In the Deep Midwinter

Short days and few birds:

Aberfoyle - mid afternoon - all is silent

River Forth at Aberfoyle - short cold days

More Scenery & A Few Birds

December is one of these 'nothing' kind of months. Nothing much new on the bird front and the days are short making it hardly worth travelling any distance. It will be different in January ofcourse when the year list kicks off again.

It was however another bright crisp morning and I wanted to get out and make the most of it. The kind of morning that is infinitely better than the dreary ones that are inevitably still to come. As such I headed down to Newshot Island just North of Erskine on the Clyde Estuary.

The marked paths at Newshot just take you down to a viewing platform overlooking the Clyde. From here any birds on Newshot are at best distant and I spent most of my time just looking at scenery.

Cormorants on the river

Looking East upriver towards Glasgow




The opposite direction towards The Erskine Bridge

There was nothing else for it, in order to see birds I had to get on to Newshot Island itself. Actually fairly easy but involving crossing a barbed wire fence. Never easy for an out of shape 50 year old and I didn't find it easy either.

Once over it is a short walk to the teaming wildlife on the river. Good numbers of Wigeon & Teal, a big flock of Grey Lag Geese. Lapwings, Redshank, Dunlin & Snipe, calling Water Rail and a marauding Sparrowhawk.

Small numbers of Redwing & Fieldfare and Yellowhammer.










A Sunny Day in Glasgow

Maryhill via Bridgeton on a cold crisp day in Glasgow. A very pleasant 2-3 hours prior to the football. Pity the Jags didn't complete a perfect day.

Queen Victoria at Glasgow Green

Bridgeton Rowing Club

The Brewery in the Gorbals

Clyde Footbridge between Glasgow Green & The Gorbals

River Clyde at Glasgow Green

People's Palace & Winter Gardens

Waxwings in Maryhill

Part of a flock of c80 birds

A single bird against a blue sky

..... and finally

Crossbills & More Waxwings

There was quite a sharp frost this morning making the path round the Heritage Loch treacherous. Best today was 2 male Crossbill high over the boatshed. The alders at the West end also held 3 Lesser Redpoll.

The crisp morning produced ideal light for the camera:

Boating Shed & Cafe

Black Headed Gull & Reflection

Lapwing & Tufted Duck numbers had risen to 29 and 61 respectively. There were at least 3 Snipe in the marsh and 5 or 6 Fieldfare were on tops of the trees in the island.

In the afternoon there was at least 100 Waxwing at Queen's Cross on the way up to the Thistle game. A good precursor for a hard fought 2-0 win !

Juvenile Lesser Black Backed Gull on the Heritage Loch

Going Downhill into the Winter.

With increasingly shorter Winter days now upon us opportunities for travel is much more limited and local birding is the better option.

The weather in Glasgow over the last 5 days has been dreary but Saturday morning was brighter and I spent about an hour at the Heritage Loch. Very little change from last week with still C50 Tufted Duck and C15 Lapwing present. There was also 13 Fieldfare in the fields to the West. I haven't been lucky with opportunities to photograph any Waxwings yet although there have been several fairly large flocks flocks in the Glasgow area and indeed I saw a flock of c40 over Rutherglen Cemetery on my way to work on Friday.

Spent considerably longer at Baron's Haugh on Sunday afternoon and I spent some time trying to get some scenery shots of the various early winter scenes:

Chestnut Walk now that most of the leaves have fallen

River Clyde looking South

Bird wise there was nothing of particular special interest. However, there were 31 Whooper Swans, that spend most of their time in the fields around Merryton, on the Haugh and I spent some time from the Phoenix hide trying to get some shots:

 

Duck numbers were also buiding with good numbers of Wigeon and Teal and a few Gadwall.

Taiga Beans

Managed a few hours birding this afternoon out at Slamannan to see if I could locate the Taiga Bean Geese. There was no sign in the fields around Luckenburn Farm but further East at Slamannan I located a distant flock of 67 in the fields just North West of the playing fields.

Driving around I managed to get a bit closer and discovered another flock of 92.

Some birds with neck collars

 

Other birds of note were a few Ravens and a small flock of Bramblings feeding in beeches by the main road

From here I headed back down the M80 and walked round Hogganfield Loch. Lots of Swans & Gulls milling around the car park area but very little on the North side of the loch and certainly not the hoped for Ruddy Ducks. Wonder if I'll ever see these beautiful Ducks again ? I was reading recently that they are now virtually wiped out in the UK. Seems such a dreadful waste to me !

Male Goosander

Whooper Swan

Winter Patch

I spent a good deal of time at the Heritage Loch last winter but stopped going in the Spring once the boating commenced and all the birds were scared off.

Now that boating has stopped for the winter, I had my first look at it this morning. The most numerous duck was Tufted with c50 present. There was also c30 Lapwings:

Best however was c40 Waxwing that flew over and alighted briefly in trees at the West end. With very good numbers both North & West of here I'm hopeful of getting some good images over the next few weeks.