Trip reports

Doonfoot and Irvine Harbour - 9 September 2009

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

Following what seemed like several weeks of continuous rain in the west of Scotland, a fine bright day greeted us at Doonfoot. Ten members turned up and we were certainly not disappointed in terms of weather or birds. At first, the tide was well out, but we were able to approach the flocks of feeding and roosting birds quite closely, dogs and their walkers being mercifully thin on the ground! We were surprised by the large numbers of ringed plover present, along with dunlin, turnstone, oystercatcher, lapwing, redshank and three sleeping greenshank. Gulls were well represented and many terns and gannets fished quite close to the shore. We also saw lines of Manx shearwaters passing, and one bird, possibly injured by the previous day's storms, actually landed very near the water's edge. On the sand we recorded sparrows, pipits, linnets and stonechats feeding among the seaweed. We ate our sandwiches watching the birds being driven closer to us by the incoming tide and managed to pick out a single knot with the dunlin. After lunch we drove along to Irvine harbour where we saw more of the same species and watched a large mixed flock of terns, shearwaters, gulls, auks and kittiwakes feeding together just offshore. It was sad to think that many of these birds would be leaving us soon on their journey south - where did the summer go?

Gordon Jamieson