Sylvia that, looking back, was probably a tristrams warbler. Other goodies bagged in transit were Hoopoe lark, mourning, and red rumped wheatear. And one final whinge….how I wish I could have got off my camel and had a look for that calling Egyptian nightjar!

Brugge, as well as being like a ‘fucking fairytale’, was the home of the Seabird group conference. Very interesting some of it was too, and a great way to mingle with some euro seabird scientists and talk shop. There was no birding at all though, the only thing of note being a brief burst of black redstart song from one of the city centre roofs. I did acquaint myself with many different Belgian beers though, which resulted in me falling over.

April saw the usual surge in the patch year list with one or two rather pleasant additions in the form of an Iceland gull and a drake redstart. Also, at a time when others were noticing pale, dull grey willow warblers, one of these acredula type birds made a brief visit to the south bank…at almost exactly the same point as on did the year before.

May was genuinely jam packed. The patch year list came on in leaps and bounds aided by a great run on wildfowl. Difficult local birds included Canada goose, shelduck, scaup, and tufty, and two full fat patch ticks in the form of shoveler and gadwall. I think this might have been helped along by a series of early morning visits. Also the result of an early morning jaunt was the immature White billed diver that put in an appearance on the 12th….which was find of the year, rarity wise.

Shortly after that I had a quick work jolly to Islay to give some of the gang some seabird observation training. Islay is one of my favourite places, abundant in both birds and very special whiskies. The highlight of this trip was an early morning in the west of the island where we located a calling corncrake, which then proceeded to jump out and call from on top of a rock within 15 yards of our parked car. Unfortunately my panicked fumbling for my camera spooked it and it returned to hide among the nettles and long grass, but what an incredible view of a wonderful bird.

Finally, May delivered a rarity filled fall, up the coast at Forvie, which produced Thrush nightingale and subalp among others. Girdleness certainly scored good numbers of common migrants but could not deliver the goods scarcewise. Redstarts, lesser whitethroats, garden warbler and a spotted flycatcher were the best of it.

Tern fieldwork filled up June, and I was fortunate enough to spend it at the hugely pretty Cemlyn reserve on Anglesey. The work was brilliant and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the reserve and its birds, which among the commoner stuff included chough, roseate tern, and a flyby hobby. Bird of the trip though was the Great white egret that flew over our car as we drove towards the little tern colony at the point of Ayr. A fantastic surprise and a self found tick. Also in June I moved house….cutting my journey time from forty minute to four minutes to the ness.

More fieldwork was on the cards for July, with a couple of weeks based in Portland to do some surveys of Lyme bay, looking for Balearic sheawaters. Its fair to say that this was a huge flop – we encountered very few birds, and had a torrid time with the boat owner that we’d contracted. Still, bobbing about in the sun in the English channel, and being able to call it work, is not to be sneezed at, and there were a couple of interesting birds too….a couple of Balearic shearwaters of course, the odd yellow legged gull and storm petrel, and best of all, a Corys shearwater.

August saw the end of the Portland fieldwork, and immediately afterwards, a well earned break to France. As is usually the case, the holiday consisted mainly of eating several-course meals in many different places, and trying to understand the language. Birding opportunities were grabbed whenever possible. We had a trip to the camargue for a few days to watch a semi cruel bull running festival, which resulted in one early morning trip out to the marais. We arrived in the dark, and listened to the sun coming up to the sound of a zillion insects, a few hundred shot guns, and birds such as cettis warbler, whiskered tern and greenshank. We had until breakfast time, and in these few short hours, as well as the above we got glossy ibis, squacco heron, gull-billed and Caspian tern, and melodious warbler among the more expected herons.

The time of year was perfect to get to grips with loads of different butterflies too, many of which were available around the in-laws house, including Adonis blue, long tailed blue, and Glanville fritillary. If the in-laws didn’t think I was mental beforehand….they certainly do now!

And on to Autumn (ignoring the bit of autumn that resides in august). September was a bit of a flop migrant wise in north eastern Scotland, with my personal ness highlights being singles of ruff and crossbill. Seawatching was also pretty hopeless.

October though was great fun. It was dominated by two week long migrant hunting trips, to South Uist and to Ouessant (again). The South Uist trip was a little disappointing, with our best birds being a re-found long billed dowitcher, a probable rostrata redpoll, a single YBW, and a Lapland bunting. It’s difficult not to enjoy the Outer Hebrides though, with the absolutely stunning scenery at every turn, and the resident birds such as both eagles, hen harriers, merlins, whooper swans, slavonian grebes and the like all being readily available. The company was good too, with last years cornwall crew providing good entertainment and brandy coffees!

Ouessant was the highlight of the birding year for me. Another family type holiday, made slightly more birdy this time by the presence of my folks (My dad enjoys a bit of mig searching as much as the next man). We had a few hours out and about every day, as well as doing the obligatory 12 courses of food each day. To cut what could be a rather long story short, we twitched a rosy starling and two penduline tits (which were absolutely stunning by the way but) and managed to find another Rosy starling, 3 yellow browed warblers, red breasted flycatcher, Lapland bunting, Siberian chiffchaff, water pipit and grey phalarope, among the many firecrests, black redstarts and suchlike. I think it’s fair to say that a ruddy good time was had by all, and I greatly look forward to the next annual instalment of Ouessant goodness.

November started well with the refinding of Richards Richards pipit at the ness, and then went downhill via the re-identifying of what was advertised as an eastern olivaceous warbler, as a barred warbler. The rollercoaster continued with good views of the Aberlady lesser yellowlegs while on a work related trip, closely followed by unfortunately untickable views of the red-rumped swallow that was kicking around at the same time. Predictably, the year petered out somewhat through December and thoughts of patch listing gradually wound down, leaving me on a record 125 – and frustratingly 1 species short of retaining the beautiful crap mallard. If the weather delays our impending trip to France their may be other opportunities to go down the ness, but if we fly out tomorrow as planned, then it’s game over. Well done to Roddy Mavor, who won the competion this year.

And apart from my aforementioned trip to france, that’s it. A busy, and thoroughly fruitful year. May the next be just the same. Merry Christmas to you all, and good birding for 2010.

Thrush

The unpleasant and cold weather over the last few days has inspired a movement of thrushes down towards the coast, with both redwings and song thrushes present in small numbers around the ness, with a supporting cast of meadow pipits in slightly higher than usual numbers. A movement of similar species have also been noted by other local patch workers, and perhaps the 500 skylarks that were caught vismigging at Spurn were part of the same movement too. Aside from all the other many pleasures, working a local patch regularly gives a real insight into what might be happening at a larger scale in the area. If I’d never birded the ness before, I’d have thought nothing of the odd redwing or song thrush, so the extra little bit of knowledge, as well as a little communication with other local patchers can help you put together a few jigsaw pieces. Nothing earth shattering, of course….but interesting to me, and making the trip out well worth while, even if the purple burger van (of Richards pipit fame) was closed.

Also a pleasure to see was by far and away the best ‘eider with sails’ I have ever clapped eyes upon. Usually our sailed birds have small, indistinct scapular sails but this one, in among several hundred eiders close in to the foghorn, looked like some sort of maritime fairy cake. And ‘interestingly’ enough, it also had rather a yellowy bill, and lovely long, broad tipped frontal processes (or lobes, or whatever word is right). The bill colour and lobe shape were well within the variation shown by the other normal eiders though….although I only found one other one with such plump lobes.

At risk of enraging Whitehouse into ordering me into the pub again, I find these eiders with sails quite fascinating….as is the variation among all eiders when it comes to bill colour and process shape. When you spend a bit of time looking at these things you begin to realise that other features mooted as indicative of ‘borealis’ are also prone to variation…for example head shape (‘squareness’ in particular) is influenced by posture, and the shape of the black crown can seem different in birds where the frontal processes are different shapes.

And while all this was happening, 3 goldeneye flew north and rather belatedly, onto the patch year list, taking it up to a whopping 125.

My last birding of this year will be in the south west of France (weather/airfrance permitting, of course). Winter can be interesting in the area we visit (we’ve had rock bunting in the garden before) and there are a few sites not to far away that could offer a few treats, not least Spotted eagle at the Marais d’Orx. What a fine Christmas present that would be!

Girdleness in winter

Girdleness in winter....it can be a desolate, bleak and birdless place. Desolate, bleak and birdless enough to drive a birder towards looking for sinensis cormorants or, god forbid, 'eiders with sails'. It's not always like that though....as Sunday provided one or two interesting bits and bobs.

Nigg bay was my first port of call, where I hoped to have a look at the 200 new trees that were supposed to be planted on Saturday. I was keen to see where these new trees (of 6 native species - part of some world record tree planting event, and including some much needed berry bearing varieties) had been put, cos they'll no doubt harbour the odd migrant and provide valuable breeding habitat. A couple of years ago, shelter belts wer planted around the sewage works and these now hold breeding willows warblers, chiffs, reed buntings, song thrushes. A further 200 trees could well entice all sorts of interesting breeding stuff. Anyway, I'm getting a wee bit ahead of myself, because as far as I could see there had been no trees planted at all!

So instead of hiding behind tree trunks and peering at owls and woodpeckers (and trying to avoid standing in gypsy shit), I ended up splashing around the remnants of the pool and flushing up a common snipe, and then heading along the railway embankment, where at last a woodcock tumbled its way onto the PYL, and very nearly into the path of an oncoming train.

Not a lot else in Nigg Bay so I went off for a seawatch. It was quiet, with very little movement, but what was out there was enough to keep the attention. One of the first things I got onto was a small 'white winged' gull - except it wasn't a white winged gull, as apart from the pure white wingtips it was a classic Kittiwake. It really got me going for a while as you might imagine, but kitti it was -either a partially albino or one with extremely worn primaries (it was quite a long way off). Also offshore was one of the afforementioned besailed eiders (displaying with other drake eiders), two long tailed ducks going north, and one great northern diver.

Greyhope bay was next and was also quiet apart from the couple of snow buntings that flew over to the north.

And finally, through the mid day gloom, I came face to face with a young seal that had hauled itself out of the water and right into the middle of the footpath. It tried to bite me. But then I was trying to teach it the Macarena.

124 Woodcock

106.89%

two halves

The first half was a dawn seawatch that I expected (like many other east coast based seawatchers this weekend?) would deliver a few little auks. Well, it didn't, but there was clealy a northerly movement of stuff, wildfowl especially, that made for an interesting if not bloody uncomfortable seawatch. The best of it was a Black throated diver.....by far the most difficult of the three regular divers up here, with generally fewer than twenty records per year for north east Scotland. A couple of years ago though, when similar conditions to this weekend dumped a gazillion little auks into the north sea, along with a few girdleness 'fillers' such as Brunnichs Guillemot and White billed diver, Blackthroats became relatively numerous....I think I had 7 past the ness back then. Also some quality in the form of a Black guillemot, a few longtailed ducks, common and velvet scoter, and singles of widgeon and Mallard.

BTD was also noteable in being bird no. 123 on my patch year list - my highest total for the ness which I shall no doubt celebrate at some point. Or maybe I'll just get drunk and claim thats the reason.

The second half was a visit to freinds in Glen Dye who fed us Pizza and then allowed us to walk it off in the woods behind their cottage. The walk was along a river so hearing bird calls was tricky with the swollen water, but there was no mistaking the female black grouse that we put up off the path in front of us. Very nice indeed.

So, the patch year list reads thus;

122 snow bunting
123 black throated diver

The sharp eyed among you may have noticed an extra bird creeping in there....I have counted up my official list and the numbers above are the correct ones....no Idea what I've missed out though.

snow buntings

A very confiding group of 8 snow buntings in the carpark at greyhope bay today. Snow buntings rule.

Waterston house

Work commitments took me to Waterston House over the 5th and 6th of November, to make use of the excellent library facilities. I'm not really a fan of hanging around indoors usually, but the pleasant atmosphere, brilliant gallery, helpful staff and of course the plethora of bird books could pretty much keep me happy for days. If you're ever in the area you should really drop in....and remember your wallet!

Of course it was no all hard, hard graft looking at county records of seaducks! I managed to squeeze in a wee bit of birding. On the thursday afternoon, not long after I arrived, I was very kindly taken out to twitch the red-rumped swallow that had been found by my old mucka John Harrison a few days before. We got very, very distant views of two swallows together (the rumper had been seen with a normal swallow)....and one of them appeared smaller and more compact....but it just wasn't to be unfortunately. This was a bit of a shame really as I am terribly fond of red-rumped swallows and I would have liked one on my british list. Cool as a flock of tree sparrows might be, they were no compensation.

The following morning, with about an hour of daylight available to us before more pressing (and far more boring) engagements, the afforementioned JH and I zoomed around the Aberlady area, picking up the very long staying lesser yellowlegs in Aberlady bay. We had another fruitless look for the swallow but to no avail (there was a pretty drastic change in temperature that day, which might explain why the rumper was not seen after the 5th) and then finished off our whistle stop tour at Ferny ness, where we failed with red necked grebe but got a bunch of slavs and other nice things like velvet scoter and long tailed duck.

The next few weekends will be taken up by a stag do and then a wedding, which should be very nice, but not particularly birdy.

flyover

Strictly Come Dancing USA, and its assorted hotties, interrupted last night by a flyover flock of whooper swans.....