Trip reports

Local birdwatching outing

RSPB

Saturday, 15 October 2011

Thirteen members convened at the Morton Lochs car park and met with Tom Cunningham, the Reserve Manager who told us a little about the pre-history and geology of the area, which had been consumed by tsunamis a number of times leaving an area of sand dunes.

We were lucky enough to see a red squirrel straight away, one of three good sightings for the day. Coal tits and tree creepers were also seen from the car park. Moving on to the Christie hide we saw mallard, gadwall, moorhen, a male shoveler and a juvenile little grebe, still showing a stripy head. Walking to the Len Fullerton and John Berry hides we found wren, a dunnock and wood pigeons. The hides gave more extensive views of the loch, and we saw a heron, a number of teal and wigeon, a coot, three tufted duck adult little grebes and a pair of mute swans with eight cygnets. Our viewing was punctuated by gun shots from the wild fowlers nearby, as a skein of pink-footed geese flew overhead.

Walking back through the woods we saw a cheeky robin, blackbird, a troupe of long-tailed tits and stopped to watch a flock of siskins feeding in a larch tree. We heard a woodpecker, and added goldfinch and chaffinch to our list. Looking over some stubble fields we had two excellent finds, Rosie spotted a sparrowhawk and Val pointed out a male and female stonechat on the straw bales. Pink-footed geese grazed in a nearby field as another skein flew over lead by two barnacle geese.

We then moved on to the Tay estuary and immediately saw a greater-spotted woodpecker being chased by some chaffinches. There were a large number of waders and sea ducks, including shelduck, curlew, oystercatchers, bar-tailed godwit, ringed, grey and golden plovers, dunlin, redshank, black-headed, common, great black-backed, and herring gulls, along with cormorants, a turnstone and a pied wagtail. Overall, an excellent days birding.

Margaret Harrison