Visited the newly opened Riverside Nature Park in Dundee (between Dundee Airport and Invergowrie Bay) this afternoon, depsite the wet weather.
To get there, take the road in towards the dump from Riverside, and there is a small car park just before the dump, or you can walk in from Invergowrie. Managed to see 33 species and it certainly looks like a potentially decent place to visit.
However, there are a few fairly minor niggles (which may or may not be fixed over time) - the Lochan (the flooded area visible from the road, in the field) is nigh on impossible to see from the paths. Far better views can be had from outside the park. A small version of the Hide would have been handy here.
The Hide (a wooden wall with a few slots to see through and an angled partial "roof") has slots to view Invergowrie Bay through. There is one at a suitable height for an average height person (5ft 6in or so) to use, however this has a large rose bush smack in front blocking some of the view. There are also two lower slots - for kids? - through which the view is even further obscured by the bushes out front. The two higher slots were a bit too high for me. The area where the hide sits was already beginning to get rather muddy. Again wider views of the bay can be had from outside the park, from on the bridge, although these will be against the light mostly.
It's certainly not all bad though, with views from further along the path back into the bay, so that at most times of day, it will be possible to see any birds in the bay with the sun on them, rather than behind them, as before (or from the bridge). Curlews, Oystercatcher, Gulls, Shelduck, Mallard and Redshank were all seen in the bay.
A mixture of Woodpigeon, Feral Pigeon, and around half a dozen Stock Dove (a first for me in Dundee) were eating the grass seed in the Eastern fields. Finches (Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Linnet and Greenfinch) and Buntings (Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting) were around, as were Whitethroat and Willow Warbler. Skylark, Swift, Swallow and House Martin were all in the sky above the park, and a single Buzzard was hunting. There are a lot of hedges and bushes which at the right times of year should be a haven for a lot of smaller birds.
Another missed opportunity is the non-inclusion of a wader scrape of any sort (the Lochan being the closest thing to it). There is certainly plenty of scope for a shallow muddy/wet area in the central part of the park, along the lines of the Musselburgh Lagoons, where the birds could continue feeding at high tide.
There are no dog poo bins in the park (yet?) so with the relatively close proximity to Invergowrie and some of the houses on the Perth Road, I can see that the area may become popular with dog walkers, with the likelihood of wee green polythene bags left hanging in bushes, or a minefield of sorts underfoot. Hopefully, I'm wrong with that.
Anyway, it's well worth a visit, despite my current reservations, and hopefully it will turn up some really good birds in time.
