Of twitchers and ringers

Late June saw me squeeze in a couple of quality twitches- first up was a splendid 1st summer male Ortolan in Morar, followed the next day by good views of a Blyth's reed warbler near Inverurie- at one point it even started to sing! Unfortunately the Ortolan was trapped and ringed and never seen again which was a shame as a number of birders were enroute to see what is a very rare bird for mainland Scotland. I was grateful to have been invited to see the bird before the ringers intervened as I would have been very miffed to have dipped under such circumstances. I can appreciate the scientific value of some ringing methodologies but the seemingly growing trend of targeting a scarcity in order to obtain a 'ringing tick' appears to be a worrying development within some sections of the ringing fraternity. Each to their own of course, but with so much 'guidance' given to birders and photographers concerning birds' welfare I wonder if, when and how it will/may become necessary to mitigate for ringing activities that have questionable scientific objectives in a similar way? 

1st summer male Ortolan.

As anticipated July has seen a major slump in terms of quality birds to be seen in the North of Scotland- largely a function of continuing challenging weather conditions, coupled with the usual interlude to migration. In consequence I have concentrated on gathering breeding evidence from my local patches in order to put the information onto the BTO bird track system that gets forwarded to the highland recorder for inclusion in the Highland bird report. I've managed some good records for the area including recently fledged chicks of redstart, winchat, grey wagtail and ring ouzel in addition to the commoner species such as spotted flycatcher, lesser redpoll, siskin, ringed plover and oystercatcher. Two barn owls visiting a probable nest site was an unexpected bonus as these birds have been slow to recover from  a couple of  back to back harsh winters a number of years ago. I have also seen two Black-throated diver chicks and enjoyed marvellous scope views of an adult in its magnificent summer plumage. 

common sandpiper

Barn owl

Ringed plover chick

Oystercatcher chick

Anas horribilis

April 2013 saw me undertake a near 270 mile round trip down to Strontian in search of the long staying Black duck. I had just returned from offshore Morocco, the bird had not been reported for some time and in consequence a nasty little dip was the order of the day. With the bird recently reported back in its' winter quarters, a second attempt was obviously required. This morning at 06:00 the high section of the A835 south-east of Ullapool was white with snow, the wind creating a near blizzard and I seriously thought about aborting my attempt, however by the time I got to a reasonable turning area the snow had abated so I cautiously continued my journey. 20 minutes later I was rewarded with a fine barn owl flying over the road- a scarce bird in this part of the world since the local populations were decimated by two very long, harsh winters a few years ago. After a brief crossing on the Corran ferry I arrived in Strontian. Several small groups of mallard could be seen scattered around the bay but there was no sign of the target bird- I had a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach as I drove on to the main car park. As I was putting on my waterproofs Peter Stronach saw the bird fly in to the bay- happy days! We watched the bird wing-flap showing the conspicuous white underwing. It moved slowly around the bay with a female mallard and it certainly looked as if they had paired off. Despite putting out some bread all of the ducks refused to come in to feed and in very low light and rain I could only get a couple of miserable record shots. It was a long way to twitch a duck and I did not find it a particularly exciting species- drab plumage and no real interesting behaviour - maybe I'm being a bit harsh but it is certainly not my most enjoyable trans-atlantic vagrant- even if it was a 'lifer'!

The 'special relationship'

I have also done a bit of diving and ducking closer to home- Portmahomack on the east coast to be precise, where I had nice views of a smashing drake velvet scoter and a very sleepy long-tailed duck.

snoozing long-tailed duck

velvet scoter

Desert campaign

I finally managed a long overdue twitch to Rattray head, Aberdeenshire with Richard Rafe in order to see the Desert wheatear. Leaving the village at 04:00 got us on site to witness a lovely dawn after seeing a very welcome barn owl enroute. On arrival it was a little too dark for active birding, so we had 30 minutes enjoying the sunrise and listening to the calls of pink-footed geese as they flew overhead. With improving light we headed for the dune slack to look for our target bird.

dawn over Rattray head

the 'light in the sea'

After my initial panic at not finding the bird around the dune pool, I decided to walk a couple of hundred metres along the tide line towards Peterhead, whilst Richard checked the dune system. A robin flew from the seaweed into the dunes and in the half light I initially thought it was the wheatear. Retracing my steps, I re-checked the flooded area- again without success, so I continued along the high- tide line past the lighthouse. A few minutes later the wheatear flew from a patch of flotsam- the black tail and white rump patch very distinctive in the morning light. It was good to see the bird actively catching sand flies and looking very at home in its' pseudo desert environment! We enjoyed good views of this very nice bird and it proved to be well worth the travel. 

Later we caught up with a drake King eider on the sea off St. Combs and I also got another dozen or so common species to push the year list up to 74. Another great day in the field.