For those of you expecting an April Fools story (and we can highly recommend the East of England region's press release for today), here's a story from a few years ago that involved a few local birders and explains why we don't put out any big bird hoaxes at this time of year! The Belted Kingfisher.
We've had enough going on on and just off the reserve this weekend that we've not needed to make much up. The Greater Yellowlegs has been in front of the Visitor Centre for much of the weekend and seems to be very settled on the Starnafin pools (in front of the wooden hut is the best place to start looking). We've also managed to get four new birds on the year list. A Knot was feeding on the low ground for the past two days, and Ben and Alan our new short term volunteer also managed to add three new birds to the yearlist with Purple Sandpiper, Sandwich Tern and the first Wheatear of the year at the north end of the reserve today. We've also had distant sightings of the male Hen Harrier, good views of the Short-eared Owl, a Kestrel spent most of this afternoon hunting roughly at eye level from the viewing gallery in the Visitor Centre and a male Brambling has been a regular at the feeders.
We're hoping to add a new bird to the year list tomorrow morning as well. A Ross's Goose- a small, white American goose, similar to a Snow Goose- was spotted at Rattray Head today. It was feeding in a big flock of PInk-footed Geese and with a bit of luck, it will follow them and roost on the reserve overnight. There's a bit of discussion about whether these birds are escapees or wild migrants, and if we can count them on official year lists, but we'll make sure we see if just incase.