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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Lothian Birding (1 Viewer)

As for Ross's goose, I've seen them in Norfolk years ago. And i think bird spotter mate you may be right about the bou
 
weekend 26/27th

Saturday at Abbo saw a 2nd/3rd yr Iceland Gull at Gullane Point for five or so minutes before it flew off west, with 3 Swift past there also.

Also a reeling Gropper in the dunes just inland of the point, thanks to some bloke we met as well as two singing Lesser Whitethroat, one at the point the other just over the bridge.

Today a walk in glorious weather from Skateraw-Barns Ness resulted in Tree Pipit,Gropper,Whitethroat,Willow Warbler as well as several pristine Wheatear.

Large numbers of Swallows and Sand Martin's on the move making good use of the calm conditions.
 
Out far too little birding for my liking the last couple of weeks

Friday early-M'burgh-3 grasshopper warblers reeling
Pressmennan Wood-immediately struck by the lack of leaves on the oaks-last year at this time + 1 week-in full leaf. This year, just emerging from bud-very quiet, the one surprise a nuthatch ? new for this site

Yesterday early-Hunters Bog, by Arthurs Seat-1 Grasshopper warbler
 
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Musselburgh Lagoons Lothian today,

Blackcap singing in the trees around the scrapes, Red Throated Diver , Common Scoter ( for a change), Long Tailed duck all from the sea wall . At least 7 Willow Warblers in the trees and scrub plus , Grasshopper Warbler reeling still behind the Canoing lake, 2 Whitethroats and Two Common sandpipers on the scrapes , Whooper Swan on the Esk, at least 25 Sandmartin holes now dug into the side of the active lagoon and a single White Wagtail on the Esk at low tide

Rik
 
Musselburgh River Esk , Musselburgh Lagoons Lothian today

Singing and actively feeding Garden Warbler on the Esk near the weir . Also on the Esk Spotted Flycatcher, and Dipper ( with a juv chick near the square hole in the bank near the weir ) From the Esk mouth the Whooper Swan still present, and a Sanderling just before high tide . On the lagoons Grey Plover many in full summer plumage , 10 Bar Tailed godwits, a White Redshank, which caused a stir I can tell you !! 8 Ringed Plover and a sprinkling of Dunlin.
One Common Sandpiper still present.
At the back of the canoing lake 3 singing Sedge Warblers, a few Blackcaps and still around 7 Willow Warblers in and around the scrapes

Oh and not forgetting the lone Long Tailed Duck in and around the Velver Scoters from the sea wall
Rik
 
East Lothian (and the Torness police part 2)

On holiday, the sun was splitting the sky, so off down the coast to East Lothian. First stop Torness. I scouted round the cereal fields near the power station and saw 4 yellow wagtails feeding on the ground in 2 pairs. I got out of the car with my camera and was working my way quietly along the wall. I heard a car draw up behind me but paid little attention. I had just got into position to take a pic when the car let off one quick peep. The birds of course flushed and I turned round to let off a few flowers of invective. And of course it was my friends(not) the Torness police looking mean as usual with their submachine guns-different ones(police not guns) this time. And certainly no sign of Birdspotters fantasy female copper(beginning to think she is a figment of his fertile imagination). So the usual questions and a 10 minute wait whist they waited for a check on my car details and 'No they didn't want to see the nice wheatear I had in my sights thank you sir'. Apparently they now prefer anyone driving around the power station area and birding to check in at the gate house first with car details. Anyway back to the birding. At least 6 and maybe as many as 10 yellow wagtails were in the area, mostly males-very nice

Next stop was Presmennan Wood near Stenton. And very fine it was too. A nuthatch was by the car park and a second one was a couple of hundred yards further on. I flushed 2 squawking jays. After a mile or so I heard a redstartsinging intermittently. I couldn't locate it on the steep oak bank so sat down for a drink. Which was a good move. 2 treecreepers were barely 10 yards away. A third nuthatch appeared and the redstart started singing very close by. In fact I leant back and it was 30 feet immediately above me singing and displaying-fantastic

On next to Ormiston and the disused railway line-always a good place to test warbler song. 13wilow warblers,11chiffchaffs,7 whitethroats,5 blackcaps,3sedge warblers and a single garden warbler. Highlight however was hearing the rattling song of alesser whitethroat that then sat a top a hawthorn giving me my best ever views of this usually skulking species. A few hundred yards I heard and got brief views of a second bird

Final stop was Penicuik and the site where I saw breeding wood warblers last year. It was 2.30 and hot and at first I heard nothing. But after a while I got on to 2 intermittently singing male wood warblers A nice finish to a fine hot day
 
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Seems like your attracting the police there Mark - you must be looking dodgy;)They keep an eye on me but not been stopped - yet! Totally unjustified though. Anyway, with this amount of coverage and easterlies surely we are due a biggy to catch up and save Lothians rep. This coming weekend I reckon - major rare! (And I'm thinking it'll be Barns Ness's now ex caravan site - soon to be a new quarry).
 
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And I'm thinking it'll be Barns Ness's now ex caravan site - soon to be a new quarry)

That's not good news as Barns Ness is a good spot-didn't know that

Today I was up early to go up Carnethy hill a traditional stopping post for dotterel. I'm very good at dipping dotterel there. A success rate of 1/12 in 3 years. A birder I know Kris always seems to connect and has annoyingly done so this year even when going up rather early on 28/4. Well it was a pea souper in Edinburgh but gloriously sunny up in the Pentlands. Which was meagre compensation for what our American cousins would call my now 1 and 13 record. And I even went up Scald Law to dip there too-it held some nice wheatears and stonechats but not quite what I was looking for.

My good lady wanted a countryside walk this pm so we headed for Woodhall Dean in E Lothian. A stunning day-the dean was full of bluebells, primroses wood anemones, wood sorrel, gentians and other stuff I can't name. It was 2.30 and hot when we arrived so not best for birding. The dean is owned by the SWT and is full of short sessile oaks. We got great views of 3 singing redstarts and heard a fourth. The great thing is that with the cool spring the trees are just starting to come into leaf so we got some cracking views
 
On holiday, the sun was splitting the sky, so off down the coast to East Lothian. First stop Torness. I scouted round the cereal fields near the power station and saw 4 yellow wagtails feeding on the ground in 2 pairs. I got out of the car with my camera and was working my way quietly along the wall. I heard a car draw up behind me but paid little attention. I had just got into position to take a pic when the car let off one quick peep. The birds of course flushed and I turned round to let off a few flowers of invective. And of course it was my friends(not) the Torness police looking mean as usual with their submachine guns-different ones(police not guns) this time. And certainly no sign of Birdspotters fantasy female copper(beginning to think she is a figment of his fertile imagination). So the usual questions and a 10 minute wait whist they waited for a check on my car details and 'No they didn't want to see the nice wheatear I had in my sights thank you sir'. Apparently they now prefer anyone driving around the power station area and birding to check in at the gate house first with car details. Anyway back to the birding. At least 6 and maybe as many as 10 yellow wagtails were in the area, mostly males-very nice

Next stop was Presmennan Wood near Stenton. And very fine it was too. A nuthatch was by the car park and a second one was a couple of hundred yards further on. I flushed 2 squawking jays. After a mile or so I heard a redstartsinging intermittently. I couldn't locate it on the steep oak bank so sat down for a drink. Which was a good move. 2 treecreepers were barely 10 yards away. A third nuthatch appeared and the redstart started singing very close by. In fact I leant back and it was 30 feet immediately above me singing and displaying-fantastic

On next to Ormiston and the disused railway line-always a good place to test warbler song. 13wilow warblers,11chiffchaffs,7 whitethroats,5 blackcaps,3sedge warblers and a single garden warbler. Highlight however was hearing the rattling song of alesser whitethroat that then sat a top a hawthorn giving me my best ever views of this usually skulking species. A few hundred yards I heard and got brief views of a second bird

Final stop was Penicuik and the site where I saw breeding wood warblers last year. It was 2.30 and hot and at first I heard nothing. But after a while I got on to 2 intermittently singing male wood warblers A nice finish to a fine hot day

Hi Mark,
Sorry to hear about the latest news from Torness, bit of a pain about that.

I can asure you she does excist, but I have switched my attentions to a sweet little american girl here in Panama at the moment!

Managed Great Timanou and Black Capped Antpitta recently;)
 
The common and the less common

After Sat am chores I had set myself the task of doing my 2 tetrads for the atlas survey. The tetrads I have are fairly uninspiring rough grassland/farmland with a few stands of trees, so on a warm muggy afternoon I felt less than inspired.

But it turned out to be a good couple of hours. Highlights were a pair of lapwing displaying, a pair of oystercatchers on nest in the rubble of a raised building, a cuckoo singing and eventually located after much searching, a GSW nest site in a small standing of trees alerted by the increasingly anxious calls as I walked uphill, a new sand martin colony busy excavating, 2 pairs of buzzards displaying with one turning 360 degree loops, a dipper showing off underwater and a few stonechats. But favourite moment for me was stopping at the top of a farm track wondering whether to turn back when a small bird shot away from a distance of about 10 yards-it was a meadow pipit. I turned round to see where it had come from and there was a small cylindrical tube in the grass. I looked in to see 3 lovely chocolate streaked eggs. I then retreated to a distance quickly and the bird quickly returned to nest. A lovely moment.

Today saw an early rise and off I went to M'burgh to find the scrapes unusually busy with about 5 folk around already including some of Lothian's better birders. The cause of the excitement was a rather skulking temminck's stint that could be seen well with patience. 2 wood sandipipers were also present-I always think they are very elegant birds.

No prize for guessing which day gave me the most pleasure though....
 
Out and about today and probablly shouldn't have bothered as the coastal bushes at both Barns Ness and Skateraw were as dead as a Dodo!

Flight views of a Yellow Wag at the usual area.

Tyninghame had 35 Barnie's and a dark phase Arctic Skua.

Re the camp site at Barns Ness, it is my understanding that the quarry will only be up to the wall on what I think is the western side,ie immediatly after the shelter belt, so the bushes and trees within the campsite as well as just after should hopefully be alright, it just means that we might have to walk in from either nearby Whitesands or Skateraw.

re Torness police; it seems that stopping birders and asking for their details including address is standard practice now as one of my mates was stopped today, they said to him" you are one of the regulars that we see around here, now what's your name and address".

I REALLY HOPE THAT THE CLUELESS F8888R WHO THOUGHT THAT ONE UP WILL BE ON DUTY WHEN A MEGA HITS THAT PARTICULAR AREA.
I am not sure what they are going to do with this information, but do we really have to give out this info in the first place, is it illegal to tell them nowt?

BEWARE WHILST OUT BIRDING BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU:C
 
re Torness police; it seems that stopping birders and asking for their details including address is standard practice now as one of my mates was stopped today, they said to him" you are one of the regulars that we see around here, now what's your name and address".

I REALLY HOPE THAT THE CLUELESS F8888R WHO THOUGHT THAT ONE UP WILL BE ON DUTY WHEN A MEGA HITS THAT PARTICULAR AREA.
I am not sure what they are going to do with this information, but do we really have to give out this info in the first place, is it illegal to tell them nowt?

BEWARE WHILST OUT BIRDING BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU:C

Welcome back from Panama-you just canny whack a grey E Lothian day can you? ;)

These 2 are new on the beat and hopefully they will get bored-otherwise it will just get tiresome.

Was at Torness in the rain this am-as you say dead in what I thought might be promising conditions-one bush in the dunes looked temporarily of interest with 3 birds but the first two were a pair of reed buntings and then a whitethroat started singing to reveal the identity of the third

On the way home saw the surf scoter that has been floating around this side of the Forth for a few days at Joppa (presumably the Largo bay bird)
 
No place like home:t:

I see you found what me and my mates call the Icky bush, here's hoping it will be called something a lot rarer in the future!
 
re Torness police; it seems that stopping birders and asking for their details including address is standard practice now as one of my mates was stopped today, they said to him" you are one of the regulars that we see around here, now what's your name and address".

I REALLY HOPE THAT THE CLUELESS F8888R WHO THOUGHT THAT ONE UP WILL BE ON DUTY WHEN A MEGA HITS THAT PARTICULAR AREA.
I am not sure what they are going to do with this information, but do we really have to give out this info in the first place, is it illegal to tell them nowt?

The above I feel is a wee bit OTT. These guys have a job to do, potentially a very important one, it must though be terribly boring to cover the same area repeatedly and if they stop to speak to some people with a scope or binoculars near to Torness then so what. I've got to know a few of the CNC cops and they are decent guys (and gals) who are quite happy for a chat to fill their day. So what if they ask for your name, it'd be an ideal cover masquerading as a birder to get a view of the nucleur power station before flying your jumbo in to it. You wouldn't moan if it was the pretty blonde each time instead of the grumpy Sgt!!

Anyway, have spent a lot of time on the coast in the last couple of weeks and been amazed at the constant flypasts of gannets, far more than I've ever seen before and also far closer to shore. Seems to me they are having to work harder to fish.
 
The above I feel is a wee bit OTT. These guys have a job to do, potentially a very important one, it must though be terribly boring to cover the same area repeatedly and if they stop to speak to some people with a scope or binoculars near to Torness then so what. I've got to know a few of the CNC cops and they are decent guys (and gals) who are quite happy for a chat to fill their day. So what if they ask for your name, it'd be an ideal cover masquerading as a birder to get a view of the nucleur power station before flying your jumbo in to it. You wouldn't moan if it was the pretty blonde each time instead of the grumpy Sgt!!

Anyway, have spent a lot of time on the coast in the last couple of weeks and been amazed at the constant flypasts of gannets, far more than I've ever seen before and also far closer to shore. Seems to me they are having to work harder to fish.

I agree these people do have a job to do and yes they ARE a decent bunch at least the ones I have met, however at no time did I verbally attack any of them except in that to say that the person who's idea about taking names was a clueless F+++++R, because if a mega bird was found in that area he would be running out of ink in his pen before long.
I have been in twitches of football crowd proportions before, that was my point I was getting across.

I also work all week and look forward to getting out birding down the coast, and yes I can put up with the minor conveinance of a quick chat, but my other point I was trying to get across was what are they going to do with this information?
If you are happy having your name and address on some secret file then that is fine, however I dont like the idea of it myself,that is my perogative.

Good birding
 
Out and about

A rare trip into West Lothian to Bavelaw. At the car park a garden warbler was in full voice and full view. A couple of blackcaps were also nearby. There were at least 6 noisy and mobile lesser redpolls in the birch trees on the walk up to the reservoir. Nothing much on the water but a grasshopper warbler was reeling in the marshy field to the left. Up the avenue and there were a couple of spotted flycatchers swooping down over the field. A pair of starlings were busy feeding youngsters in an old tree hole and a pair of mistle thrushes were busy rattling away as they flew up and down from the wood to feed some out of sight chicks. Up into the hills beyond Bavelaw Castle I nearly stood on an adder(see below). Stonechats are obviously doing well-I saw 3 pairs, 2 pairs each with 3 young. I heard a ring ouzel scolding me up near the waterfall and just glimpsed it flying over the hill out of sight. My last find was an unwelcome one-a recently deceased kestrel lying on the footpath up by the Howe:-C

This afternoon I went down to the scrapes at Musselburgh. The weather has been odd of late with 6-8 weeks of persistent winds from the east-it has been exceptionally dry but has not produced much in the way of good birds. However the last couple of days ave produced a few goodies. A red backed shrike yesterday and today at Musselburgh 3 Temminck's stints and a little stint in the company of 4 ringed plovers. I have seen both stints a few times before but it was good to see them nearby and the quite marked contrast. Ian Andrews(editor of Birds of Scotland) was there and he told me 3 was a Lothian record and just one shy of the Scottish best.

My favourite sighting of the week though was on a short walk near Gifford at the start of the week-a pleasant 15 minutes watching a family party of 5 grey wagtails on a stream in a lovely ancient wood with the 2 parents feeding the youngsters.

Apologies for the distant haze affected poor pics
 

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Hi Mark, can you tell me where abouts in Penicuik the wood warblers are as its a better year tick for me rather than searching in the highlands around Dinnet, also they're one of my fav warbl;ers and Id like to photo

rik
 
Hi Mark, can you tell me where abouts in Penicuik the wood warblers are as its a better year tick for me rather than searching in the highlands around Dinnet, also they're one of my fav warbl;ers and Id like to photo

rik

Lowrie's Den-it's the piece of woodland adjacent to the B road to the west of Penicuik linking the A766 and A702, more or less opposite Penicuik House
 
Red footed falcon

An early morning visit to see this bird that is only the third ever for Lothian. On arrival the bird was partly hidden in an ash tree and remained there for half an hour. As the day warmed up and insect life started up the falcon started to hawk over the river sometimes being mobbed by a pair of jackdaws that it effortlessluy shrugged off. The views were fantastic as the birds chosen spot was next to a viaduct and you could look across at eye level to the birds favoured perch 30 yards away or watch it swooping down over the river. Definitely bird of the year for me so far:t:
 

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:t:Bird of the year for me too. Really great show hawking insects in fantastic conditions today. First I've seen in Britain so cool to see in Lothian!:t:
 
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