A very cold weekend has made it really seem like winter on the reserve, and today that was pretty much confirmed with the appearance of some of our classic winter visitors. I was feeling quite pleased by my sightings of a flock of Long-tailed Tits and a great fifteen minutes watching a Stoat hunt outside the centre, but that was very much overshadowed by sightings down on the loch. There was a female Scaup and Common Scoter on the loch itself, as well as group of Bearded Tits- regular visitors last winter. Even the Beardies were then overshadowed again by the local RSPB group who watched a newly arrived Bittern walk down the loch shore opposite Bay Hide for almost an hour, feeding frantically as it picked its way through the reeds. It had fairly obviously just flown in and hopefully will be another bird that spends the winter on the reserve.
Wintery Wren outside the visitor centre this morning
With the departure of our regular sightings blogger Tom the call went out for someone daft enough to pick up where he left off (Iain's words not mine!). So I'll hand over to our other new long-term volunteer Iain for the rest of this week's sightings-
Whilst this week’s weather remained cold and wet there was the added excitement of some high winds at night and so a trip to the plantation was inevitable. Just a single Goldcrest was heard this time with his pals a Blue Tit and a Blackbird. Not the most fruitful of expeditions we will concede and still no Firecrest for Emma.
Venturing out to the lagoon and dunes beyond proved to be well worth the sand in the wellies as Andrews’ frightening predictive abilities produced a Snow Bunting and a patient watch of the sea from on top the dunes resulted in 3 Red -throated Divers and a Little Auk. Also of interest were a group of around 20 Eiders and 9 Oystercatchers. Our Long-tailed Duck, a regular at this end of the reserve right now was also out and about.
Visitors from Birdwatching magazine had an unexpected treat with a pod of dolphins being seen breaching on the small slice of sea visible from the hides and careful inspection of the usual suspects around the reserve produced an American Wigeon.
The farmland bird survey yielded a wide variety of small birds, testing my own ID skills to the limit in the process. Among the recorded were 1 Brambling, 2 Stonechat, 3 Yellowhammer, around 40 Greenfinch, 10 Tree Sparrow and 60 Linnet. Reed Bunting and Chaffinch were also in attendance. Also a late Chiffchaff hanging around the visitor cente on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Generally numbers of Pink footed Goose are still looking good with great lifts seen on the dawn goosewatches and large flocks of starling can be seen most days. On the water 3 Shelduck have been about along with 1 or 2 Ruff still and the odd Redshank. Still no sign of Red A our resident White-tailed Eagle for a while though there have been unconfirmed sightings down near Peterhead.
Iain