A Year Like No Other: Bird Review for 2020

I think it is safe to say that, with the spreading outbreak of the coronavirus "Covid-19" and the resulting lockdown measures, 2020 has been a year like we have never seen before. The initial lockdown (and even afterwards) resulted in us travelling to other 'local' areas much less frequently than in previous years. Indeed, we did no sea-watching at Corsewall Point in 2020. However, we are quite fortunate in that there are a variety of hour-long walks than can be done from our home and, when all else fails, there is a considerable amount of birding that can be done viewing the loch with a scope from our house. In total, my family saw 172 avian species locally throughout the year (170 'natural' species and 2 'escapees'). Of these, 4 were new for the Wig (for our family, anyway) and 4 (mostly different!) were lifers for me.

The start of the year saw nothing untoward, however, spring at the Wig was a bit of a feeble affair, especially for its lack of White Wagtails. Most other migrants were also few and far between and summer arrived without any day of notable passage. A rather stormy summer overall, it was also rather lacking - in this case in hirundines (Swallows and Martins). These have decreased terribly and perhaps for this reason we also saw no Hobbies during the year. Things began to pick up once again during the autumn. Birds began moving through in earnest and some late summer storms produced some really exciting species. The winter has been mild so far but has continued to build up the momentum from autumn, with several scarce species making an appearance at the Wig in 2020.

Time to dive right into the details! I'll start off by writing about some of the highlights and notable records. Finally, I'll finish off with a complete summary table with all of the species (listed following the Scottish List), how many days of the year they were recorded and which months of the year they were recorded in.

A Goldeneye on the left; Black Guillemot on the right.

Of these, the White-faced Whistling Duck and Bar-headed Goose are both 'escapee' species - they have likely come from waterfowl collections. This is the first time that we have seen White-faced Whistling Duck in the area. Given that 2 other sightings of this species were recorded in Dumfries and Galloway at a similar time to our bird, it appears that a group escape effort was involved!

Our wintering flock of Pale-bellied Brent Goose had completely departed by the 18th April (an early departure, normally some are still present in May) and began arriving again on the 28th August. We had a high count of 396 individuals in a single flock and 2 Dark-bellied Brents also made appearances at both ends of the year. We had 2 records of Barnacle Goose: one bird (30th May) that will could either be from a feral British population or a late migrant and the other (17th Oct) that was associating with Pink-footed Geese and is much more likely to be a true migrant individual. Also with only 2 records - our lack of Greenland White-fronted Geese sightings is down to very few trips being made out to West Freugh to look for the wintering flock there. However, one record (24th Mar) was from Loch Connell, they aren't normally seen there so it was a nice record for us. The vagrant species Lesser Scaup and Surf Scoter both made a brief appearance again in 2020. Eider numbers were down all year but on the flipside we had our highest ever day-count of Long-tailed Ducks (29 birds).

Our number of Swift sightings were once again impacted by our reduced travelling - they are not regularly seen at the Wig, preferring to stay around Stranraer, where they breed. Stock Doves are not an annual species for us, so it was nice to see one and although they are annual we only had two records of Coot this year (and only one was within walking distance at Loch Connell, the other being seen at Soulseat Loch). Another scarce species - Red-necked Grebe - has made its way onto our list for another consecutive year, although they seem to have vanished in the last month.

Purple Sandpiper

Waders had a bit of a mixed year. Ringed Plovers and Dunlin were down in number, both on passage and over winter. Golden Plovers were still down in number from previous years, although this did not stop a first-winter American Golden Plover from showing up. Breeding Oystercatchers and Ringed Plovers had yet another poor year at the Wig with the increased amounts of disturbance (a by-product of lockdown). No nests, chicks or even territorial behaviour was observed with the Common Sandpipers. The first individuals arrived late and rather few were seen during the summer - a poor year for this species. On the flip side, a Jack Snipe was recorded. These are not annual but most likely this is down to their elusive behaviour rather than not being here. Autumn and winter waders fared a little better with infrequent species like Ruff, Purple Sandpiper and Curlew Sandpiper making their way onto our list. Ruff especially had a good year, with 12 birds sighted across 10 days (most of these are probably different individuals). One of these was a male that was still moulting out of its breeding plumage - the first time that we have seen a Ruff in this plumage before. A single Greenshank managed to find its way to Soleburn (this species prefers Luce Bay to Loch Ryan) and we had a late record of Whimbrel on the 10th November. On the rarity front, we saw a Little Stint at the Scar and a Pectoral Sandpiper at Loch Connell.

Lack of trips into Stranraer also affected our knowledge of the Mediterranean Gull numbers during the autumn (often to be found at Port Rodie) and we can't say about the breeding success of the gulls in the town. However, the colony of Arctic Terns and Black-headed Gulls on Cairnryan Pier remained essentially empty for the second year running. In fact, all of our regular tern species were considerably down in number this year. We saw one Arctic Skua, not an unusually low number for the Loch itself - you are more likely to see skuas when sea-watching at Corsewall Point. Moving on to scarcities, we saw a single Iceland Gull (a first-winter bird), 3 Roseate Terns together and an autumn storm blew in 4 juvenile Sabine's Gulls. Yellow-legged Gulls were seen 8 days during the year, perhaps involving the same individuals - although there was at least a 2nd year bird and an adult bird involved. The beginning of October saw a juvenile Black Tern hawking above the Scar, followed the next day by a juvenile White-winged Black Tern. This White-winged Tern was only the second record for Dumfries and Galloway (record has now been accepted by the SBRC) and proceeded to hang about for 22 days, providing brilliant views. Having a White-winged Black Tern pass barely 3 metres above my head was probably the highlight of the year for me!

Juvenile White-winged Black Tern

A Little Auk snuck onto our list with only a few days to spare and we've managed to see (if, unfortunately, not photograph) all 5 species of diver on Loch Ryan during 2020. A Leach's Petrel fluttered past following a September storm, always great to see. Their larger tube-nosed cousins, the Fulmars, were seen in far fewer number than usual. Although we made fewer visits to where they may loaf about (seeing low numbers while we were there), we would normally still see birds flying up the loch. Shearwaters, on the other hand, had a few surprises in store for us. Shearwaters don't often enter the loch itself, only tending to do so after bad weather (although thousands stream past Corsewall Point on passage). On the 22nd of August, after some strong winds, a Balearic Shearwater flew in and landed next to... a Cory's Shearwater! Both birds flew off shortly afterwards, enabling flight views of the Cory's (the first of this species that we've seen on Loch Ryan). On the same day, a total of 96 Manx Shearwaters flew down the loch - the highest day-count that we've seen to date.

Speaking of highest day-counts, we had a smashing count of 342 Gannets in one day at the beginning of September. At a cliff site, we counted 5 Shag nests and interestingly, 14 Cormorant nests (Cormorants have never nested there since we started visiting the site). Unfortunately we were unable to make our way to the other Cormorant colony this year to see if there had been a change in number there.

Two more new species for the Wig (for us, at least) that we saw were Glossy Ibis and Great White Egret, both appearing in the latter half of the year. We had one record of an immature White-tailed Eagle and were finally able to find a Buzzard nest this year. On the other hand, Tawny Owl records have been fewer this year - possibly due to changes in local woodland management.

In the summer, we had just a single record of a Grasshopper Warbler and we discovered a Sand Martin colony (unknown to us!) that has recently increased in numbers. We also managed to find a pair of breeding Mistle Thrushes (they normally seem to disappear in the summer), whilst the breeding Spotted Flycatchers only became apparent with the appearance of juveniles. Stonechats also seemed to have a successful breeding year, with 3 pairs scattered along the Wig (one of which went on to raise 3 broods). Lesser Redpoll, on the other hand, were much scarcer than usual for us - not coming to visit our garden feeders once.

Sparrowhawk eyeing up the Greenfinch!

Back in the winter, the 'Waxing Winter' of 2019/20 managed to reach us: in the form of a single Waxwing! This winter a Dipper has been making a semi-regular appearance at Fisher's Lane pool. Tree Sparrows changed their yearly visit to our garden to January (instead of April) and Bramblings were seen at both ends of the year. Our winter Twite flock saw a high of circa 400 birds - the largest single flock that we have seen for some years now.

Finally, I'll finish off these notable sightings with a couple nice autumn buntings. A male Lapland Bunting arrived during the influx of this species, providing some distant but clear views at Loch Connell. Last but not least, November saw 3 Snow Buntings flying past the Wig - the second year in a row that we have had a visit from this species.

All those highlights provides a short summary of just some of the species that we have seen during 2020! The following table provides more detail about all of the species that we saw during the year:

It seems astonishing to me that all of these sightings were just from my family in one local area - just imagine the sheer number of birds than can be found around the UK all year. Still, for better or for worse (hopefully better!), that's 2020 over and done with and I can't wait to see what birds 2021 will bring.

[All photographs are taken by and belong to Stephen Grover, please ask for permission if you wish to use them.]