Perhaps this week's title should instead be 'Not Too Early 4 Snow' - given that this is the fourth week in a row that we have seen a new species for the blog! For those of you who may have been thinking that we haven't had any snow yet, you are right. Now you may well have already figured out this week's new species: snow buntings. These charming finches may breed further north in the Cairngorms but when the weather gets colder they, along with continental birds, come south to spend the winter along the coast. We saw 3 snow buntings on the beach this week, hopping about looking for food before they realised that there was nothing tasty to be had here and flew off again.
Our other passerine species have been varied in number this week, ranging from as little as a single linnet to a flock of over 600 starlings. Redwings and fieldfares have only been in small numbers, with 4 of the former and 13 of the latter being seen throughout the course of the week. We tend to get larger numbers when the birds are moving through on passage - only a relatively small number winter locally. The mistle thrush that we have seen multiple times is quite likely to be the same bird here to spend the winter, given that it always appears in the same general area just before the woods.
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| A snow bunting on the beach - gorgeous little birds |
Also spotted (or heard, anyway!) near the woods was a great spotted woodpecker. The woodpecker, 3 alarming pheasants and one startled snipe all called suddenly - there must have been a predator nearby but it did not show itself. On the subject of predators, we have done quite well for raptors recently. A peregrine and a sparrowhawk were both sighted at the beginning of the week. A solitary buzzard put in an appearance a few time through the week and a female merlin was seen at the end of the week.
Moving onto waterfowl, mute swans continued to drop in number - we didn't see any at all on Sunday. We did, however, have a flock of 15 whooper swans one day. 3 shelducks and a single female scaup came to pay the wig a visit this week. Our highest day-count of pale-bellied brent geese stood at 225, with a dark-bellied individual amongst them. Interestingly, the brent geese have already started grazing in the fields alongside the wig track. In previous years, the brent flock didn't take to these fields until after Christmas-time. Our other regular flock - wigeon - is also still going strong at a weekly high of 214 birds.
Wigeon were also seen at Loch Connell this week (a total of 80). Visits at both ends of the week saw some good numbers coming from this small freshwater loch. 2 adult Mediterranean gulls were in amongst the other regular gull species in the abuttal fields. On the loch itself, the main species were ducks, with 126 teal, 4 'redhead' (females or young males) goosander, 11 mallards and 4 female-type tufted ducks (our fist tufted duck on Loch Connell this winter). Flocks of approximately 30 greylag geese and 170 Canada geese were seen on both visits, quite probably involving the same birds. Not to be outdone, a flock of 99 lapwings was also seen at Loch Connell (the one hundredth individual was sought for but not found!).
A further 176 lapwings were feeding in the fields on the way to Loch Connell. On the wader front, however, the wig far outshone Loch Connell. We had highest day-counts of 3 bar-tailed godwits, 6 dunlin, 30 ringed plovers, 210 oystercatchers, 53 curlews and 56 turnstones. Particularly good counts for the wig this year included over 70 knot and roughly 600 golden plovers.
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| A male red-breasted merganser |
Our number of lapwings was far eclipsed by those seen by Gill Deacon at the West Freugh. In the same area as a flock of 100 pink-footed geese, was a field full of lapwings - up to 500 in number! Also at West Freugh, Gill saw some whooper swans: flocks of 9 adults with 2 juveniles and then 10 adults with 3 juveniles. It is always good to record the number of juveniles present in whooper swan flocks because it gives an indication of how good the breeding season was. Gill also went to Marian jetty and managed to get some nice views of close-in great northern divers.
We have also had some quite nice sightings out on Loch Ryan itself this week. A single gannet flew past and a flock of 135 black-headed gulls were paddling about together before coming in to roost. A red-necked grebe was amongst the great crested and Slavonian grebes (highest day-count of 25) and the same day also saw a black-throated diver. A male velvet scoter was spotted amongst the flocks of common scoters (highest day-count of 162). We also had highest day-counts of 28 black guillemots, 10 long-tailed ducks and 84 red-breasted mergansers. The long-tailed ducks are still mostly males and they don't all get on with each other - a fight broke out this week with much flapping and pecking involved! The male mergansers were also competing, if in a different manner. 16 males were in a group displaying to a single female, who didn't look very impressed.
Finally, I'll finish off by mentioning a species that is not a definite record but still very interesting. A late afternoon scan revealed two possible king eiders flying past (likely an immature male and a female). Unfortunately, due to the distance, fading light conditions and the short period of time they were seen, it wasn't possible to be fully certain that these were king eiders. They did appear to show a small-billed profile (lacking the wedge-shaped head of a common eider) but the birds were not seen again, so we'll have to leave them as "the ones that got away". It just goes to show that you should never stop looking.
[All photographs are taken by and belong Stephen Grover, please ask for permission if you wish to use them.]
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