Starting off this last week chronologically, on Monday the white-winged black tern was still present. It hasn't been seen since, so hopefully it is now well on its way towards Africa. An adult winter-plumage Mediterranean gull visited the wig once this week and the highest day-count of black-headed gulls reached 90. Gulls weren't the only species standing round in large flocks and this week we had high counts of 54 and 58 shags at the scar and Cairnryan pier, respectively. Shags and cormorants are always easier to count when they are sitting together, rather than when they are out fishing on their own all around the loch.
Many other species clearly were fishing because we saw a good selection of diving birds last week. While we didn't see a huge amount of red-throated divers (highest day count of 12), these were complimented by 2 black-throated divers early in the week. On top of this, the number of great northern divers around the loch has risen to 3 - all looking extremely smart because they are still in their breeding plumage. Poor visibility this week has resulted in us seeing smaller numbers of birds at our end of the loch this week. However, Slavonian grebes and black guillemots are still scattered around the loch, with our highest counts being 8 tysties and 10 Slav. grebes. Alongside our regular quota of diving ducks (eider, red-breasted merganser and common scoter), this week we also saw 9 goldeneyes, 3 long-tailed ducks and a female-type velvet scoter. There is quite likely to be a small number of velvet scoter present on the loch at any one given point but we just don't see them every day.
 |
| A teal paddles about on a glassy surface |
On the shore, we saw a nice variety of waders this last week. A single snipe called as it lifted up and headed to the marsh to roost. Once in the marsh, these brilliantly camouflaged waders become near-impossible to see. Other single counts include one lapwing at the wig and also a sanderling. Somewhat larger counts include 15 redshank, 47 turnstones and 34 ringed plovers. 28 golden plovers were seen at the start of the week and later in the week were replaced by a juvenile American golden plover. Although they are a scarce vagrant, we see American golden plovers on an almost annual basis. It was still lovely to see and is a new species for this blog no less! Perhaps it was blown in by the gusty weather we've been seeing this past week - or maybe it just couldn't bear the thought of hanging around for the election results.
Also by the shore, our pale-bellied brent goose flock stood at 192 birds this week, 20 of which were juveniles. In amongst this feisty gaggle were 2 dark-bellies - they must have heard me saying that we hadn't seen them for a while! Our other geese were mostly seen at Loch Connell - with 84 Canada geese and 76 greylag geese present on Saturday. The number of teal at Loch Connell now stands at 168 individuals.
 |
| Redwing feathers: not quite your typical view of this bird! |
It has been harder to spot small passerines (perching birds) this week, due to the blowy weather. You don't quite realise how much you rely on your ears to pick out various bird calls until you are unable to hear anything but the sound of wind roaring down your ears! Nonetheless, we gave it our best effort. The greenfinch flock along the wig track had a highest count of 18 birds this last week, while the highest day-count of twite came at the end of the week, with 250 birds being counted. The fields along the wig track also gave rise to 7 skylarks, 8 meadow pipits and 2 linnets.
A number of walks through the woods yielded some rewarding results, with long-tailed tits, at least 5 goldcrests (so often seen but not heard!), 2 treecreepers, 3 buzzards, a nuthatch, a grey wagtail and a female sparrowhawk. A second sparrowhawk was seen later in the week; bearing down on a small flock of fieldfares that had freshly flown in from the sea. One less fieldfare left the bush than had flown into it and yet the sparrowhawk left with empty talons - make of that what you will! It was a good week for thrushes, with highest day-counts of 6 mistle thrushes and approximately 130 fieldfares. Given that it is quite likely that all of the fieldfares we are seeing at the moment are different individuals on migration, we may well have seen over 270 different fieldfares last week. We typically see redwings in smaller flocks, so it was nice to see 43 birds in one day. One flock of six dropped to five individuals - this mystery was solved by the presence of freshly plucked feathers in the woods (see photo above)!
Although this leaves me with one less bird to watch next week there are enough to go around and I can't begrudge a sparrowhawk a meal!
[All pictures and photographs are taken by and belong to Stephen Grover, please ask for permission if you wish to use them.]
No comments:
Post a Comment