Trip reports

Musselburgh

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

About a dozen members gathered on Wednesday October 14th 2009 to birdwatch near Musselburgh. The day was surprisingly mild and excellent views were had over the sea with the sunlight behind us: so much so that we did not get around to eating our sandwiches until after 2.00 pm.

Of particular interest were the scoter and slavonian grebe. The tide was well in and the waders had forsaken the Esk estuary for the 'ash lagoons' where roosted many godwit and some grey plover. A flotilla of wigeon floated just off shore.

After lunch we moved to the scrapes where clouds of lapwing and golden plover were set up by some unidentified intruder together with dunlin and redshank. The curlew and teal seemed much more reluctant to fly and the various geese (mainly Canada) seemed too fat to take off.

Inland it was nice to see groups of skylark, along with stonechat and reed bunting and goldfinch.

As time was getting on we decided not to continue to Aberlady Bay: here lies a treat for another day.
Roger Adams