Trip reports

Local birdwatching outing

Saturday, 21 February 2009

We had decided at the beginning of this season to alternate our weekend outings between our traditional Sundays and Saturdays, to see if we could encourage more members to come along. We were not disappointed on this Saturday, with some 27 people attending, armed with 16 telescopes - what a change from my early days some 15 years ago when we could only muster 2 'scopes. Fortunately we had plenty of experienced people on this outing, so hopefully newcomers, of whom there were a welcome number, were also well catered-for.
And the sea-watching was indeed 'something of a challenge!' - with a 20 knot wind blowing from the west, against an in-coming tide, the Forth was quite rough, making it hard to identify the ducks out on the water - had the bird dived or was it just behind a wave? But we started well with an obliging flock of Turnstones on the shore just in front of us, and a good number of Goldeneyes in the mouth of the Esk. Further out were a few Common Scoters, Eiders, and a well-scattered flock of Velvet Scoters which eventually gave us good views of their diagnostic features. We had much difficulty in getting views of a couple of very beautiful, but very elusive, Long-tailed Ducks, whilst a few Slavonian Grebes showed briefly between dives.
Moving around the sports fields we found a couple of obliging Stonechats before we reached the hides where we split into 3 groups for lunch. With the tide now at its height, the scrapes were busy with waders and dabbling ducks - a large flock of perhaps 400 Bar-tailed Godwits rested with Oystercatchers, but occasionally took to the air to demonstrate precision flying, whilst a solitary Black-tailed Godwit and a couple of Dunlins fed busily. A Snipe was eventually found, whilst a lone Pink-footed Goose looked a little out of place among the Teal and Wigeons.
After lunch we found a few Tufted Ducks on the boating pond. A Buzzard was seemingly chased into a tree by a Black-headed Gull, but was difficult to make out, but this was more than compensated by a most obliging Kingfisher which sat calmly in a bush ignoring passing walkers and the model racing yachts.
After returning to our cars, a few of us went down to the rocks by Preston Grange to see if we could find Purple Sandpipers, but to no avail. But all in al it had been a good day, and hopefully we will get equally good turnouts on our future outings this year.