Today we were very lucky to have two rare ducks on the flood, a scaup and a drake ring-necked duck( two birds I have never seen before). The scaup has been close to the hide all day and the ring-necked duck has shown well on a few occasions. Also on the flood there is gadwall, shoveler, wigoeon, mallard, great crested and little grebe and some very vocal lapwings. The loch is rather quiet with only a raft of four goldeneyes and some tufted duck and mallard.

On my regular walk, "the hill was alive with the sound of music", with many willow warblers singing their hearts out. There is also many species of butterflies inclding the very pretty orange tip.

Unfortunately our swans have not laid any eggs but our regular blue tits in the cigarette box have and hopefully they will have chicks in the very near future.

What a FANTASTIC Saturday at Vane!

SCAUP by Mike Lane (rspb-images.com)