Neglect at RSPB Baron's Haugh

Baron's Haugh is good just now. The water levels are low and there are lots of birds some of which are quite close to the hides. However, the height of the vegetation makes seeing & photographing them quite difficult. I'm all for greenery but when the vegetation around hides gets too tall and becomes a detriment to seeing anything it becomes a nuisance.

My message is get it cut.

Green Sand obscured by the tops of reeds

Same bird a bit better but reeds still in the frame

Ruff - 1 of up to 20 in the area

Snipe - again obscured

Snipe - reeds still in the frame

Other birds partially visible from the Causeway hide were 1 Juv LRP, 4 Green Sand, C10 Ruff, 2 Black Tailed Godwit & Water Rail.

Firhill on Matchday

The Warm Up

Watering the Pitch

Teams Coming Out

About to kick Off

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

An entertaining day wandering round taking in the atmosphere and some of the street acts. Also had our first look ever at the Scottish Parliament building at the bottom of Canongate- seriously underwhelming building for such an important one. Hopefully we will be fully governed from there. Still hopeful in my lifetime. 

Barns Ness

Weather conditions looked good for a fall of birds on the east coast with south easterlies forecast overnight & for the whole of Sunday. Unfortunately, most of the action seemed to be from St Abbs south & I saw very little. Indeed the wire dump at Barns Ness (Barren's Ness would be more apt  was birdless. Torness Power Station late morning was no better with only the odd linnet in the scrub.

Good views of 2 Peregrines at Barns Ness and the beach had some Dunlin, Ringed Plover & Sanderling.

Stopped in at Musselburgh on the way home in the hope of maybe a Little Stint or a Wood Sand. Not to be unfortunately. Still good views of Ruff, Blackwit & Greenshank with a supporting cast of Knot & Dunlin. Lots of Sandwich Tern on the westernmost scrape. Good views of Stock Dove.

Stock Dove - taken at Caerlaverock earlier in the year.

My digiscoping camera may also have given up the ghost - seriously overexposing everything.

Barons Haugh

Really good morning at the Haugh with Nuthatch, 2 juvenile Little Ringed Plover, 1 juvenile Ringed Plover, 10 Ruff, 3 Greenshank, 1 Common Sand & 1 Black Tailed Godwit.

Musselburgh Lagoons & Longniddry

Started at the Wader scrapes at Musselburgh Lagoons with 6 Black Tailed Godwit, 6 Ruff & 2 Greenshank .

Moved round to Gosford Bay where I saw 8 Red Necked Grebes on a flat calm sea.

Fuerteventura 27 July 15 to 6 August 15

Me, Patricia & the girls flew out from Edinburgh at 7:15 on the Monday morning with Ryanair. We had overcome online check in & safely printed our boarding passes. It seemed however that since the return flight was more than 7 days away it was impossible to print boarding passes at home. It would therefore mean trying to find somewhere to print them in Fuerteventura or risk a £280 charge from the airline. However, with the aid of Ryanair's App we successfully overcame that hurdle too & downloaded all 4 return boarding on the one IPhone. Why is it not possible to download a Ryanair App on an android phone? In reality the Ryanair experience was good and there was none of the measuring and weighing of cases to the gram that I had expected.

We were staying in the 4 star Corralejo Beach Hotel for 10 nights. Corralejo was a good choice & from what we saw is by far the best resort on the island.

Corralejo from the south

Corralejo, however is not often mentioned in the birding trip reports. Neither is July or August. This was a family holiday & although we had a car for 5 days and traversed the island the number of species seen was less than 20!

Best were Egyptian Vulture near Cardon in the south of the island and 6 Cream Coloured Coursers at Tindaya in the north west. Best of the rest included Southern Grey Shrike, Bertholott's Pipit, Kentish Plover, Hoopoe and Whimbrel.

Tindaya

Ajuy

Corralejo with Lobos in the background

El Cotillo

Parque Rural Betancuria

Corellejo Harbour with Lanzarote in the background

Caleta del Marrajo