Dip, drip and tick

Dave A found yet another rare along the East Lothian coast on Friday - an adult White-rumped Sandpiper at Musselburgh. I thought that I had no chance of seeing it but I managed to squeeze a quick trip down to the lagoons on Saturday afternoon to find that it had flown off, presumably to feed on the sands.

Spurred on by the disappointment of dipping I got up early this morning and managed another quick trip to Musselburgh before attending a meeting in central Edinburgh for the day. Despite the pouring rain, the White-rumped Sandpiper was feeding with Dunlin and a single Curlew Sandpiper. The light was terrible, the optics were steamy, and time was very short. Still glad I made the effort as this American vagrant was a Lothian and Scottish tick for me!

White-rumped Sandpiper (right of centre) with Dunlin in pouring rain and heavy cloud - so much for the heatwave!

White p6 on Black-headed Gull

Had a weekend working in Stirling while others are seeing all sorts of exciting migrants further north in Scotland. Inspired, I headed to Alnwickhill as soon as I was back in Edinburgh. Well worth it too as there was a Black-headed Gull with nice white wedges with white primary 6s as well as p1–5s (see also here)! This seems to be an uncommon form, but even I'll admit it is not quite as exciting as a Sandhill Crane (well done on the pics JosephN - if they do not get Photo of the Week, I don't know what will!)!

Dodgy gulls at Alnwickhill

I stopped off at Alnwickhill on the way home from work today. Today's highlight was a dodgy looking young gull. Probably a Lesser Black-backed Gull this first-year bird showed nice solid chocolate brown plumage on the belly, flanks and mantle. Another similar bird can be found here. Although I waited for as long as I could I never got more than a glimpse of the tail pattern (quite extensively dark with marbling; scattered chevrons on rump). While any resemblance to an American Herring Gull is superficial, looking at the first photo now I am wondering whether there is some Arctic Skua mimicry going on here?...

This is not the only dodgy-looking gull I have seen at Alnwickhill. Here are a few shots of 'black-headed' Lesser Black-backed Gulls that I saw there in mid-June (first two pics) and mid-August (last pic). These birds could well be showing plumage staining rather than melanism.

Substandard subspecies

The reports of seawatching off the East Lothian coast over the last few days combined with too much time spent working over the last few months had me (tw)itching to get out. The only window of opportunity was a couple of hours around lunchtime today, so I scooted up to Alnwickhill first (just in case).

A quick scan revealed a nice group of Goosander loafing on the brickwork and a darker than usual Lesser Black-backed Gull. Subspecific identification is a minefield in most circumstances and the large white-headed gulls are certainly no exception. I think it is safe to say that, despite being distinctly darker than any other LBBG in the vicinity (even when seen from a variety of angles), today's bird may be an intermedius Lesser Black-backed Gull rather than the more usual graellsii subspecies or it may not... In this pic the 'intermedius' is standing in front of a subtly paler grey graellsii.

I headed to Torness to watch for seabirds off the power station walkway. My target species was Sabine's Gull which has been seen off the East Lothian coast over the last few days, along with an interesting selection of shearwaters and skuas. Unfortunately, there was little obvious movement offshore other than the obligatory Gannets, and a single Manx Shearwater and a couple of Arctic Skuas. Scanning feeding groups of Kittiwakes and Black-headed Gulls failed to reveal any other species in their midst. Nevermind, there is always next time...

I did manage to see a single Eider - a moulting male - and was not too surprised after Stephen Welch's recent sightings to see that it was sporting some very prominent sails. A borealis Northern Eider then? Well, I think that the identification features of Eider subspecies are a work in progress to say the least. Even in this distant and blurry shot the sails are quite obvious (!).

Finally, a nice candidate for alba White Wagtail (rather than more usual yarrellii Pied Wagtail), gave me the runaround by refusing to reveal its central rump feathering - crucial for the sure identification of the forms. A split second view indicated it was pale grey, and the other features also looked good for alba. In the first picture, the upper rump can be seen to be pale grey, and the mantle is distinctly paler than the nearby young yarrellii, but without a definitive clear view of the central rump area it is difficult to be sure. So, a hat-trick of substandard views of awkward subspecies, but great fun nonetheless.

Slender-billed Gulls

Time to break my blogger's block and get back to posting. The last couple of months have been either very busy workwise with no time for birding or blogging, or, more recently, away from home enjoying a family holiday in SE France. By no means a birding holiday, there was nevertheless a nice selection of birds, butterflies, mammals and flowers to provide plenty of distractions in many of the locations we visited.

These Slender-billed Gulls were on a shallow Etang near Palavas and were the only ones we stumbled upon on the trip. One of my all-time favourite species, I always get a real kick out of seeing them, maybe related to the fact that when I first saw them as a student on a birding trip to Spain I was suffering from a severe case of food poisoning thanks to some ill-chosen tapas the night before but all that was forgotten while a flock of these birds was in view.

Adult Slender-billed Gulls are particularly attractive with a pink wash to the underparts and dark eye and bill, and in flight they are particularly graceful. 

Unfortunately when they touch down on land they are transformed slightly. Their elongated neck, which adds to their grace in flight, suddenly looks out of proportion, and if the three birds below are anything to go by, it looks a trifle uncomfortable as well!

Just for comparison, here is a nice pink summer adult standing behind a second calendar year bird. Note the bleached plumage of the latter.

Temminck's Stint and calling Quail

After many years of enjoying seeing birds wherever and whenever, I have become afflicted by a growing concern about lists. Previously it did not bother me at all that I had seen neither Temminck's Stint nor Quail in Scotland, never mind Lothian, since I had seen (or, in the case of Quail, heard) them on the continent and elsewhere in the UK. For me, the excitement in birding was always in the seeking, rather than in rows of ticks or within an inventory of long-gone birds listed within geographical or political boundaries. But something has changed, and I find myself increasingly irritated by the fact that after over 15 years in Scotland there are some pretty common species that I have yet to connect with within its boundaries. Whatever, something made me check my email just after lighting yesterday's barbecue, and sure enough Dave A had found yet another good bird - this time a Temminck's Stint at Musselburgh lagoons.

I have never been very good at twitching, and this was no exception. Rather than drop everything it was several hours later that I left for Musselburgh. On arrival, of course, the bird had just disappeared. I started searching diligently but soon found myself distracted by a compact gull feeding frenzy in the Firth of Forth - I could just make out some sort of cetacean in the water when I heard a dry Lapland Bunting-like trrrrrt call. Hmmm, I thought.... Slowly it dawned on me that that had been the Temminck's Stint. Even more slowly I remembered that my Remembird has a library playback function and soon enough had confirmed that the call was that of the stint. Now, that was a quandry, could I tick on call alone|? Well, I have in the past for Corncrake, for example, and the frustratingly elusive Reunion Cuckoo-shrike... But this was a stint - no-one adds stints to their national list on call alone, do they? Luckily the quandry was solved sometime later, when altered by the call one more time, the Temminck's dropped in flashing its white outer tail feathers at the back of one of the scrapes and proceeded to feed in its slow deliberate fashion on the abundant hatch of flies and the muddy edge. Long bodied and pale legged, the bird showed better than the photo above would indicate (hope you can spot it skulking behind the Lapwings).

By this time, the evening was well advanced, and since the weather was so still and warm it seemed an ideal opportunity to take up my self-set challenge of finding a Quail. 

As it turned out it didn't take long, a couple of stops along lanes threading their way between agricultural fields in the Fenton Barns area of East Lothian produced three singing Quail. Once more the Remembird was out, this time recording. Here is last night's closest bird with the soundfile popped into Ravenlite to produce a sonogram - not particularly clear, but 4x 'wet-my-lips' clearly visible in this clip - a directional microphone, parabolic reflector and wind shield would all help methinks! Now, that was the second Scottish tick of the evening, and the second of which to be identified on call - any quandry here? Not in the least - everyone adds Quail to their lists on call alone, don't they?

What May have been...

 

May, like any month, had its misses. I was hoping to see the escaped White Stork flying over the back garden (probably visible twice during the month) but it managed to evade me. (The bird above is a wild bird photographed in 2009 in Andalucia.) More galling perhaps were the Red Kite and Little Egret seen by others in the vicinity - both almost certainly garden ticks there for the taking. Of course, with the cold and windy weather that predominated for the latter half of the month there was little opportunity for garden birding.

In terms of Lothian listing, at least 187 species have now been recorded in 2011 (186 on Bubo plus Spoonbill). Mike H is still heading up the Lothian listing leaderboard this year with 177 species, a great tally given his comment that he is not listing this year. I have only managed 141 of these, but that represents a leap of 22 species during the month of May. Still plenty of obvious targets to keep my interest up as we approach June. Jay, for example, is still conspicuously absent - I just have not spent any real time in the correct habitat (i.e. woodland!). My chief target for June will be hearing Quail, a species I haven't yet recorded in Scotland. Again, it is a question of spending time in the appropriate habitat in the appropriate part of the region. Of course, I'm not thinking that I'm actually going to see one, but hearing the 'wet my lips' song should not be impossible...

Best birds of the month for me ... well, I cannot complain about a garden tick (Lesser Whitethroat) and a patch tick (Tree Pipit), but easily my best bird was the male Grey-headed Wagtail at Whitesands Bay last weekend. Just kicking myself that I didn't really manage to get shots that a more than a few blurry pixels - an utterly stunning bird - just needed that camera out of the bag before I got out of the car... ah well, next time...

Male Grey-headed Wagtail at Whitesands

A sprinkling of goodies from the Northern Isles to Northumberland yesterday had me itching to get to the coast so I set my alarm and was up and out early. Whitesands Bay was my first stop and after checking the triangle and bushes down towards Vaults without success I decided to head towards Barns Ness. I hadn't got very far when on a whim I decided to pull over and check the Bay. As I got out of the car a neon bird caught my eye close by on the close cropped turf path running through the marram grass - a cracking male Grey-headed Wagtail (thunbergi) only 10 metres away. We both froze and I slowly tried to extricate my camera from my shoulder bag. That was enough for it and it flew towards the parking area giving the typical flava-like call.

Before I could relocate the bird it was in flight again and moving towards the beach. It fed along the upper shore for 20 minutes or so before being disturbed by a dog walker and heading for the golf course. Hopefully it will hang around longer for someone to get some better pictures than I managed! Its active feeding behaviour made phonescoping difficult and after the initial sighting its range was a little to great for the SLR. Through the scope the grey cap, darker ear coverts, lack of pale supercilium and bright yellow extending from chin to vent made this a very smart looking bird - features sadly not abundantly clear here...

Also in the bay this flock of 43 Canada Geese - could they be on their way north to moult already?

 

Northern Marsh Orchid

Injured gulls at Alnwickhill

As I was passing I peered over the wall at Alnwickhill today to see my first colour-ringed gull at the site since the probable Norwegian Common Gull in January. Ring reading is not easy at this site due to the distance to the birds, but with a scope today's orange-ringed Herring Gull would have been straightforward. Unfortunately the scope was at home as this wasn't really a birding trip. I did have the SLR with me so managed a couple of record shots. As I was doing this I could see that the bird was limping and it looked as though the colour ring might be linked to the limp. Looking at the photos now I see that the colour ring has slipped down around the foot and was compressing the toes and preventing them from being splayed open in a normal standing position. Of course, without a closer examination it is not possible to tell whether the ring is causing the problem or whether some underlying anatomical problem has allowed the ring to move into this position.

Either way, and in order to salvage some benefit from this unpleasant observation, I was keen to read the ring combination I dashed home for the scope. Alas, although all other birds appeared to be loafing in the same positions, my quarry had moved. Any hope of relocating it was removed by a kerbside recycling vehicle taking a nearby speed bump at some velocity. The combined crescendo of several tonnes of broken glass and metal being shaken and stirred was enough to cause the entire flock of 200 gulls to flee. Last to move was the Great Black-backed Gull which has been loafing at the site for the last week. As it flew I was given a clue as to why it is hanging around here rather than down at the coast - most of the primaries on its left wingtip have been reduced to broken stumps. (How I hadn't noticed this before is a mystery - maybe it was previously only showing its good side?) Hopefully it will be able to regrow them rapidly, though I am wondering how effective its foraging will be as its flight seemed a little laboured. Certainly it was the first gull to return after the disturbance, which is not what I would expect from a healthy GBBG.

Spring gale: Beware of flying cows

Had the pleasure of Richard B's company for the first time in many years on Monday. He was up in Edinburgh and stayed over, so we had arranged a late afternoon and early evening jaunt - we could catch up, and the plan was that he could catch up on a few species that are difficult to see in Fen country. Oak woodland and mountain/moorland specialists seemed a good target, along with whatever goodies might be sprinkled along the coast. Of course, we hadn't factored in an 80-100 mile per hour south-westerly!

With such a gale blowing, the oak woodland was best avoided. There were enough leaves, branches and and even whole trees crashing into the roadsides to warn us that the chances of picking up singing Redstart, Pied Flycatcher or Wood Warbler were less than zero. An attempt to kick off with a yankee duck at Portobello and Musselburgh failed miserably. The sea was being whipped into a hissing surf and the scoter flock, with its male Surf Scoter, was nowhere to be seen. A red Red Knot and a Sanderling on the lagoons were nice compensation though, and after an hour of birdless involuntary sandblasting we were simply glad to be watching anything as we cowered in the bunkers.

We decided to head for the hills after all - a gale wouldn't have any effect on the mountain avifauna after all, would it?... We drove on past Gifford up on to the tops of the Lammermuirs. When trying to locate Ring Ouzel, having to move by walking at an angle of 30 degrees to the ground when facing into the wind or by taking Neil Armstrong-like bounds when travelling in the opposite direction is not ideal. Despite the extreme conditions we did manage Dipper, Red Grouse and Snipe.

With a feeling that we had seen everything that was foolish enough to show itself in the conditions we headed back to Edinburgh only to be stopped in our tracks by this warning.

Either Banksy or a Banksy-a-like had attempted to warn us of the terrible conditions up on the moors, but it certainly was windy enough for a cow to have to deploy its emergency chute.

We were a little confused by this one though...

Just to let you know that we did see some birds, here is a cracking view of a Red Grouse.

And, Richard, just for you, the Surf Scoter in with the Velvet Scoter flock - what a difference a day makes!

Here is a shot from Monterey, California, to give an idea of what it would have looked like had I remembered my scope...