Catch Up Time

03/06/09

It was worth it. Lots more birds seem to come into the plot for the night, although how they get any rest, is a mystery. 29 each Black-headed Gulls and Oystercatchers make quite a racket, not to mention the Cuckoo who was still calling at 22.30 when it was too dark to see any more. A few Swifts put in an appearance, also some bats, probably pipistrelles.

A few hours at Girdleness finally produced a Whitethroat, in fact two of them. All the neighbourhood Starlings have fledged, and are now roaming around in gangs like rowdy teenagers. One man and his dog were herding a couple of hundred of them round and round the Walker Park. The Swallows are nesting again in the Torry Coo building, and in the dark recesses of the Torry Battery.

I went to watch the Sand Martins that are nesting in the cracks in the stonework of Potarch Bridge. There are a few places where the cement between the blocks has fallen out (or been dug out?) and the birds are squeezing in through the tiniest of openings. In fact, I finished up watching a pair of Spotted Flycatchers investigating a cavity in a beech tree, only ten metres from where I was parked. There is another unusual Sand Martin nest site near Lumphanan. Like the one at Potarch Bridge, they are nesting in cracks in the wall of the dismantled railway bridge near the Peel Ring, where Macbeth is rumoured to have met his end.

And back again to Tarland, where I am happy to confirm that both the Lapwings and the Redshanks have again produced young. Two Black-headed Gulls are sitting on nests, so no doubt there will soon be even more noise and commotion when they hatch.