Images from Hogganfield

Female Goosander - taken from the new viewing platform

A boring brown duck..........or a beautifully patterned female Mallard.

Moorhen

Also of note today 3 well grown young Great Crested Grebe, 5+ Little Grebe, at least 2 Shoveler and 3 drake RD's.

Crane Lifts British List to 400

An adult Sandhill Crane at Loch of Strathbeg in Aberdeenshire as well as being a lifer for me also had the added significance of being my 400th British bird. The fact that this milestone could be reached in Scotland was an added attraction.

I left a rather soggy Glasgow at 4:15 am but as I pushed North & East it became drier and by the time I reached Starnaffin Farm Visitor's Centre it was a fine morning. I was met by a group of twitchers who had already seen the bird from the Tower Pool hide, but it had flown and was now somewhere up towards St Combs. It had spent a good time the previous day in a field near at Gowanhill and so that was the obvious place to head for. A search for the bird in this area was fruitless, but a Lapland Bunting picked up on call was a bonus. With up to 50 other twitchers in the area, it was not long before the Crane was refound, some half a mile to the South at Corskelly Farm. After a short search I had my 400th British bird. Soon however it flew off and I headed back to Starnaffin where I hoped it would reappear later in the day.

My optimism was rewarded when it flew back in around 1pm and settled on the low ground and was viewable from the Tower Pool Hide. The following images although poor convey the scale of the bird particularly when compared to the Lapwings in the foreground:

Other notables on the reserve today included 2 juvenile Pectoral Sandpipers, 1 Spotted Redshank and 2 Greenshank from the Visitor's Centre and 4 Black Tailed Godwit & 1 Ruff from the Tower Pool Hide. There were also large numbers of Pink Footed Geese already on the Reserve. Numbers already up to between 3&4 thousand.

I spent an hour or so in the afternoon seawatching from Rattray Head. Lots of Gannets & Kittiwakes and a single Arctic Skua. Up to 5 Wheatears in the rough ground behind the dunes:

Wheatear

Dowitcher Still Present

The juvenile Long Billed Dowitcher was still present at Baron's Haugh today, although still not coming any where near the hide for a good shot. It represents only the 2nd record for the Clyde area. A really good find by Dave A.

2 Green Sands also about today:

Now that was a Surprise !

It was one of these kind of mornings where I did not really know what to be up to. I had thought about going over to the East Coast but the winds were moderate SSW so I didn't think it was worth it. At 10am I had a run round the Heritage Loch and out of the corner of my eye connected with my 1st Kingfisher of the year as it flew low over the water.

I came home and decided that after lunch I would have a go at Baron's Haugh. Subsequent to that, a Garganey on the pager at the Haugh further confirmed that a visit might be in order. A later glance at the pager and the words "Clyde", "Long Billed Dowitcher" and "Baron's Haugh" all in the one message had me out the door tout suite.

The bird news this week has been filled with news of American waders seemingly all over the place and today I am hearing of American passerines turning up on Scilly but despite that, I wasn't really anticipating any American action within 10 miles of home. Anyway, after a bit of chasing between the Marsh and Centenary hides and dodging a group of girls 'getting mad with it' in the Phoenix hide, I finally caught up with the bird from the Marsh hide. Although never close, it showed in the open constantly for a good hour and a half at least. This is the best I could come up with I'm afraid:



Long Billed Dowitcher


























This represents my 3rd LBD in the UK. The first was way back in the eighties at Caerlaverock & I well remember crooking my neck to see it out of one of the wee fibre glass hides they have down there. A far better view of one was had at Drift Reservoir in Cornwall on the way to Scillies, maybe 6 years ago. That was one of the years that I went down to Cornwall and spent a couple of nights in a B&B before the Saturday chopper flight to Scillies. With all this American stuff around this year methinks that it might be a good idea this year. Scillies in 3 weeks time, it has the makings of a very good week................here's hoping !!!

Still Surviving

Birding has taken a bit of a back seat of late what with gardening and ironing & now decorating eating into time. Perhaps though it has not really been any of them but more August being a really quiet time of year with nothing much to inspire me to go out.

However, now that we are in September, the pace will hopefully quicken and I'll do a bit more birding. Today however, I had a spare couple of hours and spent it at a fairly quiet Hogganfield. The highlight was probably the 3 plus, possibly up to 5 young Great Crested Grebe. Two were close in to the car park of which this is one:

There were also a good number of Little Grebe and I spent some time trying to get a nice shot with this one amongst the overhanging tree branches being quite appealing:

Also still surviving and bird number 200 for the year: