Unsuccessful predation of Common Redshank by Crow

I watched this Carrion Crow swoop onto a Common Redshank in the shallows of the River Esk mouth at Musselburgh this morning. After a brief struggle the wader escaped leaving these feathers behind. Undeterred, this and other Crows continued to try to surprise waders although there were no further captures witnessed.

I managed another Snow Bunting, this time along the sea wall. There have been two along here recently. This bird, with its clean breast and pale looking rump is probably of the Scandinavian subspecies.



Other highlights included a nice white-winged Mediterranean Gull on the scrape. This area is possibly destined to becoming designated a Local Nature Reserve. This would be excellent news. If so, I wondered whether the vandalised sea-watching shelters and hide bench will be repaired, and noted that the water is low in some of the scrapes as the pump is out of action. I have no idea whether that is due to vandalism. Certainly there seems to have been repeated abuse of the facilities at this site over the years. The destruction of the sea-watching shelters does not look like typical vandalism to me - more like an act of deliberate and thorough destruction. Of course there is more to worry about than the destruction of visitor facilities perhaps. I was particularly frustrated today to see the unnecessary flushing of waders, wildfowl and gulls today by dogs... grrr. Grrrr, indeed!

Lammermuirs: Red Grouse and Snow Buntings

Decided to head for the Lammermuir hills in East Lothian this morning on the off chance of bumping into a Rough-legged Buzzard or Great Grey Shrike. Managed neither of course although there were good numbers of Red Grouse in evidence along the roadsides. The above bird looked like a straightforward female and the bird below, which was with it made me wonder whether 1st winter birds are separable at this time of year. Anyone know?

The Lammermuir Hills are highly managed for Red Grouse.
This shot, taken today and which you may not wish to look at too closely, shows a Brown Rat caught in a fenn trap placed on a pole crossing the burn at Johnscleugh. I am not a big fan of this sort of trapping with a low degree of discrimination.

Highlights of the trip for me were more encounters with Snow Buntings. These three shown below were seen feeding along the roadside on the way to and from Faseny Bridge. The shot below illustrates how dark the back, rump and uppertail coverts can be in 1st winter individuals of this species. There is certainly no way these birds would be considered to be nivalis. Instead they are the commoner subspecies insulae. I also saw another larger flock along the road to Garvald. I certainly feel in credit with Snow Buntings this year as I have chanced upon several. Hope that keeps happening...

Flyover Snow Bunting

A quick trip to the coast at Scoughall failed to produce any of coasting Tundra Bean or White-fronted Geese that have been appearing along the east coast this weekend. The only clear migrant was this immature (?) female Snow Bunting that came in-off. I was pleased to nail its identity on call long before I clapped eyes on it - in fact it was higher than expected and could easily have passed over unseen. Much less distinctive than the males I saw a few weeks ago.

Other interesting birds included a male Blackcap in the Sea Buckthorn - at this time of year a continental bird over here for the winter would be most likely, rather than a drift migrant. Also a nice group of Tree Sparrows around the pools - one of my favourite species. Lots of great calls from them - shame my Remembird seems to be malfunctioning - think I'll have to send it back for them to have a look at.

Winter buntings

Bird of the day on Sunday was a male Snow Bunting that was bombing around Musselburgh first thing in the morning. As soon as I heard the repeated 'teu' flight call I knew it was one of the winter buntings. As soon as I clapped eyes on its pied wings there was little doubt over which species this was.

On its second flypast the Snow Bunting added its second flight call - a 'trilidididid'. This call is quite different from the dry buzzy version of the call given by the Lapland Bunting. I was disappointed not to be able to nail the identification on the first call alone, especially given the ample opportunities for committing both to memory last autumn. Next time I'll be ready though as both of the calls of the Snow Bunting are more musical and pleasing to the ear.

Nov '11: Looking carefully at the above flight pic, it looks as if this individual is of the nivalis subspecies, given the extent of white in the wing.

I have now photographed both species in flight at Musselburgh this winter. Most shots end up looking like these two - as both species have a bounding flight pattern with the wings held in tightly against the body for most of the time. Snow Bunting on the left here and Lapland Bunting on the right.


 Maybe these shots do not show the species off to their best advantage, so here are a few more...

Here are Snow Buntings photographed at Barn's Ness in September and November 2010. This first photo is of the November bird and this appears to be one of the paler rumped Scandinavian subspecies nivalis, which although regular is apparently less common than the Icelandic insulae. Both subspecies breed in Scotland. Nov'11: The second bird is difficult to classify - probably insulae.

Finally, here is a Lapland Bunting photographed on Fair Isle in October. What a great autumn 2010 was for this species across much of Britain. I wonder whether there might be a surge of spring records this year as they move North(-West?). It is quite a few years since I found a male in breeding plumage on my old patch at Nercwys Mountain in North Wales, now that would be something to repeat.