Last week autumn 'officially' arrived, bringing with it a cold bite to the air. However, for us birders, what we consider to be autumn is already in full flow, with many of our wintering birds already returning. However, there is one group of birds that signal to many the arrival of autumn: the geese. The ‘wink-wink’ call of pink-footed geese is perhaps one of the most memorable of all British bird calls. The familiar sound sends our eyes to the skies, as we search for the v-shaped skeins flying overhead. This week, we saw a flock of twelve pink-footed geese flying over the wig, followed by a single bird the next day (who knows where its flock had gone!). From little flocks, bigger flocks will follow. Huzzah! By all accounts, autumn has well and truly arrived.
Continuing on with the theme of geese, our pale-bellied brent geese have continued to slowly increase in number and this week we saw our first juvenile birds amongst them. This week also saw 17 greylag geese and 27 Canada geese flying towards Loch Connell - these will be birds from our feral summering population.
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| Pale-bellied brent geese - note the pale wing bars on the juvenile birds |
A single goldeneye (the first returning bird for the winter that we’ve seen), 63 common scoter, 13 gannets, one great northern diver and a lonesome shelduck were highlights seen on and over Loch Ryan from the wig. On the shores, we saw up to 3 herons, 30 turnstones and 96 curlews. Amongst all these, it was really nice to find a little stint – an infrequent passage visitor to our area.
This past week has also been rewarding in terms of birds of prey. A tawny owl was heard calling a few times during the week and will no doubt be heard more frequently as winter approaches. One night we also heard the shriek of a barn owl – a pleasant (if startling!) surprise, for barn owl sightings locally have been rather few in the past couple of years. On to the raptors, this week we saw a sparrowhawk, a kestrel hunting over the sea and a merlin, which put up a flock of twite (enabling us to count them while we were at it!). Hopefully this small and smart-looking predator will stick around and spend the winter around the wig.
Following on from the previous week, this week we also have some records from a little outside the wig. A walk around the back roads from Soleburn revealed a pair of yellowhammers, a magpie (once scarce but seemingly increasing in the area), our first mistle thrushes of the autumn, a flock of 447 starlings and some greenfinches – a locally uncommon species, in our garden at least!
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| Common guillemot |
A trip around Loch Ryan was made to specifically count the number of eiders present (although of course we looked out for everything else while we were at it!). A total of 296 eiders, 35 black guillemots, 59 great crested grebes, 53 razorbills, 7 guillemots, 88 red-breasted mergansers and 15 red-throated divers were present in smaller flocks around the loch. 92 redshank were counted along the railway station wall, with 18 scaup and 292 wigeon being present around Bishop Burn.
From Bishop Burn, our regular contributor Gill Deacon went on to visit a few other sights. Gill saw a dipper on the River Tarff and six little grebes, lots of swans and a flock of lapwings at the Crook of Baldoon (where pintail and shoveler have also been recorded recently). Finally Gill visited Garlieston, where she was able to see three little grebes and get excellent views of two very smart-looking greenshank.
Once again, it’s been an action-packed week and we look
forward to the changes that the turning seasons will bring.
[All photographs are taken by and belong to Stephen Grover, please ask if you wish to use them.]
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