Here and There

15/07/09

I’ve been quite busy doing the second breeding season visits for the BTO Bird Atlas. Three down, two to go. Today I narrowly escaped a downpour at Mar Lodge, in upper Deeside. But the birding was good, with a few new species for the tetrad: Great Spotted Woodpecker, Chiffchaff and Spotted Flycatcher.

A couple of days ago, I went early to Girdleness. 10.00am is early for me. I spent an hour or so at The Coo and saw nothing worthy of note. So I moved to Newburgh and had a look around the Ythan. A couple of Ospreys were fishing, the juvenile Shelducks have grown quite a bit, and the terns were going up and down river ferrying fish to their young. Then, a bit of a surprise. A Kingfisher was sitting on the end of the old sewage pipe at The Inches. That’s not a bird you see often on the Ythan. Down at the river mouth, I got busy taking photos of the seals, and the terns. Being such a nice sunny day, there were a lot of people around, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on the wildlife. I was hoping for some skua activity, but there was no sign of any. Maybe there would be some at Girdleness, so I went back there again for another fruitless hour or so. But on my way there, I had a sudden urge to have a look at the sea at Blackdog. The scoters and the eiders formed one huge, spread out flock, so trying to pick out the hoped for Surf Scoter was not easy. Luckily, the visibility was excellent, and before long I was watching a scoter that seemed to have a white bit at the front end. It was fast asleep, just drifting south with the rising tide. I watched, and waited, following it with the ‘scope. Then it woke up, and revealed itself to be a Surfie. Result!