Dipper

I was back in the Hermitage this morning, again hoping for redpolls. With Lesser Redpoll, Mealy Redpoll and exillipes Arctic Redpoll in Lothian this week, I thought it was worth a try even after drawing a blank yesterday - they are mobile birds and there is no reason why some couldn't have dropped in over the last 24 hours. Well, as it was, I did have at the least eight Redpoll sp. fly-bys today, but try as I might I was unable to identify them to species in flight!

As I checked areas of suitable cover I was tempted to think what a difference some tape luring would make. At Fair Isle Bird Observatory in October, an MP3 player plugged into a speaker lured something like 60 Mealy Redpolls into nets in a single morning. Not sure about the ethics of it, or whether my neighbours would be overly pleased if I played redpoll calls on continuous loop out of the bedroom window?

Even without decent views of of the target species there were quite a few decent birds on show. Another Waxwing trilled overhead as I watched about 20 Yellowhammers and 4 Tree Sparrows lining up to drink in pools of melt water near Liberton Tower.

Down in the Hermitage of Braid, far fewer Siskins today, but one of the White-throated Dippers was on show once again. It is clearly a British bird (subspecies gularis) with a really nice broad chestnut border to its bib.

Two new garden 'ticks'

The continuation of the snowy weather has brought two more unusual visitors into the garden – Black-headed Gull and Yellowhammer. While both of these species have been seen before as 'fly overs', this is the first occasion they have been seen using the facilities (so to speak). A couple of Bramblings in the birch trees were also unusual, although there has been no return of last week's female Reed Bunting.

The gull was a reasonably heavily marked first winter bird and was photographed coming for lunchtime scraps with the Common Gulls. The buntings were in the birch trees at the same time and may have been using the feeders at the end of the garden. I left them to it, rather than risk flushing them away on their first visit.

Looking back through my records, I notice that it is two years since we have had any Waxwings in the garden. With flocks being seen on a daily basis in and around Edinburgh at the moment, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled at breakfast tomorrow...