Sunday 11 March 2018

Birding at Last!

After being 'snowed-in' it has been good to get out and about!

On Wednesday (7th) I travelled down to the Gourock area, with Stephen, and had a great day - gulls being the key species.

At Lunderston Bay, we witnessed a few porpoises with a large feeding flock of birds - a couple of gannets, auks, mergansers, eiders and lots of gulls. So I was really pleased to find an Iceland Gull amongst the flock.

We also travelled to Cardwell Bay where we had good views of common waders ...

Curlew

Dunlin and Ringed Plover

However, we were hoping that one of the 'rare' gulls that have been seen over the winter would arrive. And they did, firstly a beautiful Mediterranean Gull ......


The light was starting to go so I was pleased to get a recognisable shot of the Med Gull. Then with the light almost gone the Bonaparte's Gull arrived. This poor shot of the bird with a Black-headed Gull was the best I could do, note the grey nape  ...


On Friday, I travelled to Hogganfield Park LNR in Glasgow and saw 40 species including this Oystercatcher - an unusual species for the Park/LNR ..


Finally, on Friday, another trip with Stephen, this time through to Lothian. We managed some more new birds for the year with Greenshank and Grey Plover seen, however, the star birds were three Snow Buntings at Belhaven Bay ...


In total, I had 75 species for the week and it was really good to get out having been stuck indoors thanks to the snow. Let's all hope for a good spring!

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