Northumberland and Scotland, east coast and Speyside (1 Viewer)

During September, as part of my work, I have to visit sites at Malton (Yorkshire), Dundee, Leominster and Camborne (Cornwall). As last year, I took the opportunity to add some leave to the visits, and spend some time exploring the areas. This first report covers the northern trip, the second report covers the western/southern visits.

On 8th September I picked up a friend and we travelled up north, spending a couple of hours at St Marys Island. I’d not been there before, but after reading on this forum of the roseatte sightings, and never having identified a roseatte, I thought we’d give it a go. Michael Frankis was unable to join us, but gave some useful advice, and eventually we identified one juvenile on the island – the tide was in and we were ’scoping from the prom. We also saw a few bonxies, guillimot, sandwich terns, several wader spp including a good number of sandlings. Michael texted to tell us there was a pec sand nearby, but sadly we needed to get to Dundee that night.

The journey was uneventful (one swift spotted), but the A68 through Northumberland is one of my favourite roads – so few people and lovely countryside. The border towns are also pretty – Jedburgh seems to have some of the prettiest front gardens I’ve seen.

Tuesday morning was spent ‘working’, but we then drove down to Ruddon’s Point, and explored the coast back up to Dundee and beyond to Carnoustie, by when it was getting dark, so we headed to Aberdeen for the night. At Ruddon’s Point we found one twite, one sedge warbler, several mergansers, a lot of eider and common scoter.

We called in a few harbours and had a quick look for white winged gulls, but saw none. There was nothing different at Fife Ness, and nothing much else seen that day.

On Wednesday we explored the coastline north and then west from Aberdeen – Blackdog (large numbers of scoter and eider), Eden estuary (greenshank), (just after a kestrel hovered extremely close to the car, good for a photo), Cruden Bay, Peterhead, Fraserburgh (several seals in harbour), Buckie, ending up at Spey Bay – where three osprey were a nice end to the day. We were particularly looking for purple sandpiper, and found two at Peterhead.

The next three nights were spent at Carrbidge. On Thursday strong winds scarred us away from the ’gorms, so we explored sites around the Morray Firth – (saw many red grouse around Lochindorb, and one summer plumage black throated diver on the loch) Findhorn Bay (one osprey), Burghhead Bay (hundreds of common and velvet scoter, bonxies, arctic skua, gannet, razorbill, eider, slav grebe, red throated diver but no surf scoter spotted despite trying hard), Nairn and Alturlie Point (not a lot), then ending up at Chanonry point, where one harbour porpoise but no dolphins were seen.

On Friday we had a walk in the woods at Carrbridge before breakfast, but no cresties or crossbills were seen, just commoner spp and one red squirrel. The day was bright/sunny and very little wind, so we parked in the ski car park and walked up Ben Macdui and on to Cairngorm, then back down to the carpark – a lovely walk, not too difficult (about 10 miles?) and saw four ptarmigan, one kestrel, one peregrine, a lot of meadow pipits and three reindeer.
That evening we went for a short walk from Forest Lodge, but of birds there were virtually none! – a few mistle thrush was about all we identified.

Saturday we came home, but before leaving did manage another walk from Forest Lodge, and this time managed several crestie’s, siskin, and other commoner spp, (including several frogs) but no crossbill. Incidentally, we saw several coal tits, and to me they seemed bigger than we get around Beds/Herts – they seemed much closer in size to the great tits in the same flocks – anyone got any comments? (assuming someone reads this far……..). And why did we fail on crossbills?

Altogether a lovely break, excellent weather, 101 bird spp seen and several sites explored.

Hopefully some pictures should appear below!

Andrew

Complete list:

Arctic skua
Arctic Tern
Bar-tailed godwit
Black throated diver
Blackbird
Black-headed gull
Black-tailed godwit
Blue tit
Buzzard
Canada goose
Carrion Crow
Chaffinch
Coal tit
Collared Dove
Common gull
Common scoter
Common tern
Coot
Cormorant
Crested tit
Curlew
Dabchick
Dunlin
Dunnock
Eider
Fulmar
Gannet
Goldcrest
Golden plover
Goldeneye
Goldfinch
Great black-backed gull
Great skua
Great spotted woodpecker
Great tit
Greenfinch
Greenshank
Grey Heron
Grey partridge
Grey plover
Greylag goose
Guillemot
Herring gull
Hooded Crow
House martin
House sparrow
Jackdaw
Kestrel
Kittiwake
Knot
Lapwing
Lesser black-backed gull
Linnet
Long-tailed tit
Magpie
Mallard
Meadow pipit
Mistle thrush
Moorhen
Mute swan
Osprey
Oystercatcher
Peregine
Pheasant
Pied wagtail
Ptarmigan
Purple sandpiper
Razorbill
Red grouse
Red-breasted merganser
Redshank
red-throated diver
Ringed Plover
Robin
Rock pipit
Rook
Roseate tern
Sanderling
Sandwich tern
Sedge Warbler
Shag
Siskin
Slavonian grebe
Snipe
Song thrush
Sparrowhawk
Starling
Stonechat
Swallow
Swift
Teal
Treecreeper
Tufted Duck
Turnstone
Twite
Velvet scoter
Wheatear
Wigeon
Woodpigeon
Wren
Yellowhammer

Ptarmigan

Reindeer

Excellent reading.. ; and viewing!!

:clap:

Interesting report and three great photographs,never had Ptarmigan myself,very envious:storm:


Geoff :t:

That's what I call a whistle-stop trip! It left me breathless just reading it the amount of miles you must have covered in so short a time. I recall many of the sites you visited from our Spring excursions in the last couple of years. You certainly got me beat with the Ptarmigan, as we never did see any but then again I couldn't persuade the missus to walk 'up' any hills. As regards the Crossbills we dipped on them this year too but saw plenty last year. i think they are such a roving species that it is very hit and miss. likewise Crested Tit, last year we saw the odd one but this year I'd reckon at least a hundred.

I'll have to look up Burghhead Bay as that's one site we didn't visit.

Great report by the way and nice shots :t:

Superb again Andrew - thanks for sharing!

Glad it was a good trip!

The Reindeer are great, until you see one stick its head into someone's pocket looking for food :eat:

Thanks for all the comments.

Geoff, I've only gone walking in the Cairngorms twice, and got ptarmigan both times - shame there's so little other birdlife (i've been too late to be worth trying to find dotterel, would like to see snow bunting though). Because of the lack of anything, the reindeer were interesting, but didn't seem frightened - and Michael seems to think they could get too friendly. This said, I love the area, can't wait for the next trip.

IanF - my 6th trip to Scotland, and i've never done fewer miles (1700?)- my problem is there's so much to see I tend to dash madly from site to site, probably missing things as I go! This time i purposely kept away from Findhorn valley - I don't want to over visit it, the quietness is a big attraction, so I decided not to try for eagles. Perhaps more surprisingly we didn't get red kite on the black isle.

To me, Carrbridge is the ideal centre for staying - central, quiet and wildlife on the doorstep.

Thanks for the kind comments,

Andrew

Brilliant trip report...thanks for sharing it with us. Neil and I went up to Scotland in the first week of March this year...my first visit to the country, though Neil used to work in Oban about fifteen years ago. We started off in Edinburgh, stayed overnight, visited the Butterfly Garden(Wonderful!) then drove up to Oban. Saw my first Black Guillemot in the harbour and first British List Hooded Crows( first life-list sighting was in Crete in 1992!). Saw loads of Red Deer on the sides of the mountains...looked more at home there than when i've seen them in the Lakes or at Leighton Moss!
Sadly we could only stay for three days and only went up as far as Fort William...but I am now madly in love with Scotland and can't wait to return!!!

Here's how you'd like the Reindeer to be . . . .

And here's reality, poking their noses in the ranger's pockets for the food they know is there . . . . B

Ouch! Michael you should have left it at the first photo! At least they are trying to introduce the species and making a good job of it.

I know my wife is still annoyed that I messed up the times and we never got to see them ourselves. Unfortunately I still don't know why she wanted to see them ???

Hi Andrew,

Really enjoyed your report. Made me more determined than ever to get up to Scotland. Fantastic photos. The ptarmigan is stunning!
:t:

james