Great Black-backed Gull mobbing White-tailed Eagle

I have posted an aerial shot on this theme previously, taken in Harris in 2011, so I thought I would add a North Uist shot from 2012. Spectacular stuff, even when watched from a distance.

Otter on Berneray

This uncropped shot was taken during one of the most exciting wildlife encounters I have ever had - an otter choosing to come ashore right alongside to eat a fish. Of course, there is always a challenge - in this case heavy rain and dark cloud. After twenty five minutes of close-up otter action I had several hundred images. Only after the otter sank back into the sea did I realise that I was soaked to the skin and frozen!

Merlin

We have just returned from a week on North Uist, Berneray and Benbecula - a truly beautiful part of the world and a fantastic place to watch wildlife. As expected we saw plenty of raptors, including close and prolonged views of this Merlin - a second calendar year bird still in its juvenile plumage.

Black tale Godwit

This is a black tale alright - a grim story that exposes the cut and thrust of self-found year listing in Lothian. It shows the lengths that normally mild-mannered birders will go to to add another number on their list - without even a cursory glance at the rules or thought for the moral or ethical niceties of this ungoverned, and some would say ungovernable, sport. It is a story of how one man's lust for listing has resulted in behaviour that others will call cheating, or even, if pushed, (godwit-forbid) stringy duff dude birding. And just who is this stringy cheat, well, I have to name names, it is me.

So what is this horrific behaviour and how did it come about. Well let's rewind to yesterday. I find myself in possession of a new lens and decide to take it to Musselburgh. Pretty much the first birds I see is a group of Bar-tailed Godwits on the breakwater. I point my lens. I press. Godwits shuffle. Godwits flutter. Chimplike I gleefully capture shots of a Bar-tail leaping into the air, and I am joyful that I have resolved feather detail on the camera screen rather than the amorphous blur I have become used to of late. At no point do I knowingly detect the Black-tailed Godwit in amongst the Bar-tails until today when I first looked closely at the shots. It is the bird with the black, rather than barred tail, funnily enough (centre rear above, fourth from left below).

So what's the crime? Well the crime is that I am tempted to add it to my year list, and worse still I am tempted to add it to my self-found year list. In fact I am so tempted that I have done it*. After all, I saw the bird and I identified the bird and I was genuinely surprised to see it there. So, what do you think? Tick and run, or suck it up and keep looking for a real one.

* For now.... I'll probably remove it!...

Life through a new lens

My new lens arrived today to replace the well-worn Sigma 70-300 that had gone a tad soft to say the least... Well, the Canon prime or 100-400 zoom are firmly out of my budget so I have picked up a second hand Sigma 120-400 instead. Compared to the 70-300 it is a big lens and I daresay it will take some getting used to. Despite the poor weather conditions I was pleased with its performance on a brief outing today. I think that the image stabilisation function is going to be a real boon... it certainly managed to pick up some feather detail on this Blue Tit in the garden. So maybe, if the weather improves again, there might be some decent images on this blog in future?...

Down at Musselburgh, I pointed it out to sea and was pleased that this crop shows it can resolve some detail on these distant Long-tailed Ducks. I normally have more requirement to make record shots of distant birds than compose frame fillers, after all. While more reach would always be nice I think that I would struggle to go birding with a bigger lens - after all I don't want to leave my scope behind!

And its first use in anger... this yellowish-legged 4CY Herring Gull at the Esk mouth was just begging to be photographed.

This male Shoveler, in the sea with the Wigeon and Goldeneye at the Esk mouth was a year tick. I notice that the AF has not picked up the bird, but hopefully I'll improve?

Finally, this nice pair of Red-breasted Mergansers decided to pose for the new lens!

Birding while gardening: Crossbills and hunting Peregrine!

Yesterday's clear skies tempted me out into the garden and I spent the day rejuvenating various raised beds for this year's growing season. I was trimming back leggy herbs when I was startled to hear the explosive 'jip' call of Crossbills. An almost daily experience on my North Wales patch but only the second time I've seen them from the garden here in Edinburgh (single bird 5 July 2010) - another real garden rarity hot on the heels of yesterday's Snow Bunting and Fulmar! As I stood up the flock of 9 Crossbills passed low over the houses and then headed off down the hill giving me a nice view of a selection of red, green and yellowish rumps bobbing away into the distance. The Hermitage of Braid looked like a possible destination, although of course they may not have stopped...

For much of the day my head was down as I worked on the soil, but in general the sky seemed lacking in birdlife. With the wind direction slowly swinging to northerly, the clear blue skies, cold air and warm sun seemed an odd combination for this time of year. It was not until late afternoon that raptor activity hotted up. Several Common Buzzards in the air included some hanging fairly low over the garden and a couple in the distance indulging in aerial display. A single Sparrowhawk sighting over the course of the day must rank as one of the lowest hawk-per-minute sighting ratios from the garden. Best of all was something that I have never seen before from here - a Peregrine at full speed hunting pace directly overhead, and then just failing to hit a feral pigeon. Half an hour later it was overhead lugging prey - clearly persistence pays off (see top photo).

Snow Bunting and Fulmar: 2 garden ticks today!

Full of the cold, I decided to spend the morning in bed and then spend the afternoon on 'light duties' in the garden. I was expecting some raptors, and sure enough Buzzard, Sparrowhawk and even Peregrine obliged (I missed the Osprey that may have passed over en route to Duddingston today). I was not expecting to extend the garden list, last added to in August with a nocturnal fly-over Whimbrel, although it would be fair to say that there is always hope.

As it happens it was double whammy today, with flyover Snow Bunting and Fulmar (species nos 76 and 77).

The former was ID'd on call only - despite searching I couldn't pick it/them up as they passed over North.

The latter passed over fairly low while I was 'resting' with my eyes fixed upwards - it took a few moments to realise that the funny Fulmar-like gull was in fact a Fulmar! The quick record shot has to rank as one of the worst Fulmar pics ever loaded onto the web I would guess. I think that my excitement has reduced the image to a blur, which is surprising given that this was possibly one of the most-likely additions to the garden list (the Crags are not too far away - I had even considered trying for those birds through the scope from the garden at some point - something that will not be required now...).

Escaped Eastern Rosella

A colleague told me that his neighbour had photographed a parrot in his garden in Swanston, Edinburgh, yesterday. I was keen to see the pics and here they are. Looks like an Eastern Rosella to me, although I have no experience of these antipodean beauties, so maybe someone else will correct me if I am wrong.

It would be a nice surprise to see one of these in Edinburgh, although I would imagine that the owner might not share that thought. And maybe the bird wouldn't be too pleased about its new circumstances depending upon how conditioned it was to cage or aviary life.

I suppose that escaped parrots are seen every year or so in Edinburgh. I have managed to see a couple of Cockateils in Edinburgh over the years although neither has hung around for long - especially the one that was sitting on my window ledge one morning when I opened the curtains... Below is a composite image of one that I saw at Musselburgh heading North across the Forth in August 2010.

Spring has arrived

A Chiffchaff was singing in the back garden first thing yesterday morning. Maybe the haar was so thick it couldn't really tell where it was but it moved on pretty sharpish!

Today was beautifully sunny and I spent some time in the garden in the afternoon. It has been all work recently but even still I felt a little guilty lying down for a spot of skywatching. Hoping for an early Osprey or a white-winged gull but not really expecting to see anything of note I hadn't even bothered to fetch the camera. Of course I wish I had now as a cracking Merlin motored north at about 5:30pm. The third I've seen from the garden, this one flew North along a route that was an almost perfect repeat of the bird I saw in equally hot and clear weather on 10 April 2011 - I wonder if it was the same bird? A great sighting and really makes up for the absence of Lothian birding for me over the last few weeks.

Only other recent notable sightings were on a work trip up to the Glenshee area last weekend. Some fantastic white Ptarmigan moulting into their summer plumage along with plenty of Mountain Hares, looking similarly out of place.

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.