Saturday 1 January 2011

Happy New Year

Kicked off along Seton shore, as usual - 210 Velvet Scoter on sea and an ad graellsii Lesser Blackback on Seton Burn. This hefty young Great Blackback was alone in a deserted Seton harbour, though had a damaged foot. It's a 1st-win with most scapulars replaced by 2nd generation feathers, as is typical for this species. The bill has a fair amount of pale showing, some 1st-win are entirely black.

Sunday afternoon, in search of NT56 target Kingfisher, checked Colstoun Water downstream of Gifford; negative, but came across large flock redpolls near Eaglescairnie; could not pin them down, but throo bins most were apparently large and pale, also the calls were reminiscent of Crossbill, so Mealys were probably in there.

Monday - Seton roost back to normal 3k+ including leucistic Common Gull, pale-mantled, an old friend, first noted here 8 April 2006, and also known from Muss, now 8+ yrs old.

Tuesday - 2 Dippers on Colstoun Water, Bolton to Gifford (tetrad tick, along with Mallards), but no sign of any redpolls - note to self, never venture out without scope even if it's woods and you think there will be nothing much to see! Probably not going to give up on these redpolls but stuck now with back to work.

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