The weather was 'interesting' today, starting out calm and quite pleasant but this was followed by the wind picking up from the north and the first rain for ages falling in some light showers. The interesting weather translated into an interesting day for birds and, by some measures at least, one of the best I've had here for a long while. It features TWO patch ticks, a patch third and a total of 67 species.
Things started well when a curious, quite chattering along Victoria Road turned out to be coming from my first
Lesser Whitethroat of the year. A
House Martin flew over the buildings nearby. The Nigg Bay area was quite busy but it was mostly familiar stuff. The first brood of
Mallard of the year were on the marsh. A
Sedge Warbler was again singing. A
Stock Dove and a
Pheasant were on Tullos Hill. I also managed to find where some of the local
Rooks were nesting, in a few trees on the slope north of Tullos School. From the railway bridge, a scan of the Bay turned up a surprise with a pair of
Gadwall swimming about in the calm waters. Only my third ever sighting here, but hot on the heals of the second. I wonder if they might even be the same pair wandering the coast, particularly as I noticed a report of two from Donmouth the other day.
I headed up to the south bank, where a
Yellowhammer was singing. I was checking the burnt gorse patch on the western bank when I noticed a medium-sized bird trotting along the track along the top. Much to my surprise this was a
Red-legged Partridge. Patch tick one! I'd only just got a look at the black necklace below its throat when it disappeared out of sight down the track. It didn't reappear but was presumably skulking in the gorse somewhere. Not sure what it was doing here, although it seems that
gamebirds were on the move eastern Scotland today
.
A
White Wagtail and four chunky
Wheatears were on the golf course and a pair of
Stonechats were again on the south bank.
Whimbrel seemed to be on the move with seven seen heading north. Relatively little was going through out to sea, but a pair of summer-plumaged
Long-tailed Ducks went north close to the shore. Following a similar trajectory, I picked up a small
Charadrius plover zipping over the rocks below the Coo. I initially expected it to be a Ringed Plover but immediately saw that it was a bit wrong looking. Then I noticed the black bill and lack of white wing bar. It was a
Little Ringed Plover and patch tick number two!
A few other totals from the day included 19 singing
Willow Warblers, four
Chiffchaffs, seven
Blackcaps, two
Whitethroats, three
Goldcrests, two
Bullfinches, 30
Sandwich Terns, 14
Sand Martins and 18
Swallows.