A late addition to yesterdays sightings was of a singing willow warbler in the carr around Fen Hide - bringing the year list to 140 I think.
Today has been a breeding wader day - the team split in two to cover both Savoch and the dune slacks.
The team in dune slacks also mapped grebes on the Loch. Wader wise the slacks are pretty quiet again this year with possibly two pairs of lapwing at Starnakeppie. The Loch though was a different story with seven pairs of great crested grebe settled around the shore.
On the Savoch Low Ground it is still early days but Lapwing are looking OK with eight nests pin pointed, a single freshly predated nest and at least another nine or ten pairs either on eggs (but not yet accurately located) or scraping and mating. Redshanks are shaping up to have potentially the best year ever on the reserve. When I first started six years ago one or two pairs attempted most years - usually without any luck. Last year we had three broods and managed to fledge six young. This year (although as I said for Lapwing it is still early) there are a minimum of eight pairs and possibly as many as twelve. They are so loud that they are drowning out the lapwing! An added bonus this morning was actually stumbling across a redshank nest - the first one I have ever seen on the reserve!
Elsewhere spring migrants were a bit thin on the ground as the weather was deceptively cold this morning. That said the male garganey has been seen a couple of times this morning and a female marsh harrier has been hunting over the fen.
Off shore a quick scan revealed 10+ great northern divers including several moulting in to breeding plumage.
Dom
A quick scan this evening produced 24 Great Northern Divers offshore, along with 120 Eider.
Stacks of Pink-footed geese had come into the fields by 8pm with 26 Barnacle Geese and single Greenland White-front and pale-bellied Brent Goose amongst them.