Demolition Job

Over the years I have been at Musselburgh Lagoons many times. I remember my first trip there with the YOC when I was about 14. It was a combined visit with Aberlady Bay. My friend & I got separated from the main group at Aberlady, got lost and caused the bus to be 2 hours late back into Glasgow. Suffice to say we were not popular.

Anyway, on that particular spring day I reckon I saw over 20 new birds and many of them were seen at Musselburgh. The site itself has changed much over the years, and not always for the better, For years Cockenzie pumped tons of ash into the lagoons, not particularly environmentally friendly I'm sure but the birds didn't seem to mind too much. Cockenzie has been closed for many years now and today its chimneys were demolished. I for one will miss their indomitable presence on the horizon :

Going

Going

Gone

I hadn't gone through there to see the demolition, indeed I had no idea it was happening. However, the hides overlooking the scrapes provided a good vantage point. The explosion coincided with high tide and had a significant effect on the roosting birds:

Mayhem

The birds circled around for several minutes

Beginning to settle again

Back to normal

The bang caused disturbance, but this fellow was an even greater threat:

Peregrine off with a Godwit

One of the features of today was the arrival of skeins of Pink Footed Geese. Most flew high over but a few choose to rest on the scrapes:

Harbingers of winter

Unfortunately, the light was poor today and despite some of the waders coming quite close colours were a bit drab:

Black Tailed Godwit

Curlew

Redshank

After lunch I walked out to the sea wall. There had been a lot of boats in the Forth to see the earlier demolition & so this probably affected bird numbers. Nonetheless there were at least 8 Red Necked Grebes and c25 Great Crested Grebes present. Both Common & Velvet Scoter were also seen together with a single Goldeneye and 12 Wigeon.