Scilly Season Day 8 – Day of the sea duck

Spoonbill

They love a Canada Goose on Scily

Surf Scoter

Close views of the Scoter

Shags

Common Scoter

Buzzard on St Martins

Drake Long-tailed Duck

Long-tailed Duck

Two birders enjoying the view over St Marys

Beach outside our digs

Stick insect sighting

Sun setting

Just a super place for Autumn break

Team photo taken in The Atlantic

Our last full days options were either to twitch the missing Grey-cheeked Thrush on St Martins, try Bryher & perhaps see the Bluethroat and walk St Mary’s to death or try the Joe Pender Saphire special on the hope to see the reported Surf Scoter & Long-tailed Duck.

I opted for the later, as thought it was a unique experience that would be difficult to repeat if successful.

A 9.30am departure took us out of St Mary heading directly towards Samsom where 2 Spoonbills were on rocks allowing excellent views. Close by I recorded my first 5 Shelduck on the islands whilst 7 Canada Geese were on the beach.

Next stop was the Surf Scoter that was just amazing to see, a couple of times the bird got within 6 feet of us.  From memory this is my third Surfie of the year.

As we headed towards St martins additional sightings included a faboulos Merlin, 30 Curlew, Great Northern Diver and a Buzzard, quite a rare sighting in the Scillies.

It was looking ever hopeful for another target bird but just as we were admiring a flock of six Common Scoters a shout came from the back of the boat the Long-tailed Duck was on our left. This stunning drake looked brilliant and whilst not as confiding as the Surfie it was a super sighting. I did try and take a few record shots but the light wasn’t ideal.

After a quick recharge I was back out marching around St Marys. Two new Black Redstarts were on  houses in Old Town & 12 Brambling were with a huge flock of Siskin & Chaffinch.

The final sighting of the day was Red-breasted Flycatcher in Lower Moors, a real sign of Autumn. The bird was viewed from the 1^st bridge after the gate.

Thanks to a tip off we re-located a Sticky Stick insect at Porthmellon on the way home where I took advantage of the weather & wrote up my blog to save time when returning home.

Whistle-stop Highland tour with White-winged Scoter

White-winged Black Scoter - File image

Phone-scoped image (Cliff Smith)

A view of many thousand ducks

Real Scotland

Findhorn Valley

Crested Tit

Crested Tit in moult

Whiskey time

Mountain Hare

Not bad hand held

View from the top of Glenshee

Fancy a ride

Red Squirrel

No blog for a few weeks as there is only so times you can write about Green & Common Sandpipers. on top of this I've has large project finishing involving me working all the previous weekend. 

This weekend however was very different as I took up the chance to team up with the Captain for a weekend of birding north of the birder. The plan would be to try and find the White-winged Scoter for a day then move into the Highlands whether we had seen the Scoter or not.

Leaving home at 3am we landed just before midday with the weather looking stunning & sea flat we were hopeful rather than confident. We came across another five birders who has been looking since first light with no avail. What we under estimated was quite the huge amount of ducks that would be in the bay. There were thousands & thousands of Common Scoter, Eider & Velvet Scoter & the bonus of two Surf Scoter. The views were just fantastic but there were so many to search through. It was painstaking but we stuck to our task well. We took a break around 4pm as we were hit horizontal rain giving us a real Scottish drenching. After a quick break we took up our positions again teaming up with three London based birders. One of those birders had a brilliant x100 telescope which he used to great effect to find the American Scoter, then kindly giving us all a view before we located it ourselves. The crescent eye was the most distinct feature & the extra knob on the beak the other. The bird showed well twice for about 4/5 minutes each time. The relief was ecstatic. Our twitter tips from Cliff & Steve were right in terms of approximate line & how it associated with Velvets rather than the Commons. Red-throated Diver was added to the day list along with a passing dark morph Arctic Skua & Bronxie.  

Next morning we headed east into I what deem the real Highlands, rolling hills and amazing views. Our targets of the day were agreed to be Crested Tit & Golden Eagle. Some close up views of Red Grouse (Raven & Red Kite over) broke up the journey until we reached a spot the Captain had seen Goldies on previous visits. Just as we were munching our mid morning stack I picked a White-tailed Eagle flying east, spitting crumbs everywhere we got great scope views & then the bird past again going the direction it started from about twenty minutes later. No Goldies so we headed towards Nethy Bridge. 

At a quiet corner of the forest I picked up a single Crested Tit, buoyed we held our position and waited & with some patience two Crested Tit going through mouth landed very close by allowing us to see the birds at close quarters. Now this was going well, time for Findhorn Valley. We picked up some lunch on route & set up at our favoured spot. It's a place sometimes you are scratching your head with nothing happening which nothing did bar a couple of routine Buzzards. As I was watching a pair of Oystercatchers on the river the Captain picked up a pair of Golden Eagles above one of the ridges circling high on the thermals. To find this pair within a hour was very satisfying giving us change to add an extra site to the day. To get there we took the famous Farr road, very few passing places & single track for seven miles. Once over the road we were quickly parked at Loch Ruthven where we added Slavonian Grebe to our trip list. A great finish to an epic day. 

A wonderful meal was served by the team at Grant Arms Hotel including Haggis which was followed by a number of the local whiskeys.

With a big journey home a tight schedule would be needed so we were out before breakfast where we accidentally flushed a roosting Capercaille whilst watching two Spotted Flycatchers & the cheeky Red Squirels. Not bad before breakfast.

Our route back would take in Glenshee where do took the ski lift to try & find any Ptarmigan. However a local shoot had taken place on Saturday & the birds had moved to a different location. We had to satisfy ourselves with some Mountain Hares which was a first for myself.

A brilliant action packed three days ! Thankfully our tactics of waiting for new of the Portland Yellow Warbler paid dividends as it wasn't seen all day. 

Sea Duck galore - Day 4

Kittiwakes 

Possible Baltic Gull

Surf Scoter

Surf Scoter among Velvets/Common flock

Slavonian Grebes

Part of Eider flock

Purple Sandpiper and Knot

Purple Sandpiper & Turnstone

Another fantastic café stop

Sea watching out on to the bay

At the close of the previous day I'd had a quick check on Rare Bird Alert to see if anything else was reported locally and I almost fell off my chair when I saw a King Eider and Surf Scoter had been spotted ! Alan, as always, was already planning the journey so I didn’t need any second alarm call to get me up and ready the following morning.

Sea watching can be a lot of fun but you do need to expect to get wet and only have distant views. However neither of these two applied to this Highland experience. As soon as we arrived in Burghead we were treated to some fantastic views of Long-tailed Duck, Eiders and Scoter. There was also a huge flock of Kittiwakes with a possible candidate for a Baltic Gull. A flock of Knot also swooped through and landed on the beach.  To be able to watch a flock of mainly male Long-tailed Ducks fly past in off the sea was brilliant.

We couldn’t locate either of our target birds so we drove a couple of miles to a sheltered woodland spot which looked straight on to the calm water of the bay allowing simply amazing views of the various sea ducks. This spot allowed us to look at these sea ducks in detail I’d not seen before and we quickly picked up a flock of Velvet and Common Scoters. On the edge of the group was a fantastic looking Surf Scoter ! Get in ! Just brilliant to see one of these birds but to see it so clearly was a very special treat. Alan said in all his years birding he had never seen one so close. Peter then located the Immature King Eider on the other side of the flock. Being an immature bird he wasn’t as eye-catching as you would expect looking at the Collins guide but a great bird to see all the same. Numerous Slavonian Grebes were on view allowing once again lifetime best views.

After a superb session we headed back into Burghead to watch from the other side of the harbour. As soon as we were off the mini-bus we found a Purple Sandpiper, 2 Knot and numerous Turnstones. Off shore hundreds of Gannets passed by with a Pomarine Skua.

Needless to say it was then another superb lunch stop in another of Ruth’s hidden gem cafes. A top class morning.