Trip reports

Local bird watching outing

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

We met up at a very windy Cammo car park. After introductions and welcoming several new members we set off into the woods. Although we had the usual corvids and wood pigeons the small birds were couring down and proving elusive. Finally we found a sheltered part with tits, chaffinches and robins with wrens singing. The highlight was a tiny goldcrest hovering in a monkey puzzle tree, it stayed for ages and everyone got a really good sighting. A flock of starlings flew over and there were a family of moorhens on the canal. We went to look at the ruins of Cammo House and The Pinetum. Thanks to Dave for helping us with the trees. We also saw a few red admiral butterflies.
We then made our way to Cramond and lunch. The wind was even worse but the tide was going out exposing the mud for the waders. There were redshanks, curlews and lapwings in abundance, with more distant oystercatchers and several species of gulls. Amongst the close redshanks an elegant greenshank was spotted and a few bar-tailed godwits. One female eider was in the river. Up river we had the usual mute swans and mallards with a lone Canada goose. Small birds were again not showing much, but we added a lovely little group of long-tailed tits and Dave spotted a song thrush. Back down to the mouth of The Almond we found distant shelducks and a single cormorant, there were two red-breasted female mergansers constantly diving. We just made it back to the cars before the threatening rain arrived. Considering the conditions a species list of just over 30 was not bad, and we certainly had had plenty of fresh air!

Eppie Sweeney