Foot It: heard only quandry...

With the snow I kept an eye on the garden on Sunday hoping that a Redpoll might drop in. No luck there, but a Tree Sparrow briefly at one of the feeders was a real garden mega. Eight Brambling and Siskin brightened things up nicely as well.

I have been popping out to the garden after dark on as many spurious pretexts as I could manage this month - never before has the kitchen waste been taken out so frequently... Eventually the strategy paid off on Tuesday night with a calling Tawny Owl (species 76) while snipping 'just a few more' bay leaves for extra flavour in a casserole. This, of course, is a 'heard only' addition to the list, which I generally have no real issue with especially for such distinctively sounding species.

Today's 'heard only' is slightly less straightforward... In Foot It spirit I have decided to Walk on Wednesdays so far this year. It takes about an hour for me to get to work on foot but despite the route being within Edinburgh I can cut through the Hermitage of Braid which has some decent birding. For example, today I managed Water Rail (both there and back!), Dipper, Grey Wagtail, Buzzard, Waxwings and Roe Deer. The species that is giving me a quandry is White-fronted Goose.

A skein of grey geese came overhead just after I exited the Hermitage and as they called I immediately thought WfG. I made a field note on my phone "Skein geese over hermitage call wfg? Not greylag, not pfg." (pretty familiar with these two as they are both regular here) and I transcribed the call of a single individual as "fi-nuh, vi-nuh". Here is what I'd say is a recording on Xeno Canto that sounds like what I am trying to transcribe.

So, I have two questions - firstly, for those more up on grey goose ID by call than me, is that a diagnostic call of White-fronted Goose?

Secondly given that this would be a patch tick as well as a Foot It tick, would you tick them off given on call only? I did see them, but I'd just put my optics into my bag as I'd come back onto urban streets and by the time I had them through the bins they were definitely ... err.. geese ... and that's about it...

Waxwings in Morningside, Edinburgh, today. Not sure pointing a 400mm lens at someone's front door in the fading light was such a good idea in retrospect!

Free-flying Night Heron colour rings

I was back at Edinburgh Zoo today. Once again I did not have time to do more than fire off some quick shots of the free-flying Night Herons on my way in, and this time, out of the zoo. This time, though, I made sure to get shots of the colour rings, so here they are along with information kindly supplied by Stephen Welch, Lothian Recorder.

First two shots are of the "ancient bird red-green left (the green is actually blue, but appears green; formerly also red right)". This bird has an overgrowing upper mandible. Is there a radio transmitter tucked under its tertial feathers? Can't be sure from these pictures. Nevertheless this is thought to be the 25 year old individual.

Secondly here are two shots of the other bird with the lower mandible overgrowth. This is the "younger yellow-blue vertically split band bird". The blue half of the band is facing away from the camera, but close examination of the full photographs reveals a few telltale blue pixels (see crop right). Notice that it also appears to have damaged toes/lost toe nails. This bird is assumed to be 18 years old.

Also at the zoo an unexpected year tick in the form of a Green Woodpecker in the trees on Corstorphine Hill to the east of the Living Links centre. To round off the day I decided to walk home from work through the Hermitage of Braid. I had seen a suspected Water Rail there on the 25th January and although I had checked the spot a couple of times since then it was not until today that I finally had a conclusive view of this skinny skulker.

Lothian year list hits 100 with Water Rail

I have been lucky to manage some great birding over the last couple of weekends, and as a result my yearlist topped 100 today. I started the day on 98 and headed first for Duddingston to listen for Water Rail and maybe fluke a Bittern. No luck on either so I nipped into Figgate Park. Four Goosander and a singing Dipper were nice, but no sign of the Kingfishers or Shoveler, my two target species, so no additions to the year list there.

En route to Aberlady Bay, I had a quick seawatch from Ferny Ness. Some Long-tailed Ducks were showing well, but the water was a little choppy and four kite surfers were doing their wildlife-scaring best to reduce our local biodiversity. A quick stop at Seton failed to produce any Mediterranean Gulls but a group of about 25 Golden Plovers were whizzing around - a nice surprise 99th Lothian species for the year.

As I pulled into Aberlady Bay, I felt sure that I would soon hit the 100 mark. The tide was extremely far out so I decided to leave scanning the estuary for another time. Instead I thought I could head towards the dunes. As I hit the sea buckthorn tunnel I thought about the number of times I had walked through it always in the hope of stumbling upon some unusual avian waif. Well I wasn't expecting a Water Rail but there it was in the middle of the path as I rounded a corner. It scuttled into the buckthorn and I assumed that was it, but in fact it seemed quite happy for a few minutes as it wended its way deeper and deeper into the tangle. Not great views, and certainly not great shots, but a great bird to hit the hundred with!

Well, that's what the slog is for, eh?, views like that!...

There were three more year ticks ahead today. The trek out to the dunes was rewarded with several Sanderling on the beach, a family walk later in the day added a Lesser Redpoll at the Union Canal, and finally at dusk a cracking winter adult Mediterranean Gull heading East past Seafield Road. It was not quite the white-winger that I was hoping for (a Glaucous Gull had been reported earlier) but I was certainly not complaining!