East Coast (and Greater Glasgow) Magic

Over the past few years I have led outings to the east coast in autumn dubbed 'East Coast Magic' and have also produced a talk entitled 'East Coast Magic' which illustrates the excitement to be had and birds to be found by visiting the east coast, particularly in autumn. So it will be no surprise to learn that I managed to visit a few east coast sites during the week.

Similarly, I have a number of favourite sites in the Greater Glasgow area and I managed to visit them as well.

So taking it sequentially, on the 16th we visited various sites in Fife - the Wilderness (Pectoral Sandpiper, Ruff), Kilminning (nothing unusual - yet), and Guardbridge/Eden Estuary (Osprey, Peregrine, Little Egret, Ruff, Black-tailed Godwit, Greenshank, etc) …..

Eden Estuary from Guardbridge

Osprey

Greenshank

Having heard about a Woodchat Shrike showing well at Barns Ness in Lothian, we couldn't then resist making the journey to see it, after all it would be a UK tick for all three of us! Thanks to Stephen, we got there before dusk and had great views …………..

Barns Ness - wire dump

Woodchat Shrike (juvenile) in poor light

Following the storm on Wednesday, I set out on Thursday (20th) to Hogganfield Park LNR hoping to find a storm driven vagrant on the loch. Luckily, I found a juvenile Black Tern and managed a few record shots ..

Black Tern (juvenile)

Shortly afterwards, Stephen arrived and we were off to another one of my favourite sites, Balgray Reservoir, where a juvenile Grey Phalarope had been found. 

I used to watch Balgray on a regular basis and had seen 143 different species. The phalarope, if seen, would be a welcome addition to this total AND thankfully, we saw it. I managed a few record shots taken at a distance and whilst sinking into the mud!

Grey Phalarope

Grey Phalarope

In addition to the phalarope, we saw a number of other wader species including Black-tailed Godwits and a good range of other water birds with the biggest surprise being a juvenile Shelduck flying over the reservoir.

So over the past week, up to Friday 21st: 
I saw 79 different species;
Added to my year Scottish list which stands at 195;
Added to my life Scottish list which now stands at 313; 
Added to my life Balgray list which now stands at 144; and
Added to my year Hogganfield Park LNR list which now stands at 75.

So a terrific week with more to come! In fact, we also had a superb day yesterday but that will be the subject of a separate blog, mainly because I have been unable to download my photos for reasons that currently baffle me!

I would also apologise to those who would like to post comments as I have had to disable that function due to receiving unwanted posts about 'hacking'!