G'day folks

For your information and amusement this is the slightly delayed friday sightings blog.

Last weekend started off the week well with a Common Scoter and a pair of Long Tailed Duck seen from Bay Hide while round the way at Fen hide one particularly lucky/jammy visitor saw 2 Bittern in as many minutes, one of which was near the high tech water marker less than 10 metres out. There were 2 more sightings of Bittern the next day so Fen hide is clearly the place to see these elusive fellows.

Monday presented visitors with regular views of up to 3 Long Tailed Duck on the loch, a Water Rail (heard but not seen) in front of Fen Hide and sightings of Bittern are still coming in every 2 days of so.

  Merganser courtesy of Alan Sinclar

The visitor centre is still proving good for viewing raptors with a female Hen Harrier still making regular and prolonged aerobatic displays over the pools with a nice audience of 3 Merganser, flocks of 80 or so Teal and the 2 Gadwall that seem to have set up residence in the nearest pool.

The end of the week seemed a bit quieter and an hour or so skiving at the airfield hides yielded a Long Tailed Duck, 25 GoldenEye and around 50 Tufted Duck out in force. The drive back however... 14 Fieldfare and a Stonechat on the fence. Which was nice.

That was all for last week. Take care.

Iain