Yet another week with more than its fair share of unfavourable weather but yet another new species for this blog. The week started off with a trip to Marian jetty - just a little further up from the Wig car park it can offer good views of birds out on the loch, especially if the tide is in. This week there were not only birds to be seen, for an otter was fishing close in by the jetty. A nice surprise it was to see, this aquatic mammal was nevertheless eclipsed by our new species for the blog: a white-billed diver. In its winter plumage, this large bird is very similar to the great northern diver, yet it is far more uncommonly sighted, being in general a more northerly species.
Other diving birds include a highest day-count of 5 long-tailed ducks. We are mostly seeing males of this smart-looking duck at the moment. Our highest count of shags this week was 70. Opposite to this, our cormorant sightings were down this week, with only a highest count of 6. Whilst not a diving bird, it was very nice to see an adult lesser black-backed gull this last week. This species migrates south at this time of year, spending the winter in warmer countries such as Portugal (lucky for some!).
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| A skein of greylag geese |
Mute swans have steadily decreased in number - starting off with 68 birds until there were only 27 at the end of the week. It is likely that these birds have moved off to areas with more food available. To make up for it we saw a flock of 35 greylag geese. The pale-bellied brent goose flock was also performing well. One day saw a single flock of 396 - a smashing number to be in a single flock!
Moving on to our waders, our regular curlews and oystercatchers were seen daily and we had counts of 44 ringed plovers, 58 turnstones and roughly 70 golden plovers. In amongst these, we also had some more unusual birds present. A single sanderling was spotted running alongside the waves and we also had a single whimbrel this week. We only see whimbrel on passage (and more in the spring than autumn), so to see one in November is fairly unusual for us.
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| Pale-bellied brent geese |
It's not all about our coastal species, however, and it is always just as fun to scan through flocks of 'little brown jobs'. We only saw greenfinches once this week (a flock of 10 along the wig track). This flock seems to have decreased in number in recent weeks. The same day was also the only day of the week that we saw any fieldfares - a flock of 26. A total of 5 meadow pipits throughout the week was outshined by the number of rock pipits (we saw 5 in one day alone). A single song thrush was seen and a grey wagtail was present near the cemetery. Despite the seeming lack of food (only circa 20 twite seen this week), a male merlin was still seen hunting.
Once again it was time for our monthly WeBS count, so we also have some records from Piltanton this week. It was nice to be able to see species that we don't often see at the wig, including 3 greenshanks and 6 little egrets. 4 mallards, 200 wigeon and 25 shelduck far outshone the numbers of these ducks that we saw at the wig this wig. It was also great to be able to see 127 dunlin, having seen only small numbers of this wader this autumn. 2 stonechats, a linnet and 14 pied wagtails fed along the beach at Piltanton and everything shot up alarming when a male hen harrier flew over, shortly followed by a peregrine. My first hen harrier of this winter - brilliant!
Whether we are finding new birds for the winter or counting up flocks of our regular species, there is always more birding to be done!
[All photographs are taken by and belong to Stephen Grover, please ask for permission if you wish to use them.]
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