This weekend's great weather had me thinking about doing some sound recording, Crossbill's in particular.
This is a new venture for me so it was basically about learning how to use the equipment and so on, that's if I could find any Crossbill that is!
An area I always scored with Crossbill whilst doing Lothian year listing in previous years is the Harperrigg area, not too far away from my house in west Edinburgh, so off I went.
Arrived at the reservoir and parked up by the fishing hut, I was glad to see there was no sign of the numpty whom I had words with the last time I was up there, the notice on the door stated that he wasn't due back until the start of the fishing season in March.
So it was a quick undisturbed look at the res with the scope with quite a few duck and Cormorant on show, the water level was incredibly low due to the new flood prevention scheme for the Water of Leith, and I thought that came from the many bars around Easter Road too(home of Hibernian for any of you uninitiated out there)
Anyway enough ramblings, I then headed west along the road towards Colzium farm until I came to the forest tracks of the Colzium forest, where I entered the forest.
I encountered a flyover Xbill straight away, but as usual I was not ready for it, but at least there was birds around.
I had several other flyover's and managed some recording's, I then managed to find a flock of 13 birds perched close by where once again I managed some recording, unfortunately they then moved a short distance into the forest, out of sight and earshot!
I remembered that when I was in Finland in March of this year that Xbill's, and about anything else for that matter, responded to Pygmy Owl recording's
Now obviously I am no Pygmy Owl, and did not have a recording to hand,so I did some pishing!
It worked a treat the birds flew back to were they originally where and settled down to feed, I got recording's of the bird's calling away, the sounds of the wings as they flew from branch to branch, as well as the sound of cones dropping from the canopy.
The highlight was when they were spooked by something as they exploded out of the trees, wings whirring, cones dropping and a cacophony of sounds emanating from the birds as they came straight over my head.
Mission accomplished!
A quick look at Bavelaw on the way home produced Whooper Swan and good numbers of Mallard and Teal.