There has been no recent count of pink-footed geese, so no update on numbers, but the lifts of geese at dawn continue to be spectacular. The Tower Hide or the Visitor Centre as the day breaks is the best viewing spot, as the Low Ground or Starnafin Pools are the favoured goose roosting spots. There is a coordinated count tomorrow morning, so an update on numbers after that. The snow goose fest continues, with 2 white morphs amongst the pink footed geese early on Tuesday morning, (3nd Dec) presumably the same two birds that were seen at Meikle Loch on the 2nd. Barnacle geese have been few and far between this week, but 120 Greylag were seen from Fen Hide on the 2nd.
The drake American wigeon has popped up again, this time see from Tower Hide on the 3rd along with a single ruff. 2 Scaup were seen from Bay hide on the 5th. It's not really been the weather to see large numbers of ducks on the open water, but there were 440 wigeon seen from Tower Hide also on the 3rd. Tower Hide is the best place to see shoveler, at least 10 are roosting there daily. The Little egret was again present all week and today flew onto the pools in front of the visitor centre at dusk to roost.
The arctic blast that arrived midweek has resulted in excellent numbers of farmland birds on our wild bird cover crops. The crops are in the fields on the way to Tower Hide and the wildlife hedges are worth scanning for these flocks. Numbers peaked today with 30 corn bunting, 120 ish yellowhammer, 120 ish reed bunting, 100 ish tree sparrow and a whopping 500 linnets. A brambling was heard too, but not actually seen. There were also smaller flocks of greenfinch and goldfinch.
A single Jack snipe remains in its usual spot in Mosstown Marsh and a woodcock was flushed from the edge of the marsh on the 2nd. Stonechat was seen from the visitor centre a few times this week and a flock of 20 redwing flew over the reserve, seen from the access track on the 5th. The arctic like storm on Thursday the 4th sucked in a significant number of large gulls onto the low Ground. However, there was not a lot of enthusiasm to rush down to Tower Hide for a count, but from the visitor centre there were at least 500 great black-backed gulls.
A peregrine falcon was seen hunting over the Low Gound and the Savoch Pool on the 5th, but raptor of the week has to be sparrowhawk. There were at least 3 hunting on different parts of the reserve today A group of visiting birders were charged with finding either bittern or smew at Fen Hide today. However, the lure of an ivory gull at Boddam was too great, so who is to say that there is not a bittern still to be found on the reserve this weekend?
Paragraphs almost as elusive as Ivory Gull at Boddam.
John