I'm just pleased to see this thread has such an avid readership. Even if people are only looking out for reasons to section me, I take it as a compliment.
It's been a few days since I had a proper look round, so I braved the moderate mid-morning drizzle and strode purposefully off round the Ness. A 'good sprinkling' of thrushes was noted, a couple of dozen
Blackbirds, several
Song Thrushes, half a dozen
Redwings and one
Fieldfare, mostly around the Allotments. I wasn't paying too much attention to the
Eiders today but still saw at least three 'be-sailed' birds, a drake on Greyhope Bay and later two more on the harbour. One of these showed a bit of an orangey bill, which is more typical of the
borealis types I've seen before.
Regular readers will know that I'm always on the look out for evidence of miscreant activity. I'm not sure if this qualifies but, rather morbidly, there were three dead rabbits inside the Battery, alongside various discarded fireworks. The
Herring Gulls were finding the rabbits to their liking (see picture one). Their opinion on the fireworks isn't yet known.
The rain veered towards the heavy side of moderate so I headed back to the flat. After it stopped raining the wind picked up and there was quite an impressive flurry of
Gannets moving out to sea - most of them adult birds. Also a few
Kittiwakes and auks, mostly going south. Another overdue house tick was gratefully received, a female
Red-breasted Merganser circling the harbour before continuing south.
I went down to the pier on the north shore early in the afternoon for what was a pretty high tide. There I basked in the magnificent spectacle of over two hundred roosting waders (see picture two). 79
Turnstones, 98
Redshanks and the
Purple Sandpiper Totaliser moves on to:
72
Kerr-ching! Well done everyone - a great effort. Four of the Purps had red colour rings on their right legs (see picture three, specially for Dr G). Quite a few have been ringed at Girdle Ness in recent years, although I don't know if they use colour rings. I just checked the
colour ringing website and it appears that birds with red rings on the right leg were banded in the Netherlands. Hmm...In-ter-esting.
The fresh southerlies brought in three juvenile
Swallows, my first for weeks, which were hawking over the Plotties. There was also a
Mistle Thrush over and a pair of
Stonechats on the north shore.