Saturday 22 October 2011

Tynninghame ticks

Decided to check the north side of Tynninghame bay this morning, so arrived just after dawn. This area is pretty scenic - here is the view across the bay towards Dunbar - and the birdlife is pretty rich and varied.


I thought an early walk would beat the crowds, and in general this was true with the joggers, dog walkers and ramblers arriving an hour or so after me. I had not reckoned on the wildfowlers, however, who were in situ long before me I would imagine and were clearing off - at least one with a bag full of Wigeon (?). How depressing - just can't understand the desire to use precision firearms on ducks...


Birdwise, I was hoping for migrant raptors, but no obvious candidates materialised, although I did get views of Common Buzzard, Sparrowhawk and this juvenile Peregrine.


The passerines stole the show, however. The finch list was burgeoning (Chaffinch, Bullfinch, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Siskin, Linnet, Twite, Redpoll sp. and Crossbill) and the bunting haul was not bad either (Reed Bunting, Yellowhammer and 3 flyover Snow Buntings). Best of all though, a couple of Lothian year ticks: a handful of Jays ferrying acorns and 5 Greenshanks. The latter are in the shot below.


3 comments:

welchs said...

Hi Geoff, similar experience other end of the day - I called in at dusk on my way back from Dunbar, very scenic, Greenshanks making a pleasant noise, but the wildfowlers in the inner bay cleared out a lot of birds including Whooper and Curlew; the young Peregrine was fantastic when I saw it there last week. There were over 1000 gulls on the shore at the mouth of the estuary...

Morg said...

Hi Stephen, I was gutted to see the shooters - just hadn't really thought about it happening along our coast - but it is an obvious spot thinking about it. Just makes you wonder what it could be like... Geoff

welchs said...

Seen them at Aberlady before, and after surprise was informed about the history of the legal conditions for wildfowling there. There's more insight into their view of the world on their website*, IIRC campaigning for more of it! Seems a strange bedfellow with 30k geese and nationally important sites for wild swans. But I wonder which has a bigger impact, other human disturbance (dogs?!) or these guys, suspect the former... * http://www.scottish-wildfowling.org.uk/