Tayforth Birding (1 Viewer)

kinnordyvolunteer said:

I popped into Vane Farm this afternoon at about 3.30 and found three whooper swans in the bay in front of the first hide. Has anyone else seen any around yet? I don't remember seeing them quite this early before.

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Hi nonvolunteer

A great find for you.

I have never seen Whopper Swans yet (except on books), and I look forward to that day to see them.

Kaiser said:

25 field fares yesterday at Lindie, 22 lapwings,loads of swallows,plus flocks of starlings

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Wow a good collection here. It is good to see that Swallows are still hanging about here. Lapwings are beautiful to look at, and their calls are lovely to hear. Of course the lovable Starlings - we cannot be without them and their characteristics

I thought Field fares are birds which live in other countries over a lot of our British Summer. They are very pronounced with their calls, so their calls are are unmistakable to the accustomed ear

I remember seeing flocks of them in Stirling, Scotland. I understand that they mix with Redwings/Thrushes a lot. I remember seeing a lot of them in Stirling over spring. Their call is not the most attractive to hear at all. That is part of them and makes them the bird that they are.
Then towards to end of spring April/May they seemed to disappear into the blue.

I wonder what this stray group of Fieldfares where doing back in Great Britain.

Yes, of course it is getting close to our Autumn/Winter months again. So now they are back again. So hello, we are one again.

They very handsome birds to look at, and worth a good look at.

Regards
Kathy

peewit ive never heard the call of the fieldfare but after reading your comment i checked my bird book and it says sounds nasal,ill make a point of hearing one this year, the only ones i have seen are migrants usually in fields in the winter,they are usually in a mixed flock of thrushes, it was good to see so many starlings they are not as numerous as they used to be ,i couldnt get a pic of the fieldfares as the light was bad, i was struggling to see them through my thirty year old binos, im going for the minox 8x42s and should have them within two weeks i did manage one pic of a young swallow who was calling to be fed ,every time an adult flew over it opened its mouth and called, http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d91/kawwauser/swallow.jpg

kawwauser said:

i was struggling to see them through my thirty year old binos, im going for the minox 8x42s and should have them within two weeks

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Good choice! I love mine to bits and wouldn't be without them!

Look what flew past Fife Ness yesterday

On Saturday afternoon (22/09/07) I was in the Fife Bird Club hide at Fife Ness. Three days before there had been a good showing of Sooty Shearwaters close inshore & I hoped for more. Sadly the shearwaters did not show & apart from a few distant Arctic Skuas & a couple of distant Black Terns there was nothing unusual.............until a lone goose flew by heading from north to south a few hundred metres offshore. Not sure of its provenance as there have been a few Pink-foot & Brent Goose arrivals but it was nonetheless very unexpected.

What cracking pictures Steve.

I was at Lintrathen for a couple of hours today. En route about 14 Canada Geese in a stubble field at Peel Farm - more, (over 60) at Lintrathen.

Seemed quiet to start with, the usual Mallards and Coots. A pair of Mute Swans with 3 cygnets.

Then it came on to rain, so trying to see what was at the far side became tricky in the poor light. However, eventually made out Wigeon - couldn't see any Teal though.

Just one pair and a single Great Crested Grebe. Eventual a Moorhen came out of the reeds beside the hide.

Popping outside for a puff, the tree above became full of Long Tailed Tits, with a few Blue Tits. After they had gone a Treecreeper came in.

Whilst still out there I could hear geese but couldn't see through the trees. Once back in the hide a skein of about 14 Pinkfoot flying round and round the other end - then joined up with another bunch - all flying off SW.

Still searching the sky I happenned upon a flock of around 100 Lapwings.

D

ps all the trees on the hill behind the new hide are being felled

i had an unexpected free day today so i decided to head for lintrathen looking for field fares, it was very windy and cloudy,on the way i stopped at kinnordy hoping for long tailed tits on the feeders, the birds had totally emptied the feeder, i saw several mute swans ,mallard, one great tit ,three blackbirds, i heard one robin at the swamp hide plus saw the one between the gullery hide and the east hide, he landed an arms lenght from me and i couldnt change my lense quick enough to catch him, this is twice he has caught me out, there was a solitary heron sitting behind the island in front of the swamp hide,http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d91/kawwauser/heron-1.jpg

the vegetation is changing colours,swamp hide view
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d91/kawwauser/kinn77.jpg

between kinnordy and linthathen i had a cracking view of a kestrel, it was flying right next to the road focusing on the field below it, it was about seven feet above the field not hovering , and never noticed me for about twenty secs, i also saw three flocks of goldfinches, at lintrathen the only birds i saw were canada goose, three herons, two buzzards, and what i think were fieldfares , they flew from a field and headed west , one great black backed gull sat on the building at the backwater resevoir, the number of swallows was well down on my journey, when i returned to dundee i went to the seashore looking for waders, 1 redshank, three oystercathchers, and loads of imature black headed gulls, http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d91/kawwauser/bhgull99.jpg

News from Kinnordy on the Angus forum is that a Guillemot was found there today - alive, just!

I don't know what the outcome is though.

D

Well, i've been working hard on my local patch this week.
Just to give a bit of background on the site - Cullaloe used to be a reservoir with a south and (smaller) north loch. The south loch was drained in 1986 and the water level was lowered on the northern loch. The north loch is designated an SSSI for the semi-rare Mudwort plant, which used to flourish during the annual drawn down during the summer months (more water drank/used).
Since the reservoir is no longer in use, the annual draw down of water has to be artificially created.
That's what i was doing on Tuesday. There's a simple reservoir lock which can be opened to let a large portion of the water out, which i did at 1:20 on tuesday afternoon. (although obviously it's taken 3 days for the water level to really go down and it was still draining when i left this afternoon)
Since then, the difference in birds has been totally amazing! I have to admit, i'm more happily shocked every day i go along at the moment.
On Tuesday, before i lowered the water level i did a quick count of the birds on the loch. There was 5 mute swans (the 2 adults and 3 cygnets, which i suspect will now winter there and get kicked out by mum and dad in the spring), 5 moorhen, 8 coot, 14 mallard, 8 wigeon and 12 teal.

When visiting today, there is a slightly different picture. The birds on the loch today were: 5 swans, 19 moorhen, 19 coot, 39 mallard, 33 wigeon, 60 teal and 1 heron - not to mention a few crows hanging around the edges! That's a huge difference in the number of birds on the loch.
We're hoping over the next little while we'll get some passage waders in and maybe even some less common ducks. Who knows!?

Elsewhere the reserve was more or less as normal. The Goldfinches have started flocking together into a small flock of about 15 birds, the woodpeckers are still on the feeders, the bullfinch family is still seen pretty much daily.

If you're in the area in the next month or so while the water level is lowered, it really is worth a visit! For such a small place, the number of birds is pretty much phenomenal!

Went to my local patch again today to see if any waders had arrived. There was a small flock of about 30 lapwings, but that's about it. Still several wigeon, mallard, teal, tufted duck, coot and moorhen on the loch right now. There was over 250 birds present when i was there this afternoon.
There was a female woodpecker on the peanut feeders, as always and several great tits, coal tits and chaffinches joined it intermittently.
The Robins are in full song on the reserve right now, with at least four or five territories being claimed from what i heard and several wrens were seen hanging around near the dead trees (which i'd cut down two weeks ago)
The bullfinches are still around, with 3 males seen this afternoon and we've a small flock of 10-15 goldfinches on the reserve right now, too.
I did see something that struck me as a little unusual today, though. I'm assuming it was either a chiffchaff or a willow warbler (Couldn't get close enough to get a really good look with the bins, and it had gone by the time i returned with the scope) and it was behaving extremely territorially. A small flock of 7 or 8 long-tailed tits arrived at the same tree it was on, and it chased them off individually. The same with a couple of blue tits. It even got to the extent that it chased one blue tit to another tree, then chased it off from that one, too. I've never seen a warbler behave quite like this. Has anyone else? Is it a common thing?

Couldn't believe my eyes this afternoon coming home from work.

I took the back road from Alyth to my Patch and a blooming Magpie flew across the road.

About 12 years ago I saw two in a field at the top of Glen Isla and another a couple of years ago at Lundie.

D

Confined to the local area today (Culross/Valleyfield in West Fife).

Before leaving the garden I had a brief Willow/Chaff hanging around the feeders with some tits -didn't get a good view but seemed quite bright with a conspicuous supercilium so probably a late Willow.
A brief visit to the local Co-op in High Valleyfield provided some late hirundines (both Swallows & House Martins) feeding over a tarmac area adjacent to the local community centre -lots of small flies about. Locally this is always the last place where the hirundines linger; very strange -perhaps the microclimate favours good fly numbers.

Then took a walk through Valleyfield woods -the highlights were 3 Jays (a scarce bird in these parts) and 2 Kingfishers together on the upper Bluther burn.
I then walked down onto Valleyfield lagoons. Had a Grey Wagtail & another Kingfisher at the burn mouth. Torry bay held a few Wigeon, Teal & Mallard with better numbers of Shelduck & 5 Great Crested Grebes. The high tide roosts in the bay & on the sea wall held between them a total of 9 Greenshank with lots of Curlew, Redshank & Oystercatchers. Also a few Razorbills about -auks are not everyday birds this far up the Forth. A single hunting Kestrel & a group of 5 Buzzards on a thermal was the only raptor interest (to think that up till 20 years ago I had more chance of a Rough-legged Buzzard than a Common Buzzard in Fife -now it's our commonest raptor by far).

In the late afternoon I nipped along to Crombie Point on the opposite side of Torry bay from my morning walk. The tide was out & the waders were widely scattered though there was a mixed flock of Redshank & c40 Golden Plover roosting on some seaweed-strewn rock. It was pleasantly warm with no wind whilst the backround buzz of insects was more in keeping with high summer -then all hell broke loose. The Golden Plover burst into the air with a straggler lagging behind the main flock. The cause of the stramash became obvious when a Peregrine appeared in pursuit of the single Goldie. The plover climbed high with the Peregrine following closely behind -the Goldie's predicament did not look good but, as the Falcon 'power-flapped' to close the distance the plover suddenly turned & dropped down low over the sea -the Falcon had too much momentum & was unable to follow, it headed on upward & disappeared 'into' the sun.
After that the remainder of the afternoon should have been an anti-climax however a group of 5 juvenile Gannets flying by heading down the Forth kept interest going (Gannets are rare this far up the Forth except in September/October when juveniles stray up, sometimes in good numbers). There were also a few terns still about -c10 Common Terns & two groups of two Sandwich Terns the second duo of which seemed to be an adult & a juvenile bird. The adult caught a fish which quickly set the juvenile off with noisy squawking -unfortunately this attracted the attention of an Arctic Skua which must have been sitting on the sea in plain view. I don't know how I missed the Skua as the water was almost flat calm -however the Skua didn't miss the tern & after what seemed only a half-hearted chase the fish was ditched for the Skua to retrieve.

All in all not a bad day's birding really. Perhaps I should do the local patch a bit more often!

Anyone know where the Bairds Sandpiper is?

D

delia todd said:

Anyone know where the Bairds Sandpiper is?

D

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It was at Loch Leven but unfortunatly it was on a corner of the reserve which was highly sensitive.

There were two Ross's Geese in the Kirkgate goose roost this morning.

Woodchatshrike said:

It was at Loch Leven but unfortunatly it was on a corner of the reserve which was highly sensitive.

There were two Ross's Geese in the Kirkgate goose roost this morning.

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Oh well! I probably wouldn't have recognised it anyway:gh:

Ross's Goose now, might just manage that LOL be nice if they held on a bit as hoping to take Ant there on the Thursday before the Bash.

Any chance you can keep me posted as to what's about that week?

D

EDIT: Anyone about then, fancy meeting up?

I could pop along on thursday, though i'll need to leave about 2:30pm to head off to work.

llendorin said:

I could pop along on thursday, though i'll need to leave about 2:30pm to head off to work.

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Oooh great Graeme... we can have a mini-Bash before the biggun!

D

Sounds good to me, especially as i'll sadly be missing the biggun! :-(

What sort of time are we looking at for thursday?

What sort of time are we looking at for thursday?

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umm... 10ish? Could perhaps get there a wee bittie earlier but will have a late night the night before.

D

That sounds fine to me. Any earlier than that and i'd be struggling to get out of bed!

I went up to Glen Clover around lunchtime today but there wasn't much to be seen. There were a number of shooting parties on the hills which didn't help although, it did mean alot of pheasants and red legged partridges were airbourne rather than scurrying around in the undergrowth.

Jackdaws, rooks, crows, common gull, kestrel, robin, 7 long tailed tits, blue tit, dunnock, chaffinch, pied wagtail and fieldfare were the only other birds i saw.

Darell:t: